Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua voiced strong frustration on Monday as the Irish processed their exclusion from the 12-team College Football Playoff. His appearance on the Dan Patrick Show turned into a pointed critique of how the ACC pushed Miami’s case in the final stretch.
Bevacqua said the program expected the league to stay neutral, especially given Notre Dame’s full membership in nearly every other ACC sport. Instead, he felt the conference went out of its way to elevate Miami, which had beaten the Irish back in Week 1.
He stressed that Notre Dame’s frustration isn’t aimed at the Hurricanes or any individual school. “I have tremendous respect for Miami. Great team, great school, their athletic director, Dan Radakovich, is a great friend. And all the teams in the ACC. Wonderful universities,” he said.
The issues, he explained, centered on the league office. “We have no gripes about any of the schools in the ACC, but we were mystified by the actions of the conference to attack really their biggest business partner in football and a member of their conference in 24 of our other sports…I wouldn’t be honest with you if I didn’t say they’ve certainly done permanent damage to the relationship between the conference and Notre Dame.”
Across the weekend, the ACC publicly highlighted Miami’s résumé, including multiple replays of the Hurricanes’ three-point win over Notre Dame on the ACC Network.
Notre Dame’s response was firm. The Irish chose not to participate in a bowl tied to the ACC, a move Bevacqua linked directly to the messaging the school felt targeted by. “We didn’t appreciate that we were singled out repeatedly and compared to Miami. Not by Miami, Miami has every right to do that, but it raised a lot of eyebrows here that the conference was taking shots at us,” he said.
He added that the decision reflects what the program is comfortable with moving forward. “And that’s just something we chose to do. We wouldn’t choose to do that. In the future, people might disagree with us, but that is just not something we’d be comfortable with. And again, we don’t have any problem with any of these teams — these are all great teams.”
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