Notre Dame AD goes guns blazing on ACC after College Football Playoff snub

The great irony of Miami and the ACC's public-relations campaign to get the Hurricanes into the College Football Playoff is that it came at the expense of another league member, Notre Dame.

But wait, you ask, isn't Notre Dame an independent? Isn't that kind of their whole thing? Yes, in football. Notre Dame's other sports are in the ACC, and they're only a quasi-independent in football as it is. In fact, no one does more to prop up Notre Dame's football independence than the ACC, by hand-delivering a handful of opponents for the Irish each fall, most of whom are served on a silver platter. 

That's why it was so surprising to me that the ACC spent last week making a "Miami vs. Notre Dame" argument instead of a "Miami and Notre Dame vs. Oklahoma and Alabama" argument. Both the Hurricanes and the Irish were ahead of the Sooners and Crimson Tide in a number of metrics; in fact, the most respected formulas viewed Notre Dame 10-or-more spots better than Oklahoma. Perhaps the ACC knew that the SEC's own propaganda machine was simply too powerful. This ended up being the correct view, by the way; Alabama made College Football Playoff history by not dropping a single spot for their 28-7 no-show loss to Georgia on Saturday. 

Right or wrong, Notre Dame's season ended as it began -- by losing to Miami, first on the field, then in a Gaylord Texan conference room.

On Sunday, the CFP selection committee finally nudged Miami over Notre Dame after five weeks of ranking the Irish above the 'Canes, despite no new evidence. The ACC got its victory, but at what cost?

On Monday, a "confused, sad and frustrated" Notre Dame AD Pete Bevacqua appeared on the Dan Patrick show saying the ACC did "permanent damage" to its relationship with Notre Dame.

"We were mystified by the actions of the conference, to attack their biggest business partner in football and a member conference in 24 of our other sports," he said. "They have certainly done permanent damage to the relationship between the conference and Notre Dame."

Notre Dame left the Big East for the ACC in 2012 and reached its football scheduling agreement because it allowed the Irish to fulfill its priority of playing a bi-coastal football schedule. Notre Dame could play ACC teams up and down the East Coast and also keep its rivalries with USC and Stanford alive, allowing them to spend every Thanksgiving in balmy California. A lot has changed since then. 

The Big Ten is now a bi-coastal conference all on its own. Notre Dame has pre-existing rivalries with Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue -- or had, I should say. Those series have been put on hiatus due to realignment forces. The USC series now on life support due to those same forces. Rutgers, Maryland and Penn State have heavy East Coast followings, and games with brands like Ohio State, Nebraska and Oregon would draw plenty of attention nationally. Notre Dame and the Big Ten are now both in business with NBC, and Notre Dame could easily swap Stanford for UCLA to continue playing at least one game in California each year for recruiting and fundraising purposes. 

Now, would the Big Ten allow Notre Dame to have the same "one foot in, one foot out" arrangement that the ACC does? Maybe, maybe not. Personally, I tend to think the Big Ten would push for an all or nothing arrangement, but that's beside the point right now. The main point is there's enough of a credible threat that the ACC will have to take Bevacqua's comments seriously.

Notre Dame still has a cushy seat within the college football hierarchy. They're already the only team that doesn't have to play a 13th game, and moving forward Notre Dame will be the only school with a guaranteed CFP at-large berth, so long as the Irish are ranked No. 12 by the committee. Surely, those side deals go away if Notre Dame fully joins the Big Ten. And as much as neither side would like to admit it right now, the lack of depth in the ACC allows Notre Dame an annual head start toward a No. 12 ranking. 

It's far too early to suggest a permanent fracture of the Notre Dame/ACC relationship, but the events of the past week will not be quickly forgotten. "It raised a lot of eyebrows here that the conference was taking shots at us."

Update: ACC commissioner Jim Phillips released this statement on Monday afternoon.