Syracuse Football: Notre Dame AD's misguided lashing out at ACC misses one key point

One of my favorite all-time movies is "Rudy," so I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Notre Dame football. This week, though, the Fighting Irish's athletics director, Pete Bevacqua, has raised eyebrows for his tirade directed toward the Atlantic Coast Conference, of which Syracuse is a member, as it relates to the 12-team College Football Playoff.

When the CFP field was announced last Sunday, ACC member Miami made the cut. Notre Dame, an ACC member in many sports, but an independent in football, didn't make the CFP field. Was the Fighting Irish hosed? Nah. Just win more games (Notre Dame crushed Syracuse football last month at home).

Bevacqua, earlier this week, slammed the ACC for going on a social media campaign that he believed was "attacking our football program." Now, this has to do with the fact that a big reason why Miami got into the CFP, and Notre Dame didn't, is because the Hurricanes defeated the Fighting Irish in the 2025 season opener, and the ACC hasn't shied away from stressing that point on social media.

ACC commissioner Jim Phillips responded in part: “The University of Notre Dame is an incredibly valued member of the ACC and there is tremendous respect and appreciation for the entire institution. With that said, when it comes to football, we have a responsibility to support and advocate for all 17 of our football-playing member institutions, and I stand behind our conference efforts to do just that leading up to the College Football Playoff Committee selections on Sunday."

Notre Dame's athletics director has looked like a whiny crybaby this week.

One of the main issues here is that in the College Football Playoff top-25 rankings the week before championship weekend, Notre Dame was ahead of Miami. Neither played on championship weekend. After Texas Tech crushed BYU in the Big 12 Conference championship game, BYU moved down a bit, and that led Miami to move up right next to Notre Dame.

That led the CFP selection committee to do a side-by-side comparison of the Fighting Irish and the Hurricanes. Many of their metrics were quite similar, but Miami got in because it beat Notre Dame. Plain and simple.

If Bevacqua feels misled by the CFP rankings and the final 12-team field that was selected, so be it. Others, such as Vanderbilt, BYU and Texas, could also make a case that they were slighted. That's why Phillips said this past Wednesday that he would like to see an immediate expansion of the CFP, so that the circus created this week, hopefully, doesn't occur again.

However, Bevacqua trashing the ACC is misguided and silly. The ACC's social media campaign wasn't attacking Notre Dame. The campaign was pumping up Miami, which is a league member in football. Notre Dame isn't.

The Fighting Irish, for such a big brand and with its football independence and exclusive television contract with NBC, sure seems to have an inferiority complex. Or at least Bevacqua does.

The ACC's social media campaign would have done the same thing if Miami beat, say, Southern California in the season opener, and the Hurricanes were neck and neck with the Trojans in the final CFP pecking order. But Miami defeated Notre Dame, and it just so happens that the Fighting Irish is an ACC member in other sports besides football.

It is what it is. In my humble opinion, Bevacqua has looked foolish this week. Other stakeholders have called him out. Bevacqua, by the way, said the ACC has done "permanent damage" to its relationship with Notre Dame by campaigning against Notre Dame regarding the CFP. But the ACC was just campaigning for Miami. And the Hurricanes so happened to have played - and conquered - the Fighting Irish in late August.