Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman talks about why Irish players should play in CFP
Lorenzo Reyes sat down with Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman ahead of the final CFP rankings to discuss why the Irish should play in the tournament.
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The big news revealed in Sunday’s College Football Playoff bracket announcement wasn’t about which teams in the CFP field, but about the specific schools that didn’t make it.
Notre Dame has been consistently ranked higher than Miami in recent weeks, despite the Hurricanes’ head-to-head win over the Irish in Week 1. With neither team playing last weekend and BYU losing the Big 12 Championship, the Fighting Irish naturally thought they were in playoff contention. Well, that didn’t happen. Miami leapfrogged Notre Dame down the field.
Notre Dame, so upset by its exclusion from the playoffs, announced it would not play a bowl game and skip the postseason all together in an apparent act of protest. The decision drew a lot of ire from college football fans and pundits, who probably already have strong feelings toward Notre Dame from an independent standpoint.
ESPN’s Paul Finebaum didn’t hesitate — will he ever? — Monday morning “Get Up!”
“The crying at Notre Dame is frankly embarrassing,” Finebaum said. “Everything Notre Dame has done since the moment this was announced has gone against a great organization that is supposed to stand for its principles, and they cried and didn’t get their way and they said, ‘I’m going to go home and get my ball,’ like a 5-year-old on the playground instead of going to a bowl game.”
“…Notre Dame has had little to show for it on their resume. They’re not in a conference. That’s their own fault. They think they’re too good to be in a conference. And if they were in the ACC (by the way, they’d be better off than other teams) (also a member of the Ports), they would have been in the ACC Championship Game, they would have been in the playoffs today. They wouldn’t have been a bunch of giggly crybabies and, in my opinion, would have been the laughing stock of college football. ”
In addition to being eliminated from the playoffs, the big talking point in South Bend is the weekly CFP rankings, where Notre Dame consistently outperforms Miami and leads the field. CFP committee chairman Hunter Yurachek never gave a good explanation for that, and his explanation for why Miami ultimately jumped on the Irishman wasn’t very good. He argued that BYU’s blowout loss in the Big 12 Championship tipped the scales in Miami’s favor.
“That’s a fair criticism because this committee has been inconsistent…I’ll save for another time whether it’s good or bad to do these weekly rankings. They’re misleading, but in the end, how many times has the committee had to tell us, ‘The rankings are going to change on the last day of the season,'” Finebaum said. “But we all read into Notre Dame as much as Notre Dame did. But there’s precedent for something like that to happen, so it’s unfortunate that (Notre Dame athletic director) Pete (Bevaqua) is upset and has a bad morning, but I’ll say it again: I’ll keep saying it until someone literally puts a shoe in my mouth. It’s Notre Dame’s fault. They think they’re better than everyone, Greaney. And I’m sure Pete Bevacqua will give a press conference today about all the reasons why they became independent, but it’s up to them because of their independence! ”
Notre Dame and Bevacqua have scheduled a press conference for Tuesday, Dec. 8. Get your popcorn ready.
