Been seeing a lot of dumb and lazy comments about Notre Dameâs exclusion from the playoff so let me explain to you why we feel wronged:
1. The PROCESS makes no sense:
- It was argued the entire time that despite the H2H loss, Notre Dame was viewed to be the better team than Miami. The week they flip, neither team actually played a game.
- BYU gets blown out by number 4 and was dropped while Alabama gets blown out by number 3 and stays put (after being randomly pushed above ND the week before after narrowly beating a bad 5-7 Auburn team).
2. BLATANT ESPN/ACC influence on the selection process: Given the discussion above about the process being totally nonsensical, you cannot convince me Duke winning the ACC championship did not play a HUGE role in Miami getting in. ESPN was simply not going to let the ACC (who they have a broadcast deal with) get boxed out of the playoff completely.
3. ACC Conference Championship and overall structure STUPIDITY: These morons created an 18 team conference without divisions and had them play an 8 game conference schedule with a completely stupid set of tiebreaker rules that allowed an unranked 7-5 Duke team to get in the ACC championship over a 12th ranked Miami team (both 6-2 ACC records and didnât play each other). This created the possibility the ACC gets left out for JMU of all programs if Miami didnât get an at-large bid. If Miami had just been in the conference championship, they couldâve easily beaten a bad UVA team which allows ND and Miami to have get in. Instead, they had to pressure the committee into screwing ND out of a playoff spot to accommodate an at-large Miami. Of course, all of this couldâve been avoided if it wasnât for the ACC being run by idiots.
This is ultimately why ND players, coaches, and fans feel completely cheated. If we had been left out for Bama and Miami in a way that made sense, the reactions wouldâve been totally stupid. Instead, SECSPN used one of the biggest brands in the sport as the plot twist on their stupid TV show and expected us to say thank you.