2025 College Football Season

[NWI_Irish96]

This reads as though the Notre Dame coaching staff is afraid of a let down bowl loss and proving the committee right.

This was 100% the players' decision, not the coaches. They didn't want to spend an extra two weeks on campus practicing for a meaningless game. The coaches would much prefer to have the extra practice time regardless of how the game went.

So in others word, "quit like a champion today?"

They didn't quit. That implies they were obligated to something and they were never obligated. Nothing in the NCAA rules require them to accept bowl invitations. They chose to value their time differently than you wanted them to value their time. Have you ever spent time around a D1 college football program? Do you understand what it takes for players to prepare for a game? The players decided that a goodie bag from a sponsor wasn't worth all that time and effort, including spending Christmas in South Bend.

Again, not meaningless, just (in their opinion) not meaningful enough. But, was beating Syracuse by nine touchdowns a meaningful game? Was beating Arkansas by six touchdowns, or Stanford by four touchdowns, meaningful? More meaningful than making a statement by putting the hurt on, say, Michigan, or USC (again), or Vanderbilt and showing the world they did indeed belong?

Before the bracket was announced, what were ND's odds of winning the championship? What would have been the odds of them even making out of their half of the bracket? Maybe they're slight favorites against Texas A&M, but then they play Ohio State, then they play Georgia?

The players are saying "if we don't get to play for the Natty then we're not playing at all" - and that's sour  grapes. And it may have been the players' decision, but then who the hell's running the program there?

Every game is meaningful until the bracket is announced.

If beating Arkansas by 43 was so easy, why did none of their 8 SEC opponents beat them by even half that much?

ND would be a much smaller underdog against Georgia, Ohio State or Indiana then would any of Oklahoma, Alabama or Miami.

In this day of NIL, players run EVERY program.

[JayhawkCO]

The AD is likely grumpy since they missed out on $4mil, something every qualifying team gets (and then normally shares with the rest of their conference).

[Max Rockatansky]

The AD is likely grumpy since they missed out on $4mil, something every qualifying team gets (and then normally shares with the rest of their conference).

What is the payout nowadays on these New Years/late December bowl games.

[NWI_Irish96]

The AD is likely grumpy since they missed out on $4mil, something every qualifying team gets (and then normally shares with the rest of their conference).

To an extent he has to be grumpy because it's part of his job, but he's more gutted about a team he believes capable of winning the championship not getting a chance.

As for the clause that kicks in next year that puts ND in if they're in the Top 12 (which would have bumped Miami if in effect this year), ND has a seat along with the conferences in governing the playoff. The conferences wanted a change to the system that would help them out (guaranteeing each P4 champ a bid even if there are 2 G5 teams that are ranked higher, which happened this year), so they agreed to this concession to ND to get them on board.

Given that the high likelihood that the entire format is going to be changed, that provision may or may not carry over to the new format.

[JayhawkCO]

The AD is likely grumpy since they missed out on $4mil, something every qualifying team gets (and then normally shares with the rest of their conference).

What is the payout nowadays on these New Years/late December bowl games.

About a quarter of that from what I read.

[thspfc]

This reads as though the Notre Dame coaching staff is afraid of a let down bowl loss and proving the committee right.

This was 100% the players' decision, not the coaches. They didn't want to spend an extra two weeks on campus practicing for a meaningless game. The coaches would much prefer to have the extra practice time regardless of how the game went.

So in others word, "quit like a champion today?"

They didn't quit. That implies they were obligated to something and they were never obligated. Nothing in the NCAA rules require them to accept bowl invitations. They chose to value their time differently than you wanted them to value their time. Have you ever spent time around a D1 college football program? Do you understand what it takes for players to prepare for a game? The players decided that a goodie bag from a sponsor wasn't worth all that time and effort, including spending Christmas in South Bend.

Again, not meaningless, just (in their opinion) not meaningful enough. But, was beating Syracuse by nine touchdowns a meaningful game? Was beating Arkansas by six touchdowns, or Stanford by four touchdowns, meaningful? More meaningful than making a statement by putting the hurt on, say, Michigan, or USC (again), or Vanderbilt and showing the world they did indeed belong?

Before the bracket was announced, what were ND's odds of winning the championship? What would have been the odds of them even making out of their half of the bracket? Maybe they're slight favorites against Texas A&M, but then they play Ohio State, then they play Georgia?

The players are saying "if we don't get to play for the Natty then we're not playing at all" - and that's sour  grapes. And it may have been the players' decision, but then who the hell's running the program there?

Every game is meaningful until the bracket is announced.

If beating Arkansas by 43 was so easy, why did none of their 8 SEC opponents beat them by even half that much?

ND would be a much smaller underdog against Georgia, Ohio State or Indiana then would any of Oklahoma, Alabama or Miami.

You are significantly overestimating the extent to which anybody gives a shit how much a team ran up the score on awful opponents. Have you considered it's less enticing to do so when you play in a conference and therefore probably have to face a real team soon?

[DTComposer]

Every game is meaningful until the bracket is announced.

What if Notre Dame had ended up at 13-16 in the polls? Like, close to the CFP bracket, but definitely and deservedly not quite there, and gets invited to the Holiday or Alamo or Citrus or Sun Bowl? Do they turn that down?

The reality is Notre Dame was in the mix with several other teams. For whatever reason, the committee picked other teams. BYU, Texas, Vanderbilt all accepted their bowl bids. Everyone can argue about why their team deserved to be in over someone else's team, but at the end of the day, Notre Dame is the only team that just went "f it, we didn't get exactly what we wanted, we're going home." It's poor sportsmanship, and if the coaches and athletic director can't instill better sportsmanship in the teenagers and very young adults they are supposed to be mentoring, then blow up the program.

[NWI_Irish96]

Every game is meaningful until the bracket is announced.

What if Notre Dame had ended up at 13-16 in the polls? Like, close to the CFP bracket, but definitely and deservedly not quite there, and gets invited to the Holiday or Alamo or Citrus or Sun Bowl? Do they turn that down?

The reality is Notre Dame was in the mix with several other teams. For whatever reason, the committee picked other teams. BYU, Texas, Vanderbilt all accepted their bowl bids. Everyone can argue about why their team deserved to be in over someone else's team, but at the end of the day, Notre Dame is the only team that just went "f it, we didn't get exactly what we wanted, we're going home." It's poor sportsmanship, and if the coaches and athletic director can't instill better sportsmanship in the teenagers and very young adults they are supposed to be mentoring, then blow up the program.

I don't know about that scenario. It's up to the players to decide whether or not it's worth it. I expect you'll see it becoming more common to pass on bowl games.

I still fail to see how it's poor sportsmanship if the players don't do what you want them to do. Why should anybody care whether they do or don't play in a game?

[Max Rockatansky]

Obviously many people do care.  Hence why Notre Dame is getting roasted all over social media about quitting.

[NWI_Irish96]

Obviously many people do care.  Hence why Notre Dame is getting roasted all over social media about quitting.

They care about finding ways to roast Notre Dame. They don't actually care whether or not they play. If Notre Dame announced they had cured cancer, they'd get roasted for not doing it sooner.

[1995hoo]

Notre Dame's athletic director was complaining about the league office lobbying to get Miami in the field. If Miami gets in, the ACC gets a cut of the payout. If Notre Dame goes instead, the ACC gets nothing. (Of course the situation could have been different had the correct team won on Saturday, but what can you do.) Notre Dame will be the first to talk about being an independent in football. So it seems to me that if the ACC didn't lobby for a conference member in the sport in question, the league office would not be doing its duty.

[Max Rockatansky]

Obviously many people do care.  Hence why Notre Dame is getting roasted all over social media about quitting.

They care about finding ways to roast Notre Dame. They don't actually care whether or not they play. If Notre Dame announced they had cured cancer, they'd get roasted for not doing it sooner.

I mean hey, if the team wanted to avoid the bad look all they had to do was suck it up like everyone else that was a near playoff miss.  If anything the team, fanbase and AD are playing the roles expected of them.

[NWI_Irish96]

Obviously many people do care.  Hence why Notre Dame is getting roasted all over social media about quitting.

They care about finding ways to roast Notre Dame. They don't actually care whether or not they play. If Notre Dame announced they had cured cancer, they'd get roasted for not doing it sooner.

I mean hey, if the team wanted to avoid the bad look all they had to do was suck it up like everyone else that was a near playoff miss.  If anything the team, fanbase and AD are playing the roles expected of them.

ND's fanbase is not the ones who think this is bad. Every one of the dozens that I follow on social media support this decision.

[Max Rockatansky]

Obviously many people do care.  Hence why Notre Dame is getting roasted all over social media about quitting.

They care about finding ways to roast Notre Dame. They don't actually care whether or not they play. If Notre Dame announced they had cured cancer, they'd get roasted for not doing it sooner.

I mean hey, if the team wanted to avoid the bad look all they had to do was suck it up like everyone else that was a near playoff miss.  If anything the team, fanbase and AD are playing the roles expected of them.

ND's fanbase is not the ones who think this is bad. Every one of the dozens that I follow on social media support this decision.

I get why Notre Dame fans are upset about missing the playoffs.  Their angry seems to be misplaced with a fixation on Miami when Oklahoma and Alabama also got in.   

Given you are a Notre Dame fan I can't say I'm surprised that social media is giving you affirmations about skipping a bowl game.  I guess the good news is that your team has an absolute cake walk of a schedule for 2026. 

[NWI_Irish96]

Obviously many people do care.  Hence why Notre Dame is getting roasted all over social media about quitting.

They care about finding ways to roast Notre Dame. They don't actually care whether or not they play. If Notre Dame announced they had cured cancer, they'd get roasted for not doing it sooner.

I mean hey, if the team wanted to avoid the bad look all they had to do was suck it up like everyone else that was a near playoff miss.  If anything the team, fanbase and AD are playing the roles expected of them.

ND's fanbase is not the ones who think this is bad. Every one of the dozens that I follow on social media support this decision.

I get why Notre Dame fans are upset about missing the playoffs.  Their angry seems to be misplaced with a fixation on Miami when Oklahoma and Alabama also got in.   

Given you are a Notre Dame fan I can't say I'm surprised that social media is giving you affirmations about skipping a bowl game.  I guess the good news is that your team has an absolute cake walk of a schedule for 2026. 

I think the fixation with Miami is that they jumped over ND after being 5 spots behind. You're right about Oklahoma and Alabama in that ND and Miami both deserved to be in over them.

Yeah, we need to get out of this ACC scheduling agreement. That conference is garbage.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Yeah, we need to get out of this ACC scheduling agreement. That conference is garbage.

Clemson's falloff from relevance in addition to Florida State's continued struggles and Miami being a very year-to-year team is a large part of why this looks so bad now, when it was probably sensible when ND made the concession as part of its agreement to join the ACC in other sports.

[SEWIGuy]

Yeah, we need to get out of this ACC scheduling agreement. That conference is garbage.

Do you think ND could go back to full independent in football and park the rest of the sports back in the Big East?

Do you think ND could get enough quality games each year to fill out a schedule? My concern would be that you would see more of what USC is doing - not wanting to add more quality to the schedule since conferences have nine conference games.

[Max Rockatansky]

Oklahoma is the easy team to exclude given they weren't in the SEC conference championship game.  Me personally I don't think the conference title game should've shielded Alabama from scrutiny.  I know that isn't how the selection committee views things though.

Yeah, we need to get out of this ACC scheduling agreement. That conference is garbage.

Do you think ND could go back to full independent in football and park the rest of the sports back in the Big East?

Do you think ND could get enough quality games each year to fill out a schedule?

They probably could get an annual game with Michigan back pretty easily. 

[NWI_Irish96]

Yeah, we need to get out of this ACC scheduling agreement. That conference is garbage.

Do you think ND could go back to full independent in football and park the rest of the sports back in the Big East?

Do you think ND could get enough quality games each year to fill out a schedule? My concern would be that you would see more of what USC is doing - not wanting to add more quality to the schedule since conferences have nine conference games.

I think they could get at least as many quality games as they're getting now. Most years, there are at most 3 ACC teams that are considered quality and on average only one of those ends up on the ND schedule.

A note about USC--they do want to continue playing ND. They don't want to do it every year, they're interested in something like a 4 on and 2 off rotation. They also don't want to play the home games Thanksgiving weekend anymore. They want the games in the first half of the season. ND likes the games at USC Thanksgiving weekend because they don't have to miss class to take the longer trip and because they don't want to play at home that late in November. It seems like this is all going to get ironed out though.

Teams like Boise State, Army, Tulane, Washington State would sign up to schedule ND in a minute, and while they lack the name recognition of Syracuse, North Carolina, or Boston College, they're no worse and in a lot of cases, better.

All of the P4 conferences now require at least one P4 non-conference game per year, so I don't see any reason ND couldn't get at least 4-5 of them per year.

Another problem is that schedules get made so far in advance the quality of the opponent can change. ND plays 4 B1G teams next year, but three of them were absolutely awful this year. When the games got scheduled 10 years ago, all of them were much better. Playing Wisconsin should be a marquee game, not one that others point to as evidence of a weak schedule.

[SEWIGuy]

Teams like Boise State, Army, Tulane, Washington State would sign up to schedule ND in a minute, and while they lack the name recognition of Syracuse, North Carolina, or Boston College, they're no worse and in a lot of cases, better.

Sorry, but Boise, Army, Tulane and Washington State would be a terrible schedule.

Just looking at this year and SOS rankings, replacing NC State (41), Boston College (61) and Syracuse (62) with Army (80), Tulane (70) and Washington State (67) makes their schedule even weaker.

And I *could* have substituted Miami (21) out, but didn't.

This is ND's main problem, and perhaps the ACC doesn't address this, but they are going to need more quality games or they're going to run into this problem again. (And they need to win them.)

[NWI_Irish96]

Teams like Boise State, Army, Tulane, Washington State would sign up to schedule ND in a minute, and while they lack the name recognition of Syracuse, North Carolina, or Boston College, they're no worse and in a lot of cases, better.

Sorry, but Boise, Army, Tulane and Washington State would be a terrible schedule.

Just looking at this year and SOS rankings, replacing NC State (41), Boston College (61) and Syracuse (62) with Army (80), Tulane (70) and Washington State (67) makes their schedule even weaker.

And I *could* have substituted Miami (21) out, but didn't.

This is ND's main problem, and perhaps the ACC doesn't address this, but they are going to need more quality games or they're going to run into this problem again. (And they need to win them.)

Those other teams won a lot more games against those schedules though.

For ND's part, they need to not schedule their two toughest opponents for their first two games. If either one of those is played later in the year, ND wins and is a #5-6 seed in the playoffs and we aren't having this conversation.

If the ACC agreement is going to stick, it will need to be tweaked to get the better teams on the schedule. Replacing Syracuse, BC and Stanford with Virginia, Louisville and SMU would have helped at least a little.

If the B1G, SEC or B12 is smart, they'll use ND's dissatisfaction with the ACC to try and lure them over with a similar agreement.

[SEWIGuy]

If the B1G, SEC or B12 is smart, they'll use ND's dissatisfaction with the ACC to try and lure them over with a similar agreement.

What benefit would the Big Ten or SEC get from that arrangement?

[thspfc]

Obviously many people do care.  Hence why Notre Dame is getting roasted all over social media about quitting.

They care about finding ways to roast Notre Dame. They don't actually care whether or not they play. If Notre Dame announced they had cured cancer, they'd get roasted for not doing it sooner.

Notre Dame, victors of the 2025 Oppression Olympics

[DTComposer]

I still fail to see how it's poor sportsmanship if the players don't do what you want them to do. Why should anybody care whether they do or don't play in a game?

It's part of the commitment. When a team goes into the season, what's their hope? Win it all, sure. But what's their realistic hope? Varies wildly. For some teams, less than 10 wins is a failure. For most teams, a winning season and a bowl game is a success.

If your players walk into a season with the expectation of 11-12 wins and the attitude of "we're not playing in the postseason unless it's in the CFP" - then what happens if they stumble and win 8 or 9 games instead of 10 or 11? If they end the season ranked 18th instead of 9th? They're still considered better than 120-odd other teams - but it's not enough, so they go home?

My son's baseball team plays in tournaments of 10-12 teams, and after Saturday's games they're seeded into Gold and Silver brackets for Sunday depending on how they did. And for each tournament there's criteria for breaking ties - run differential, runs against, runs for, head-to-head, etc. But the order of the criteria is different all the time, so you can have exactly the same stats and at one tournament be in the Gold bracket and another tournament be in the Silver bracket.

Do the teams who end up in the Silver bracket decide that they're just not going to play on Sunday because they didn't do as well as they thought, or that the criteria were flawed or in the wrong order? Of course not. Why should it be any different at the college level?

[NWI_Irish96]

I still fail to see how it's poor sportsmanship if the players don't do what you want them to do. Why should anybody care whether they do or don't play in a game?

It's part of the commitment.

Commitment to whom? They don't owe me, or anybody else, anything. Their commitment is to the team, and if the team agrees they don't want to play, then they are honoring their commitment. They don't owe ESPN an attractive bowl matchup so they can sell commercials.