The college football world is buzzing to start this new week after the 12-team College Football Playoff teams were announced at midday Sunday.
Just two years ago, 13-0 Florida State got jobbed.
Alabama was selected as the final playoff team over the Seminoles as much of the nation booed in protest.
Last year, Alabama was left behind after ACC runner-up 11-2 SMU was deemed more worthy of the final spot than a 10-2 Alabama team in the first-ever 12-team playoff field.
Bama fans were understandably disappointed about being left out. Some of us felt like it was a fitting payback from Alabama’s exceptional good fortune in the previous year.
This year, the stars fell on Alabama once again.
The Crimson Tide’s 10-3 record was deemed more impressive than 10-2 Notre Dame and a few other worthy two-loss competitors.
Notre Dame became so angry about Sunday’s playoff slight than the Fighting (Mad) Irish have refused to accept any other bowl game invitation this holiday season (more on that later).
How did we get here?
From January, 1999 through January, 2014, the BCS Championship game was played one or two days after the traditional New Year’s Day games. The major polls plus the computerized BCS ranking system determined the two top teams to play for the national title once the regular season and conference championship games concluded.
Yes, those WERE the good ol’ days!
A new four-team College Football Playoff system began in January, 2015. This time, the top four teams (selected by a 13-member College Football Playoff committee) would play a couple of semifinal games on New Year’s Day. The two winners faced-off about one week later to play for the national championship.
The College Football Playoff committee (which rotates new members every three years) has been comprised primarily of current and former college athletic directors and football coaches.
Can you believe that this group of 13 people meets (all expenses paid) up to ten times per football season?
A more subtle but influential impact occurred when Disney’s ESPN unit purchased the exclusive rights to televise the College Football Playoff games.
That move required college football fans to subscribe to cable television or a paid streaming services company to watch the two semifinals along with the championship game. More recently, ESPN began to offer the College Football Playoff games via its own streaming service (at a monthly cost, of course).
One year ago, a new 12-team College Football Playoff system was introduced. The expanded playoffs were expected to reduce the amount of fan complaining about the team(s) not selected for the 12th and final spot.
If anything, the complaining about this 12-team playoff field has become even louder!
On Saturday, two-loss Alabama just became the three-loss Crimson Tide.
Bama lost a convincing 28-7 game to one-loss Georgia in the SEC championship in a nationally televised encounter for all to see.
Yes, Alabama had defeated Georgia 24-21 – in Athens – earlier this season. Alabama, Georgia, Ole Miss, and Texas A&M all finished 7-1 in the SEC regular season standings. A series of tiebreakers gave the first and second place spots to Alabama and Georgia and a date to play in last Saturday’s SEC Championship game in Atlanta.
Georgia dominated Saturday’s game from start to finish. Alabama fans were rightfully concerned about being left out of the 12-team College Football Playoff field. Several other worthy teams were available and under consideration.
The following teams each had two losses and finished with a better season record than 10-3 Alabama:
North Texas (11-2) – lost the American Athletic Conf. title game to Tulane 34-21
Brigham Young (11-2) – lost the Big 12 title game to Texas Tech 34-7
Miami (FL) (10-2) – finished in a five-way tie for second place in the ACC
Notre Dame (10-2) – lost to Miami in its first game of 2025 (27-24)
Vanderbilt (10-2) – lost two road games (at 10-3 Alabama and at 9-3 Texas)
Utah (10-2) – lost two road games (at 12-1 Texas Tech and at 11-2 BYU)
The College Football Playoff committee met on Saturday and into early Sunday morning to determine this year’s 12 playoff teams.
Here are their 12 playoff teams:
The four top seeds will receive a first round “bye” into the quarterfinals. Those four teams will not play in the opening round of games scheduled for Friday, December 19 and Saturday, December 20.
The following eight teams will play in the first round – which won’t begin for nearly two weeks:
Oregon (#5 seed and 11-1) will host #12 seed James Madison (12-1 – Sunbelt Conference champs)
Ole Miss (#6 seed and 11-1) hosts #11 seed Tulane (11-2 – American Athletic Conference champion)
Texas A&M (#7 seed and 11-1) is at home vs.#10 seed and 10-2 Miami (FL)
Oklahoma (the #8 seed and 10-2) will host #9 seed and 10-3 Alabama
Before we discuss why 10-2 Notre Dame wasn’t chosen, the 13-member CFP committee just created two first-round rematches from the 2025 regular season!
Ole Miss hosted and thoroughly pounded Tulane 45-10 on September 20 in Oxford.
Oklahoma traveled to Alabama just three weeks ago and defeated the Crimson Tide 23-21 in Tuscaloosa.
The College Football Playoff committee just gave us rematches involving those four teams. Why?
Couldn’t they have used a little bit of creativity in their rankings to give us the same eight teams but in different match-ups?
Does anyone really care which teams are ranked #9, 10, 11, and 12 as long as their team was included in the playoff field?
For example, the playoff committee could have sent Miami to face Oklahoma, Alabama to play at Texas A&M, Tulane to visit Oregon, and James Madison traveling to challenge Ole Miss. Again, what difference does it make which teams were ranked #9, 10, 11 or 12?
Giving us two first round rematches was a very preventable blunder by the CFP committee and their self-imposed rules which often make very little common sense to most football fans.
What in the world were they thinking?
Now, let’s examine Notre Dame’s case for that final playoff spot
The 10-2 Fighting Irish lost their first two games in 2025. Notre Dame’s first loss came at Miami in a tight 27-24 season-opening game. The Hurricanes won on a field goal with one minute to play.
Notre Dame returned home to South Bend for its second game of the season. Visiting Texas A&M scored a touchdown with 13 seconds to play as the Aggies edged the Irish 41-40 and sent Notre Dame to 0-2.
The Fighting Irish then steamrolled several teams in winning its final ten games of the season. Five of those ten wins, though, came over some really weak teams. Purdue was 2-10. So was Arkansas and Boston College. Syracuse had a lousy 3-9 season, and Stanford stumbled to a 4-8 record.
On the plus side, Notre Dame beat then #20 USC 34-24 at home and took a road win over then-#22 Pitt 37-15. The Irish also sank the Navy (9-2) by a 49-10 score in South Bend.
Notre Dame had good reason to be angry about the College Football Playoff Committee’s rankings in the weeks leading up to Sunday’s selections
ESPN owns the rights to televise the College Football Playoffs. Much of ESPN’s daily sports talk programming has focused on the race to win one of those coveted 12 spots in the College Football Playoffs.
ESPN is in business to make money. They are also masters of self-promotion.
The sports network hosts a weekly one-hour prime-time TV show every Tuesday night which brings the latest CFP committee weekly rankings to interested viewers.
Those weekly rankings then provide much of the daily subject matter for hours of ESPN’s daily programming. The network’s hosts and guests bloviate endlessly about which teams might have the best chance of making this year’s College Football Playoffs.
“Come back on Tuesday night to find out where your team is currently ranked!”
Notre Dame was ranked ahead of the Miami Hurricanes by the CFP committee every week for the past month prior to Sunday’s final selection show.
Based on the weekly CFP ranking shows, Notre Dame was considered to be “safe” to make the playoff field by the majority of football fans and the school’s athletics department.
That’s because neither Notre Dame nor Miami played a game on Saturday. Nothing changed. Both remained 10-2 – just like their records were one week ago.
Sunday’s selection show surprisingly elevated Miami ahead of Notre Dame and into the final playoff position.
Why?
The CFP committee meekly acknowledged that they gave the nod to the Hurricanes based on their Week #1 squeaker win – at home – over the Fighting Irish.
Notre Dame and college football fans just had the rug pulled out from under them. Haven’t we seen this script before?
Notre Dame Athletic Director Pete Bavacqua laid the blame squarely on the CFP committee and partner-in-crime ESPN.
“If the (ESPN) ranking shows are legitimate, there is no logical explanation of what happened to us,” said the Notre Dame AD. “Just have one ranking show at the end, like Sunday. What’s the point of doing anything prior to that?”
You are so right, Pete! However…
ESPN makes a lot of money selling expensive ads during the football season based on those weekly Tuesday night CFP ranking shows. Their telecasts are watched in large numbers by interested college football fans. The shows also generate a significant media buzz (and incremental revenue) for ESPN.
ESPN knows exactly what it is doing. We just keep falling for it every year.
Notre Dame is fighting back!
The Fighting Irish are, well, fighting mad!
The school is not going to give Disney/ESPN/ABC an additional opportunity to generate incremental revenue on the backs of the Notre Dame football team. Sunday’s snub by the College Football Playoff committee (televised on a 3-hour show by ESPN, of course) brought a surprise announcement from Notre Dame.
The Irish will not participate in any bowl game this season.
In case you didn’t know this, the most likely bowl games where Notre Dame would have been invited to play would be televised by (surprise!) Disney’s ESPN and/or its ABC affiliates. Disney directly owns and/or televises nearly all of the 35 non-College Football Playoff bowl games.
This might be a good time to remind you that the television rights for most of Notre Dame’s regular season football games are owned by NBC.
The Fighting Irish football games generate $50 million of annual revenue for the school via NBC’s regular season television contract through the end of the 2029 football season.
Notre Dame is going to long remember the 2025 football season and this year’s playoff snub.
Good luck to any sales representatives from “Mickey Mouse” who have the courage to show-up in South Bend, Indiana in a few years trying to lure the Irish into switching TV partners.
“Mouse trap!”
The post ESPN Created this CFP Chaos – We fell for it again! appeared first on SwampSwamiSports.com.
