Alabama and Miami are in, Notre Dame are out and Indiana are No 1 in the College Football Playoff’s 12-team bracket released on Sunday as the Irish reacted with anger over their omission.
The undefeated Hoosiers vaulted to the top spot based on their history-making win in the Big Ten title game against Ohio State, who fell one spot after their 13-10 loss. SEC champion Georgia are third and and Big 12 champ Texas Tech fourth. All four get first-round byes.
Most of the drama surrounded the bubble teams, and it was Alabama at No 9 and Miami at No 10 making the field by leapfrogging last season’s finalists, Notre Dame, who lost to the Hurricanes during opening week.
After the bracket was announced, Notre Dame said they would decline to play in a bowl game after the snub. The Fighting Irish (10-2), who won their last 10 games by an average of nearly 30 points, watched championship weekend from afar, idle as an independent with no options to impress the selection committee one last time in a league title game. Miami also finished 10-2, while Alabama ended the season 10-3.
Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua and coach Marcus Freeman had taken the high road in recent weeks, avoiding too much lobbying and believing their winning streak would be enough to earn a berth over Alabama.
“As a team, we’ve decided to withdraw our name from consideration for a bowl game following the 2025 season,” the team said in a statement. “We appreciate all the support from our families and fans, and we’re hoping to bring the 12th national title to South Bend in 2026.”
CFP selection committee chair Hunter Yurachek said the head-to-head meeting between Miami and Notre Dame was the deciding factor.
“Once we moved Miami ahead of BYU, then we had that side-by-side comparison that everybody had been hungering for,” Yurachek said. “You look at those two teams on paper, and they are almost equal in their schedule strength, their common opponents, the results against common opponents. But the one metric we had to fall back on, again, was the head to head.”
Unlike Iowa State and Kansas State, who each got fined $500,000 by the Big 12 for opting out of a bowl game because of coaching changes, Notre Dame won’t be punished because they are not a full-fledged member of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
American Conference champion Tulane got the 11th spot and Sun Belt champion James Madison got the last spot over Duke, the champion of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The rest of the field: No 5 Oregon, No 6 Ole Miss, No 7 Texas A&M and No 8 Oklahoma.
The playoffs start 19-20 December with first-round games: James Madison at Oregon; Tulane at Misssissippi; Miami at Texas A&M; and Alabama at Oklahoma.
The final is set for 19 January at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens.
