My head has been spinning. On Sunday afternoon I was shocked, surprised, and then distraught. What the hell just happened? Wait, Notre Dame didn’t even make the playoffs? Remember the Vegas odds!?? The expected trip to Norman??
The Irish should skip the bowl game now, it’ll be a shell of a football team participating in that exhibition. They declined! Okay, cool. Wait, now the football season is over, over. The off-season just arrived for Notre Dame quicker than ever seemed possible.
What is a football blog supposed to do now?
There have been so many statements, opinions, and topics covered over the past week that I don’t even know where to begin. My anger subsided after watching the playoff committee announce Alabama and Miami were in but I then watched so much of the Notre Dame internet take things to incredibly hysterical levels. Suddenly, the college football world was about to be upended, Notre Dame was going to announce grand plans after the playoff snub, and things would never be the same again.
I shouldn’t even have uploaded this, I’m sorry. Don’t look at it.
This grand plan hasn’t happened and it’s left a really frazzled and begrudged Irish fan base.
Despite the social media campaign promoting Miami over Notre Dame, repeating the Irish-Canes matchup on a loop on the ACC Network, and mistakenly cc’ing Notre Dame on emails to other ACC members, the Irish leadership has to tread lightly. I know that sounds awful but it’s the reality of the situation for a program that isn’t fully a football member in the league.
I think we can agree Notre Dame probably wasn’t waiting for one playoff snub to enact a plan to leave the ACC and certainly didn’t have that plan locked and loaded a couple days after the final CFP rankings were unveiled. There should be longer term plans at the ready primarily because the ACC is more likely to implode by itself, but choosing now to leave and yolo football schedules together for the foreseeable future (to say nothing of all the other sports) seems like a haphazard decision.
Some want to leave the ACC partnership behind to improve and increase the strength of the football schedules. As valiant of a cause as it may be that would be a very big undertaking–and as I wrote recently on the site–navigating the next expansion of the College Football Playoffs format and hammering out those important details within the next 6 weeks has to be the top priority right now for the Irish football program. If things break right in an expanded playoff format, it should take care of the biggest problem facing Notre Dame, namely conferences and their media partners being able to freeze the Irish out of a field when they are a legit National Championship contender. Or, make it a lot less likely. We hope.
Do Irish fans want to leave the ACC arrangement for something else (even conference membership in the SEC or Big Ten) to strengthen the football schedule or be able to enter the Good Boys Club and remove the shackles of hated independent Notre Dame? Is it a combination of both? Who was thinking this needed to happen prior to Sunday? Was this past weekend a tipping point?
The rest of the noise out there is deafening at times. Notre Dame PR is doing a terrible job! The rest of the country thinks we’re fools! We need to go scorched earth and fight back! The Big 12 commissioner thought Pete Bevacqua’s “behavior has been egregious.” People are clowning Notre Dame for skipping the Pop Tarts Bowl! I can’t say I agree with all of the outrage but it’s been entertaining to watch unfold.
I will say this, Notre Dame fans can be incredibly hard on their own team and program. We’re seeing a lot of the country showing their ass with comments and remarks that are amateurish at best. But that’s always been cool and accepted, even in pretty high level areas of media. Our schedule sucks? Yeah, Notre Dame fans are dying to play big games! Do people really think a school like Missouri is the one calling trying to make a series with the Irish and not the other way around? They want nothing to do with it. Notre Dame can’t beat SEC teams? Are we pretending the semifinals didn’t happen in 2024 and the Irish weren’t just in the damn National Championship game 11 months ago??
This week has made it perfectly clear that the rest of the country will happily gaslight Notre Dame, and there’s really only so much PR you can do to reverse that type of college football disease. You’re not in a conference! Join a conference! Why are you upset, nothing bad happened you weren’t good enough! Play in your bowl game!
We don’t need to take a step back from those sorts of feelings (we don’t have any football to talk about for a LONG time after all) but as we move on from The Snub I think it’s important to remember that Notre Dame football is still very well positioned on the football field. Recruiting is at a quarter century high point, CJ Carr offers a ton of hope for the quarterback position, a whole bunch of starters are set to return in 2026, and if we can trust what Bevacqua said recently, the Marcus Freeman contract is set to be supplemented to make him among the highest paid coaches in the country.
Deep breath, I think Notre Dame is going to be okay. Especially if we focus on the immediate problem of access to the CFP which is going to drive Notre Dame’s independence or lack thereof. Let’s see where that lands first. At some point, we have to make peace that college football and collegiate sports in general are going to continue to evolve and look wildly different in 3, 5, and 10 years from now. That makes it really difficult to demand Notre Dame make a bunch of hasty moves right now in order to overcome slights and arguments happening today.
First off, the dust hasn’t settled yet. I think the Admin. was on the fence on the Bowl game and the players settled the issue. Nobody should care what ESPN and Youtube talking heads think. ND is asking the ACC” do you want ND as your #1 partner?”. They have a right to know that and expect the ACC to act like it.
It absolutely looks like the Admin is 100% behind Freeman and the football program. With that, I think things will be fine.
At least, it ain’t Michigan !
Thanks for this, Eric. I told you on Discord that I was looking forward to it, and that was the case, and I’m glad you took the time to write it. Because we are in a strange, sucky, dark sort of place, and yeah, it’s a LONG LONG time to wait. Plus this developed into such a good team, and one to love as well. The biggest thing is to be able to share this really tough heartbreak with somebody who knows the program so well, and who has given us all so much (and The Writers as well!)
I totally get the bowl decision.
Concur 100% with no precipitous decisions on conferences, etc. Yes, push hard for the 5+11 during the next 6 weeks. But also, contrary to some of our more truly angry 18 Stripers, yes, ND should keep a lid on being too publicly nasty and confrontive.
Over on ISD, 18 Stripes friend Jamie U has a very good section on the comparison to 1993. Recommended, as a relevant memory.
I truly hope HCMF can come up with some good positive events for the team, I like the bowling thing if I understand it. ND ought to schedule a giant “appreciate 10 straight” rally on campus before finals, with every dog and pony they can come up with.
As for tlndma, your usual excellent on target post. Agree with every one of your points. It was good to see you before USC.
Navy in Foxboro next fall Noise…just a thought.
Actually, a GREAT thought. My daughter being there is dynamite, as you’ll recall she lives in Worcester. Plus it turns out our President of the ND Club of Paris is going to be there with her daughter, ND’25, both fun folks you’d like. I’m thinking parties. You and I could host an 18 Stripes New Englanders get-together!
I like parties : )
It’s funny how many ND Haters went from “Ha, ND got what they deserved and missed the playoff. Nobody cares about them anyway” to “How dare ND skip a bowl game!” Those same people weren’t complaining about Iowa State or FSU opting out of bowl games!
Teams used to be VERY excited about even sneaking into a bowl game at 6-6, because you would get a dozen extra practices. Is that not a thing anymore?
In 2026, ND plays 4 Big Ten Teams and 6 ACC Teams.
10 Power 5 Teams, 1 Top 60 Non-P5 Team (ranked ahead of 20 P5 Teams in the Final SP+ Rankings for this year), and 1 crappy Non-P5 Team. That’s pretty aggressive scheduling, and unfortunately, it’s just likely that most of those P5 Teams are going to be bad next year.
Heard on II the extra practices isn’t really that big of a deal.
It’s on the Discord but the Bowling charity event is top notch. Well done HCMF, players, AD, whoever was in on that. *chef’s kiss*
That’s interesting; coaches used to make such a big deal out of it. I wonder what changed that caused so many teams to no longer consider it a priority.
I should have added — Notre Dame’s football program has been the most loved — and most hated — program for a literal century. Nothing has changed. We should just be glad we have a great coach and AD and President, and especially players who buy in.
Anyone have info on this “mistakenly cc’ing Notre Dame on emails to other ACC members“?
I completely missed that story!
Also, where are we talking about all the Sherrone Moore drama, and where can schools like A&M, LSU, FSU, and others with big buyout concerns go to get the newsletter from the state of Michigan on finding new and titillating ways to get rid of your coaches for cause?!?
Matt Brown filed requests with some public ACC schools, so we may find out!
Seems Moore made it even easier for Michigan after the firing. I hope everyone is ok.
I’m waiting to see what coach MI hires to replace him? With the coaching carousel this fall, not sure who’s left.
Kenny Dillingham
Lance Leipold
Jeff Traylor
Tommy Rees
Al Golden
Ohhh! Brian Kelly!
Kelly on an emergency temporary basis might not be a bad choice.
Reflecting on it, I think the funniest thing about the ACC talking trash about ND is that the ONLY reason the ACC even has a team in the Playoff this year is because of ND. There’s a 0% chance Miami would have gotten in if ND was replaced on their schedule with Ball State or Florida A&M (like Miami played in 2024).
One thing we need to bang the drum on SO HARD is that we don’t play FCS schools. F the business about not having a CCG, we play one more real game every year than all the other schools.
Eddie George: “ahem”
Nobody cares about this. Voters and the committee don’t distinguish between beating a .500 P4 team and an FCS school.
To me the case for continuing to (mostly) avoid FCS now that we’ve given up the moral high ground of not playing them at all is that it keeps our overall SOS numbers from being terrible.
Nobody cares because they all do it and get away with it. That’s why we have to be annoying about making them care.
And congrats idocd on winning this week’s “Well ackshually” footballsplaining award.
No. I think you’re confused. Eddie George asked me to type that in for him since he’s not on the premium plan.
Hard to believe he couldn’t afford it with the money ND gave him to play, but here we are.
I suppose the point I was failed to make was not just “nobody cares” but also “nobody has an incentive to care.” I think we’re going to have to pick our battles to some degree, and that one is so so uphill that it’s just not worth it. But, since we’re stuck with ACC dreck in terms of our P4 schedule, I think we still have to just not play FCS so that we don’t have schedule strengths that ensure we’d never get in a 12-team field at 10-2 or a 16-team field at 9-3 (which I think will be rare as is, but will be impossible if we haven’t joined the B1G/SEC and are still playing FCS too).
It seems that ND is trying to get a few SEC on the schedule every year with between 1 and 3 per year starting in 2027. The later schedules aren’t complete so more may be forthcoming. It would be nice to see the B1G on the schedule regularly as well, but preferably not just the worst teams. In any given year half of the Big12 is decent so a few games with them would be great as well. Long term, moving basketball and olympic sports to a smaller conference, and having multiple teams from each P4 plus Navy on the football schedule doesn’t seem out of the question.