Notre Dame is not taking its perceived College Football Playoff snub lightly.
After the Fighting Irish announcement would give up a bowl on SundayNotre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua went on a media tour to express the school's concerns.
He took aim at the Atlantic Coast Conference, with which Notre Dame has a football scheduling agreement, during an appearance Monday on The Dan Patrick Show.
“We were perplexed by the conference's actions to attack their largest business partner in football and their conference member in 24 of our other sports. I would not be honest with you if I did not say that they caused irreparable damage to the relationship between the conference and Notre Dame,” Bevacqua said.
“We didn't appreciate the fact that we were repeatedly singled out and compared to Miami rather than Miami, but what raised a lot of eyebrows here was that the conference was criticizing us… People may disagree with us, but that's not something we're comfortable with.”
Notre Dame, which had won its last 10 games after an 0-2 start including a loss to Miami, had been ahead of the Hurricanes throughout the College Football Playoff rankings until Miami swept the Fighting Irish on Sunday to claim the final at-large bid.
The Irish joined the ACC in all sports except football and hockey in 2013 and agreed in 2014 to play five football games against ACC opponents each season to fill out their schedule.
The official ACC Football account on X posted a head-to-head comparison of Miami and Notre Dame on Dec. 1 with the caption: “The best thing about football? You can decide everything on the field.”
The ACC Network also rebroadcast Miami's season-opening win over Notre Dame at least 13 times in the days leading up to the CFP announcement.
The ACC would have been eliminated from the field – and would have missed out on a significant amount of money – had Miami not done so because of Duke's five-loss conference championship win.
