The grievance tour of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and athletic director Pete Bevacqua after being snubbed for the College Football Playoff is making few friends and a lot of enemies.
After being jumped by Miami in the final rankings and being left out of the 12-team CFP, Notre Dame took their ball and went home, saying they would not accept a bowl bid. The school has then launched an astonishing public relations war, going scorched earth on anyone and everyone in their path from ESPN to their partners at the ACC.
And it hasn’t gone unnoticed around college football.
Speaking at the Intercollegiate Athletics Forum with Sports Business Journal, Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark made his feelings about Bevacqua’s behavior crystal clear.
“I don’t like how Notre Dame’s reacted to it. I think Pete, his behavior has been egregious. It’s been egregious going after Jim Phillips when they saved Notre Dame during COVID. We all knew, and it was very transparent, Hunter was very transparent about it, the chair – that as Notre Dame and Miami got closer together, head-to-head would be a factor. Ok? BYU lost. They came closer together, head-to-head made a difference in that decision. So I think he is totally out of bounds in his approach and if he was in the room, I’d tell him the same thing,” Yormark said.
Notre Dame has not done themselves any favors with their spoiled rich kid approach to missing the playoff. If anyone should be aggrieved, it is Brett Yormark himself. After all, the CFP committee dropped BYU out of the playoff after losing the Big 12 championship game to Texas Tech. On the other hand, they did not penalize Alabama for doing the same thing in getting blown out against Georgia.
Of course, Notre Dame should feel hard done by with the bait-and-switch from the committee and the weekly rankings that led everyone astray. But they always knew they were fortunate to be ahead of Miami in the rankings when it was the Hurricanes who were on the wrong side of faulty logic all season long.
It’s astonishing to see a conference commissioner call out a major athletic director like that publicly. If that is what Yormark is willing to say with the cameras rolling, you can imagine how other power brokers throughout the sport are reacting behind the scenes. And the reaction has been so over-the-top that it may have some longer lasting consequences that go beyond this temper tantrum.
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