Joe Theismann describes 'disgusting' Notre Dame College Football Playoff decision, chides Alabama's entry
The Fighting Irish legend has a problem with the CFP selection committee
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The College Football Playoff Selection Committee's decision to exclude the Notre Dame from Sunday's final bracket exasperated Fighting Irish icon Joe Theismann. Ranked 10th heading into conference championship weekend, Notre Dame moved behind Miami to No. 11 in the final rankings as the first team out The Fighting Irish responded by opting out of a bid to the Pop-Tarts Bowl against BYU.
"It was disgusting, it really was," Theismann said on SiriusXM of Notre Dame's playoff exclusion. "You look at the rankings, just as an example, Note Dame and Miami should've been in, but what is Alabama doing in this? They've lost three games. It's the first three-loss team that's ever been in. Notre Dame was ranked above Miami all year until the committee decides on who winds up in the CFP. It's insulting. It's deplorable. It's just flat wrong to be honest with you.
"BYU only lost two games. Texas lost three games. But yet Alabama still is at No. 9 with three losses? There's no three-loss team that should be in the playoffs. They lose to Florida State … I guess I'm getting on a little bit of a roll, okay? The bottom line is, I really feel like Notre Dame has been done an injustice."
BYU's 27-point loss to Texas Tech was enough to boot the Cougars from the bubble, and moved Miami right behind the Fighting Irish in the rankings. That provided the selection committee with an opportunity to finally accept the head-to-head result and push the Hurricanes to the bracket.
"We felt like the way BYU performed in their championship game, a second loss to Texas Tech in a similar fashion, was worthy of Miami moving ahead of them in the rankings," committee chair Hunter Yurachek said. "Once we moved Miami ahead of BYU, we had that side-by-side comparison. … The one metric we had to fall back on was the head-to-head. We charged the committee members to go back and watch that Miami-Notre Dame game."
Duke's win over Virginia and the idea of the ACC exclusion from the bracket "had absolutely no impact" on the decision to include Miami at No. 10.
In Alabama's case, the committee pointed to regular-season wins over Georgia and Vanderbilt, among others, as primary factors in the Crimson Tide hanging on to their No. 9 ranking in the final bracket. Alabama fell behind by 21 points to Georgia during the middle of the third quarter in the SEC Championship during the Crimson Tide's worst showing of the season.
