Pete Bevacqua is not happy. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish aren’t happy.
They finished the 2025 season at 10-2 and were left out of the College Football Playoff in favor of Miami. The Hurricanes beat the Fighting Irish to start the season, 27-24, so that head-to-head matchup played a big role in the CFP committee’s reasoning.
Ultimately, though, Bevacqua, Notre Dame’s athletic director, and the Irish seem to feel like that loss shouldn’t have mattered as much considering how they finished the season.
Yes, Notre Dame’s first two games resulted in losses — the other was a 41-40 loss to then-No. 16 Texas A&M — but the Irish finished the season strong. In fact, they finished the season on a 10-game winning streak that Bevacqua thinks should go down in college football history.
Because, of course, he thinks so.
“As I said on Sunday, we felt we did everything we could over the course of the season,” Bevacqua said in a news conference on Tuesday, according to Nick Kosko of On3. “You know, we lost our first two games, we’re not hiding from that. We lost against a really good Miami team, we lost the nail biter against Texas A&M, two great teams, by a total of four points and then we did everything we needed to do. We had one of most dominant 10 game runs in the history of college football. And on top of that we felt that the CFP committee, the ranking committee felt the same way.”
Notre Dame’s biggest complaint seems to be that it came into conference championship weekend ranked No. 10 in the CFP rankings while Miami was ranked No. 12.
Neither team played in a conference championship, but then-No. 11 BYU was blown out, 34-7, by No. 4 Texas Tech in the Big 12 championship game.
That loss knocked BYU off the bubble and then created a head-to-head matchup between Miami and Notre Dame for the final spot. As mentioned, the Hurricanes had won the head-to-head earlier in the season, so they ended up getting the nod over the Fighting Irish.
Notre Dame Fighting Irish finished strong, but it wasn’t a legendary run
To be fair to Bevacqua, he did give credit to Miami, saying that Mario Cristobal’s team deserved to be in the CFP.
And yes, Notre Dame did finish the season in strong fashion, but let’s also consider the competition. The Irish’s toughest game in that run was against then-No. 20 USC, which also didn’t make the CFP. They also won a road game at then-No. 22 Pit, but they’re not going to be writing books about that 37-15 victory.
The thing is, Notre Dame was good, but let’s not confuse this for Joe Burrow and the LSU Tigers’ undefeated run from a few years ago.
Good? Yes. One of the greatest 10-game runs in college football history? Let’s not get funny.
Ultimately, though, Bevacqua admitted his bias towards his school.
“And I’m biased,” he said. “Of course, I’m 1,000,000% biased when it comes to Notre Dame, but you ask anybody in college football, we’re one of the best teams in the country. We’re one of those handful of teams (that) can absolutely win the national championship this year, and then standing up here today knowing that we have 0% chance of proving that on the field, it is a bitter pill to swallow, but it’s a situation we’re in.”
