As we near the end of December, college football teams are gearing up to compete in various bowl games. White there are a ton of bowl games the most popular ones are: The Rose Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, and the Sugar Bowl. In order to compete in a bowl game teams are required to be in the top rankings with at least six regular season game wins. 

For The College Football Playoffs (CFP), a board of thirteen member committee gathers where they select their top contenders to perform in the playoffs. On Sunday, December 7th, the committee decided to leave college Notre Dame out of the playoffs. Notre Dame finished their season 10-2 which ranked them 11th in the CFP. 

The program was left in disbelief after finding out they weren’t going to participate in the playoffs. As a result, they decided to opt out of playing in a bowl game. The team had been ranked in the top 10 until Sunday the 7th when they were moved down to 11th place. The University of Miami moved to the 10th spot, securing them a spot in the playoffs. 

The director of the team, Pete Bevacqua, expressed the team’s frustration and told ESPN that the team was blindsided and due to their rankings prior to the change they all believed they would be in the playoffs. Also, he added, “We were mystified by the actions of the conference to attack their biggest, really, partner in football and a member of their conference in 24 of our other sports… They have certainly done permanent damage to the relationship between the conference and Notre Dame.”