December 8, 2025 • 8 mins
After being snubbed from the CFP, the Fighting Irish won’t compete in Bowl Season. AD Pete Bevacqua speaks out.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Let's hear from people black white. He was the ad
at Notre Dame not too happy with what happened yesterday,
and the decision was made after the ball committee said no,
you're not in to not playing in a ballgame. And
here's what Pete had to say about all of that.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I don't know how we got here. That's kind of
what we have a problem with. I don't have a
good answer for you. You know, I've been a lot
of conversations here on campus the last twenty four hours,
as you can imagine, and you know, I want to
make one thing clear, Dan, we have no problems with
the teams that made it in. They're all great teams.
You know, Miami's a great team, Alabama's a great team.
(00:43):
If Texas Vanderbilt, we're a great team. What we're so
confused by and frustrated with is the process. You know,
every step along the way since the first CFP rankings
came out, we were led to believe we were in
as long as we took care of business, and we
certainly took care of business with this ten game winning streak.
(01:04):
Then you think about that first ranking. You know, we
and Miami were both six and two. They had obviously
already beat us the first game of the year. They
were eighteenth, we were tenth. You know, the only thing
that we did since that point was win every game
by over an average of over thirty points. And you know,
all of a sudden, we're eleventh and on the outside
looking in. And you know, when we sit and talk,
(01:27):
when I talked to Marcus, when when we talked to
our team, we don't have any good answers for that.
So we're just we're just really frustrated that we had
the rug pulled out from underneath this.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Stan.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Now I agree with that, and I'm not going to
be a Notre Dame apologist. I never really have been.
I've never rooted for them or necessarily rooted against them
unless they were playing somebody I wanted to win. But
I don't like the fact that they feel like they're
superior to everyone by not joining a conference when everybody
else pretty much has. But I also understand that if
you're in the top ten from pretty much all of
(01:57):
the CFP and then at the last minute or not
and you give it to Alabama who lost, Now you
can talk about the two losses that Notre Dame had.
They worked to really good teams with Miami and Texas
A and m both of whom should begin the playoff.
But I totally agree with him on that. Second thing
is is he's not very happy with the ACC and
(02:18):
them pushing Miami at Notre Dame's expense.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
We were mystified by the actions of the conference to attack,
you know, their biggest really business partner in football and
a member of their conference in twenty four of our
other sports. And I would tell you, Dan, I wouldn't
be honest with you if I didn't say that they
have certainly done permanent damage to the relationship between the
conference and Notre Dame. What do you mean, just we
(02:44):
didn't appreciate the fact that we were singled out repeatedly
and compared to Miami, not by Miami. Miami has every
right to do that, but it raised a lot of
eyebrows here that the conference was taking shots at us,
and you know, that's just not something we chose to do.
We wouldn't choose to do that in the future. People
might disagree with us, but that's just not something that
(03:05):
we'd be comfortable with. And again, we have no problem
with any of these teams. These are all great teams.
You look at those teams Miami, like I said, great season,
they beat us. You think about Alabama and nobody's had
more success in college football over the last decade than Alabama.
But Dan, you know, I mean, you follow this sport
so closely. Everybody was saying that we were one of
a handful of teams that could win this whole thing,
(03:27):
and now we have zero percent chancell even Nick Saban,
you know, nobody knows more about college football maybe in
the history of the world than Nick Saban, you know,
and he said it yesterday, like, how is Notre Dame
not in this? I mean, everybody is just kind of
confused and perplexed, and we don't have good answers for
the kids on our team, for our student athletes.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Are you going to reevaluate your relationship with the ACC
the overall relationship.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I would just say it's been.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Strained, Okay, whatever that means. They're not going to stop
playing the other sports because they can't schedule in the
other sports. If they do, they can in football. So
it may be strained, they may be upset, but they're
going to have to live with each other. The last
part of this is the memorandum of understanding for next
year that basically gets Notre Dame an automatic invitation if
(04:12):
they finish in the top twelve.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I don't want to say too much about the memorandum
of understanding, but that's certainly been reported. That's out there,
and what you said is accurate.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Next year, if you're ranked in the top twelve, you're
automatically in the playoffs. Correct, Okay, And everybody agreed that,
Like this was drawn up by Notre Dame and then
the College Football Playoff Committee said we'll sign off on that.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Well, it was part of the negotiations as we were
contemplating the various changes that go into the committee and
in preparation for the extension of the ESPN deal.
Speaker 5 (04:47):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
So Notre Dame will probably be in next year if
they finished in the top twelve. They are if they
earn that opportunity and all those kind of things.
Speaker 5 (04:54):
Why people not complaining more about that?
Speaker 4 (04:56):
They're complaining too much about Tulane James Masson, not about
how Notre Dame is guaranteed a spot as long as
they finish high.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Well, I can understand if it was top six or
top eight. To me, that would be a better guarantee
than top twelve. Fine, but to be basically, who so
if if they are ranked in the top twelve, so
if they if they were not in the bowl game
(05:22):
this year, it would be Alabama who was out. So
using that logic, why did you why didn't the committee
just do that this year? I mean, if you were
going to have the exact same scenario this year that
you're going to have our next year that you have
right now with Notre Dame being in the top twelve,
because we know that tou Lane and James Madison are
not ranked in the top twelve, they just are the
(05:43):
highest ranked champions and the conference champions have to matter.
Otherwise we don't all be independent. We'll just figure out
what our schedule is. So the conference championships have to
have to matter. So if you're going on that understanding
that you've already agreed to that for next year, why
didn't you just do it this year?
Speaker 5 (05:59):
And it's obvious.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
I mean they got everything right, Everything worked out perfectly,
And if Alabama would have been out and Notre Dame
would have been in, nobody would have had.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
Any complaints except Bama.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Well not but the Obama people may have complained and
wined about it, but they would have been on the
same boat that they were last year when they lost
to ouyep. And I can tell you I was in
the in that arena and it was filling up yesterday
at eleven thirty when that was announced, it was relief,
and it was relief that they were in because none
of them thought they deserved to be.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
There, because they didn't because they had exactly they had
Notre Dame already in the top ten, and the Cultural
Playoff Comittee, to their credit, they ranked Miami ahead of
Notre Dame as which they should have and that and that,
to me, that was the right movie.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
But they shouldn't have ranked My Notre Dame ahead of
a three lost Alabama team that lost to Florida State.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
And also they shouldn't have kept Bama at nine. They
didn't move them at all. They kept them work.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
And if My Obama was at ten, they'd be playing
Texas A and m How did not only did they
get not only did they get the state this stay in,
they got to go to the Night Sea, which they
were tenth last.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
Week, right, Yes, they were ninth last week, So they
didn't drop it all, it didn't move that twenty one point.
Let's let's call it was. It was a butt whooping
that they lost to against Georgia just took up to
the woodshed.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
That was either Alabama was banged up and not well
able to play or just not very good.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
That tells me that for some teams, losses don't have consequences.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
Is that and and that's it from Alabama?
Speaker 1 (07:20):
And yes, I do think if you make a conference
championship game and you lose, I think that should be considered. Now,
if you're undefeated going into the championship game, like Indiana
and Ohio State were, then it doesn't matter. You're both
gonna be there. It just comes down to seating and
they flip flop.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Had Bama lost that game but by a same score,
because remember they beat Georgia twenty four to twenty one.
If they had lost that game by the same score,
I would actually have no problem with Bama being in there.
But Bama got blown out. Can we talked about last week.
If Bama loses close, they're gonna put Bama in whether
we like it or not. If they get blown out,
they won't be there.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
And that game was over with before it started.
Speaker 5 (07:53):
Basically it wasn't The score didn't indicate how how.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
It could have been a forty two to seven if
Georgia would have played wanted to put that many more
points on the balls.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
Bamma's defense, similar to OU is what kept them in.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Well, and that's why I say, how's Alabama going to
score more than twenty five points?
Speaker 5 (08:10):
Again?
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Even twenty points against so used defense? I doubt they
couldn't score any against Georgia and o US is better.
Speaker 5 (08:15):
We need to talk about Ryan Williams.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
He was supposed to be the next coming and he
has had a much worse year this year than need
the last year. He was supposed to be the next
great wide receiver. First of all, that's Jeremiah Smith at
Ohio State. Ryan Williams, who was supposed to be the
number one guy at Alabama. I don't know if he
just had the same connection with Tys Simpson or whatever
it was.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
I'm not as good as he was last Alabama quarterbacks
are really are are okay in college and terrible after that?
For the transfer, Yeah, yeah, well there's too much. Well,
maybe it'll be different in the Kaitlyn Devor system. All right,
let's get to the NFL. The Texans had a big
win last night. We'll talk about the Steelers winning on
the road. We'll visit with Derek Fox from the Alambo,
(08:52):
Boll and Jeff trailer a little bit later on from
the Ticket
Let's hear from people black white. He was the ad
at Notre Dame not too happy with what happened yesterday,
and the decision was made after the ball committee said no,
you're not in to not playing in a ballgame. And
here's what Pete had to say about all of that.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I don't know how we got here. That's kind of
what we have a problem with. I don't have a
good answer for you. You know, I've been a lot
of conversations here on campus the last twenty four hours,
as you can imagine, and you know, I want to
make one thing clear, Dan, we have no problems with
the teams that made it in. They're all great teams.
You know, Miami's a great team, Alabama's a great team.
(00:43):
If Texas Vanderbilt, we're a great team. What we're so
confused by and frustrated with is the process. You know,
every step along the way since the first CFP rankings
came out, we were led to believe we were in
as long as we took care of business, and we
certainly took care of business with this ten game winning streak.
(01:04):
Then you think about that first ranking. You know, we
and Miami were both six and two. They had obviously
already beat us the first game of the year. They
were eighteenth, we were tenth. You know, the only thing
that we did since that point was win every game
by over an average of over thirty points. And you know,
all of a sudden, we're eleventh and on the outside
looking in. And you know, when we sit and talk,
(01:27):
when I talked to Marcus, when when we talked to
our team, we don't have any good answers for that.
So we're just we're just really frustrated that we had
the rug pulled out from underneath this.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Stan.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Now I agree with that, and I'm not going to
be a Notre Dame apologist. I never really have been.
I've never rooted for them or necessarily rooted against them
unless they were playing somebody I wanted to win. But
I don't like the fact that they feel like they're
superior to everyone by not joining a conference when everybody
else pretty much has. But I also understand that if
you're in the top ten from pretty much all of
(01:57):
the CFP and then at the last minute or not
and you give it to Alabama who lost, Now you
can talk about the two losses that Notre Dame had.
They worked to really good teams with Miami and Texas
A and m both of whom should begin the playoff.
But I totally agree with him on that. Second thing
is is he's not very happy with the ACC and
(02:18):
them pushing Miami at Notre Dame's expense.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
We were mystified by the actions of the conference to attack,
you know, their biggest really business partner in football and
a member of their conference in twenty four of our
other sports. And I would tell you, Dan, I wouldn't
be honest with you if I didn't say that they
have certainly done permanent damage to the relationship between the
conference and Notre Dame. What do you mean, just we
(02:44):
didn't appreciate the fact that we were singled out repeatedly
and compared to Miami, not by Miami. Miami has every
right to do that, but it raised a lot of
eyebrows here that the conference was taking shots at us,
and you know, that's just not something we chose to do.
We wouldn't choose to do that in the future. People
might disagree with us, but that's just not something that
(03:05):
we'd be comfortable with. And again, we have no problem
with any of these teams. These are all great teams.
You look at those teams Miami, like I said, great season,
they beat us. You think about Alabama and nobody's had
more success in college football over the last decade than Alabama.
But Dan, you know, I mean, you follow this sport
so closely. Everybody was saying that we were one of
a handful of teams that could win this whole thing,
(03:27):
and now we have zero percent chancell even Nick Saban,
you know, nobody knows more about college football maybe in
the history of the world than Nick Saban, you know,
and he said it yesterday, like, how is Notre Dame
not in this? I mean, everybody is just kind of
confused and perplexed, and we don't have good answers for
the kids on our team, for our student athletes.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Are you going to reevaluate your relationship with the ACC
the overall relationship.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I would just say it's been.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Strained, Okay, whatever that means. They're not going to stop
playing the other sports because they can't schedule in the
other sports. If they do, they can in football. So
it may be strained, they may be upset, but they're
going to have to live with each other. The last
part of this is the memorandum of understanding for next
year that basically gets Notre Dame an automatic invitation if
(04:12):
they finish in the top twelve.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I don't want to say too much about the memorandum
of understanding, but that's certainly been reported. That's out there,
and what you said is accurate.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Next year, if you're ranked in the top twelve, you're
automatically in the playoffs. Correct, Okay, And everybody agreed that,
Like this was drawn up by Notre Dame and then
the College Football Playoff Committee said we'll sign off on that.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Well, it was part of the negotiations as we were
contemplating the various changes that go into the committee and
in preparation for the extension of the ESPN deal.
Speaker 5 (04:47):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
So Notre Dame will probably be in next year if
they finished in the top twelve. They are if they
earn that opportunity and all those kind of things.
Speaker 5 (04:54):
Why people not complaining more about that?
Speaker 4 (04:56):
They're complaining too much about Tulane James Masson, not about
how Notre Dame is guaranteed a spot as long as
they finish high.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Well, I can understand if it was top six or
top eight. To me, that would be a better guarantee
than top twelve. Fine, but to be basically, who so
if if they are ranked in the top twelve, so
if they if they were not in the bowl game
(05:22):
this year, it would be Alabama who was out. So
using that logic, why did you why didn't the committee
just do that this year? I mean, if you were
going to have the exact same scenario this year that
you're going to have our next year that you have
right now with Notre Dame being in the top twelve,
because we know that tou Lane and James Madison are
not ranked in the top twelve, they just are the
(05:43):
highest ranked champions and the conference champions have to matter.
Otherwise we don't all be independent. We'll just figure out
what our schedule is. So the conference championships have to
have to matter. So if you're going on that understanding
that you've already agreed to that for next year, why
didn't you just do it this year?
Speaker 5 (05:59):
And it's obvious.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
I mean they got everything right, Everything worked out perfectly,
And if Alabama would have been out and Notre Dame
would have been in, nobody would have had.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
Any complaints except Bama.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Well not but the Obama people may have complained and
wined about it, but they would have been on the
same boat that they were last year when they lost
to ouyep. And I can tell you I was in
the in that arena and it was filling up yesterday
at eleven thirty when that was announced, it was relief,
and it was relief that they were in because none
of them thought they deserved to be.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
There, because they didn't because they had exactly they had
Notre Dame already in the top ten, and the Cultural
Playoff Comittee, to their credit, they ranked Miami ahead of
Notre Dame as which they should have and that and that,
to me, that was the right movie.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
But they shouldn't have ranked My Notre Dame ahead of
a three lost Alabama team that lost to Florida State.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
And also they shouldn't have kept Bama at nine. They
didn't move them at all. They kept them work.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
And if My Obama was at ten, they'd be playing
Texas A and m How did not only did they
get not only did they get the state this stay in,
they got to go to the Night Sea, which they
were tenth last.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
Week, right, Yes, they were ninth last week, So they
didn't drop it all, it didn't move that twenty one point.
Let's let's call it was. It was a butt whooping
that they lost to against Georgia just took up to
the woodshed.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
That was either Alabama was banged up and not well
able to play or just not very good.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
That tells me that for some teams, losses don't have consequences.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
Is that and and that's it from Alabama?
Speaker 1 (07:20):
And yes, I do think if you make a conference
championship game and you lose, I think that should be considered. Now,
if you're undefeated going into the championship game, like Indiana
and Ohio State were, then it doesn't matter. You're both
gonna be there. It just comes down to seating and
they flip flop.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Had Bama lost that game but by a same score,
because remember they beat Georgia twenty four to twenty one.
If they had lost that game by the same score,
I would actually have no problem with Bama being in there.
But Bama got blown out. Can we talked about last week.
If Bama loses close, they're gonna put Bama in whether
we like it or not. If they get blown out,
they won't be there.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
And that game was over with before it started.
Speaker 5 (07:53):
Basically it wasn't The score didn't indicate how how.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
It could have been a forty two to seven if
Georgia would have played wanted to put that many more
points on the balls.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
Bamma's defense, similar to OU is what kept them in.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Well, and that's why I say, how's Alabama going to
score more than twenty five points?
Speaker 5 (08:10):
Again?
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Even twenty points against so used defense? I doubt they
couldn't score any against Georgia and o US is better.
Speaker 5 (08:15):
We need to talk about Ryan Williams.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
He was supposed to be the next coming and he
has had a much worse year this year than need
the last year. He was supposed to be the next
great wide receiver. First of all, that's Jeremiah Smith at
Ohio State. Ryan Williams, who was supposed to be the
number one guy at Alabama. I don't know if he
just had the same connection with Tys Simpson or whatever
it was.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
I'm not as good as he was last Alabama quarterbacks
are really are are okay in college and terrible after that?
For the transfer, Yeah, yeah, well there's too much. Well,
maybe it'll be different in the Kaitlyn Devor system. All right,
let's get to the NFL. The Texans had a big
win last night. We'll talk about the Steelers winning on
the road. We'll visit with Derek Fox from the Alambo,
(08:52):
Boll and Jeff trailer a little bit later on from
the Ticket
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