Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1541906
16 JANUARY 2026 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED BY TYLER HORKA AND JACK SOBLE I t felt like everything went the way Notre Dame needed it to on confer- ence championship Saturday for the Fighting Irish to qualify for the 12-team College Football Playoff field. BYU was blown out by Texas Tech. Alabama got its teeth knocked out by Georgia. And yet, Notre Dame is still on the outside looking in. The Crimson Tide (10-3) secured one of the final at-large CFP spots as the No. 9 seed despite a blowout loss to the Bulldogs. And Miami (10-2), a head-to- head winner over the Irish in both teams' season opener Aug. 31, jumped over Notre Dame (10-2) in the CFP rankings after neither team played a game Dec. 6. Miami is the No. 10 seed. The Irish finished at No. 11 in the final poll, a ranking that this year goes to the top team to not make the bracket. Group of Five conference champions Tulane and James Madison took the No. 11 and No. 12 seeds, respectively. It's a brutal blow for the Irish, winners of 10 games in a row, all by 10 or more points. They won those games by an av- erage margin of 25.4 points. But Miami kept winning, too, and ended up with the same 10-2 record as the Irish. When it came down to it on the day the bracket was to be set in stone, the CFP committee clearly couldn't overlook the Hurricanes' 27-24 Week 1 win over Notre Dame. It's also a controversial swapping of Notre Dame and Miami when, for five straight weeks prior to the Dec. 7 selec- tion, the Irish had been ranked higher than the Hurricanes, which implies the committee thought all along that Notre Dame was a better team. But when push came to shove and the two got closer in the rankings, the switch amounted to nothing more than a change of heart. Notre Dame was primed to make an- other run through the playoff bracket had it made it in. Last year, the Irish got in as the No. 7 seed and beat Indiana, Georgia and Penn State on the way to the national championship game against Ohio State. This year, the Irish would have likely needed to go on the road in the first round. Still, per most oddsmakers and advanced analytical models, Marcus Freeman's team would have been favored over every playoff team but Indiana and Ohio State. Yes, that includes Miami. In an interview with Yahoo Sports' Ross Dellenger, Notre Dame athletics director Pete Bevacqua made it clear that the Irish are shocked, saddened and furious at missing the CFP. "There is no explanation that could possibly be given to explain the out- come," Bevacqua told Dellenger. "As I said to Marcus, one thing is for sure: Any rankings or show prior to this last one is an absolute joke and a waste of time. Why put these young student- athletes through these false emotions just to pull the rug out from underneath them having not played a game in two weeks and then a group of people in a room shatter their dreams without explanation? "We feel like the playoff was stolen from our student-athletes." NO PLAYOFF, NO BOWL As a result of its CFP snub, Notre Dame will take its ball and go home. Fourth-year head coach Marcus Free- man's team declined its bowl invitation, which was reportedly a date with BYU in the Pop-Tarts Bowl. Its 2025 season is over. "As a team, we've decided to with- draw our name from consideration for a bowl game following the 2025 sea- son," the program said in a statement. "We appreciate all the support from our families and fans, and we're hoping to bring the 12th national title to South Bend in 2026." Blue & Gold Illustrated's Eric Hansen reported and Bevacqua confirmed that Notre Dame's captains drove the deci- sion, which he and Freeman supported. The captains and other key players couldn't imagine, Bevacqua explained, taking the field for the Pop-Tarts Bowl at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Fla., as a different team than they trot- ted out all season. As would any team in a non-playoff bowl game, the Irish HEARTBREAK Notre Dame snubbed from College Football Playoff, declines Pop-Tarts Bowl invitation The heartbreaking, last-second loss to Texas A&M all the way back on Sept. 13 proved costly for junior linebacker Drayk Bowen and the Fighting Irish. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER