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It was eerily quiet on the morning of Dec. 7 in the Notre Dame football film room.
Head coach Marcus Freeman and the Fighting Irish football team watched in silence as the final 2025 College Football Playoff rankings were revealed to the nation. Notre Dame had fallen to the 11th spot—and with both James Madison and Tulane earning automatic bids as two of the five highest-ranking conference champions, Notre Dame was on the outside looking in.
Notre Dame was ranked 10th heading into the final reveal. The Irish had been No. 9 for the three weeks prior, right before the committee dropped them in the final rankings of the regular season after a 49-20 victory over Stanford in favor of Alabama.
The Fighting Irish lost zero games during that span.
BYU and Miami made up the 11th and 12th spots, respectively. It was a general consensus that Miami would get the nod if they ended up right next to Notre Dame, as the Irish lost to the Hurricanes in Week 1 of the season.
Things looked good when Alabama remained at No. 9, the Crimson Tide having lost by three scores to Georgia in the SEC Championship Game. BYU, who lost in similar fashion to Texas Tech in the Big 12 Championship, would be the deciding factor.
The committee chose to let the Cougars drop, meaning that Miami would move up and Notre Dame would miss the playoff.
Freeman finally broke the silence and addressed his team.
“I feel awful for you all because I’m the person that’s supposed to stand in front of you and say ‘I got the answer,’” said Freeman. “And I don’t have the answer right now.”
We all know what happened in the weeks that followed. Notre Dame opted out of the Pop Tarts Bowl under heavy scrutiny, the USC rivalry game was cancelled, and the 2026 Irish schedule was labeled the laughingstock of the land. Notre Dame, who had just 12 months prior garnered the admiration of the college football world due to its play style and promising head coach, was once again back in its ever-familiar role as the villain of college football.
Fast-forward to 2026. The Irish are once again in a similar spot.
No. 2 Notre Dame began their “cupcake schedule” 6-0 and headed to Provo, Utah for a top 10 matchup with No. 8 BYU. The Cougars caught the Irish off-guard, winning 28-24 on their home turf. Then, No. 4 Notre Dame went into a bye week, took care of Navy in Gillette Stadium, and awaited the first CFP rankings on Nov. 3.
It was probably a similar reaction in that film room when the Irish came in at No. 11.
“The committee’s impressed by [Notre Dame’s] performance on both sides of the ball,” said Hunter Yurachek, the committee chair for the CFP. “They are a very good football team, but when you look at Notre Dame’s schedule versus the teams that are ahead of them, they don’t have that signature win right now.”
ESPN’s Rece Davis was shocked to find the Irish so low.
“I did not expect to see this,” said Davis on ESPN’s reveal show. “I expected [Notre Dame] to be much, much higher.”
It is the latest in a saga of unfortunate events for Notre Dame, though many believe that the college football behemoth brings much of its disdain upon itself. The Irish are notoriously independent, have countless stipulations in the CFP selection process just for them, and benefit from a lucrative NBC television contract—the only single-team deal of its kind in college football.
But with as much blame that the college football fanbase directs at Notre Dame… do the Irish deserve all of it?
Notre Dame’s Shortcomings in 2026
To completely understand the public outrage for Notre Dame football in 2026, we must first unpack all that happened in 2025.
Let’s begin with the CFP rankings reveal on Dec. 2. Notre Dame had previously been ranked No. 9 before Alabama jumped them leading up to conference championship week.
It was this particular rankings reveal—not Selection Sunday—that effectively signed Notre Dame’s death certificate.
Yurachek, who stepped in as the committee chair in 2025 as well, addressed the decision on ESPN.
“The debate between Alabama and Notre Dame over the past three weeks has been one of the strongest debates we’ve had in the room for the past two years that I’ve been a part of the committee,” said Yurachek. “Notre Dame went on the road, had a strong win at Stanford. But Alabama went on the road in a rivalry game… I think that was enough to change the minds of a couple of committee members to push Alabama ahead of Notre Dame in this week’s rankings.”
The context: Alabama was up 17-6 over Auburn at halftime and Auburn came roaring back in the second half. Auburn had the football with a 27-20 deficit with under two minutes to play, and the Tigers were driving. On first down with 33 seconds to go, Auburn’s Cam Coleman caught a 7-yard pass and decided not to step out of bounds to stop the clock. He would fumble in the red zone, and Alabama would recover and escape.
Auburn finished the 2025 season with a 5-7 record.
Notre Dame defeated a would-be 4-8 Stanford team by four scores… and Notre Dame-Stanford also happens to be a rivalry game.
Now, ND-Stanford does not hold a candle to the Iron Bowl. But if Yurachek’s qualifications are “going on the road,” “rivalry game,” and “looking good” while doing it, then Notre Dame passes the test with a 29-point victory.
That said, Selection Sunday was equally as important. The committee’s decision to drop BYU but leave Alabama after both schools lost big in their respective conference championship games set two crucial precedents.
The first was simple: A team could lose two games—by a combined four points—and rattle off 10-straight wins and still miss out on the CFP. A team could also get jumped by another when both teams did not play, albeit due to a head-to-head result. Finally, the committee also effectively stated that the Big 12 Championship was not as important as the SEC Championship, as Alabama stayed put and BYU dropped after similar losses in those games. While it is true that the SEC is widely regarded as the best conference in college football, this is a dangerous precedent to set moving forward.
The second precedent: The CFP Committee seems to listen very closely to those who critique it.
Following the reveal of 2025’s first CFP Rankings on Nov. 4, college football analysts were quick to criticize the decision to rank No. 10 Notre Dame ahead of No. 18 Miami. Miami was coming off of a 26-20 overtime loss to SMU—the Hurricanes’ second loss in three weeks. But Miami had the head-to-head, so shouldn’t Miami be higher? In the same spirit, shouldn’t Miami’s struggles equally punish Notre Dame?
The ACC publicly criticized the committee for Notre Dame’s position, even going on to air 13 replays of Miami’s Week 1 victory over the Fighting Irish leading up to Selection Sunday. Notre Dame is a member of the conference for every sport except football, representing the ACC’s biggest business partner since 2013.
As the weeks went on and the reveals kept coming, it became apparent that Notre Dame and Miami were destined to end up next to each other. That Dec. 2 ranking was the final piece of the puzzle, and Notre Dame missed out.
So when Notre Dame “took their ball and went home” by opting out of the Pop Tarts Bowl—a bowl game with an ACC tie-in and an ESPN broadcast—is it truly an act of cowardice?
Is it fair to hold the “Leave No Doubt” mantra against Notre Dame while simultaneously acknowledging the blatant pass interference that went uncalled in the BYU game? Is it fair to tell Notre Dame that they need to join a conference to enjoy the benefits of officiating, while also bending over backwards to discredit the video evidence that a second remained on the clock in that contest after the no-call?
Is it fair to criticize Notre Dame’s SOS when six of the 10 teams ahead of Notre Dame—No. 1 Miami (49), No. 2 Georgia (35), No. 3 Utah (83), No. 4 Indiana (31), No. 8 UCLA (77), and No. 9 BYU (45)—are outside of the top 30 nationally as well?
Is it fair to blame Notre Dame for the brief cancellation of the Notre Dame-USC rivalry? Even when USC would not play the game unless it was earlier in the season? Even after USC athletic director Jen Cohen said that scheduling more difficult non-conference games than other Big Ten schools “does not align with our goal to win championships”?
These are all questions posed not with the intention of victimizing the Irish—at the end of the day, Notre Dame scheduled just two big games and are 0-1 in those games thus far. They have failed to find consistency in the run game. They did not lose to BYU due to one play, they lost because of an inability to stop the run—though the final play did not help Notre Dame’s cause.
But with the shortcomings that exist, Notre Dame is a serious national championship contender. The Irish rank fifth nationally in scoring offense (40.4 points per game) and fifth in points allowed (13.4). Quarterback CJ Carr has an 18-to-1 touchdown to interception ratio. The offensive line allows just 2.12 tackles for loss (TFL) per game, tied with BYU for the best in the nation. They rank third nationally in turnover margin (+14).
Regardless of the team’s performance thus far, Notre Dame finds themselves in a sudden death game with Miami on Nov. 7. With a CFP ranking of 11th heading into the final major test on the schedule, the Irish seemingly must win this matchup at home. With a win, and an ensuing running of the table, Notre Dame should squash any argument to leave the Irish out of the playoff for the second-straight year. Notre Dame would be 11-1 with a win over the No. 1 team in the land, as well as just a 4-point defeat at the hands of another projected CFP team in BYU. This is a resume that should comfortably get the Irish into the big dance.
Whether or not there should be so much riding on this game… that’s another story.