Notre Dame fans were expecting consistency, and instead the CFB Playoff committee doubled down on a flawed process and clear bias

The College Football Playoff selection is a flawed process, and Notre Dame found out twice.

Ryan Roberts — National College Football Writer
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Dec 4, 2025; Fayetteville, AR, USA; Arkansas Razorbacks vice chancellor and director of athletics Hunter Yurachek speaks during the introductory press conference for head coach Ryan Silverfield (not pictured) at Frank Broyles Center. Mandatory Credit: Nelson Chenault-Imagn Images

After a weekend that featured the Alabama Crimson Tide and BYU Cougars losing their respective conference championship games, Notre Dame football fans were feeling confident about the Irish’s chances to make the College Football Playoff when the final ranking was released on Sunday.

With the Fighting Irish sitting at No. 10 in the Tuesday rankings, and with Alabama and BYU right around the other, it felt like things all fell right into alignment.

The Notre Dame fanbase, along with the general college football public, was shocked when it was announced that the Crimson Tide was staying at No. 9 and the Miami Hurricanes moved up to No. 10, jumping the Fighting Irish in the final ranking.

The latter had been a point of conversation over the last several weeks, but without any new data points this weekend, it seemed unlikely that the committee would follow through. Boy, was the majority wrong. 

From a fandom perspective, Notre Dame fans will be extremely disappointed that head coach Marcus Freeman and the Fighting Irish weren’t given the opportunity to fight for a National Championship. This final ranking, however, made feelings of disappointment and frustration much worse. Falling short of your goal is one thing, but being a victim of a flawed selection process and reasoning is much, much more difficult to accept. 

The SEC bias outlasted the bubble 

Everyone knows why Alabama was bumped up to No. 9 in the last rankings on Tuesday night. With a tough matchup against the Georgia Bulldogs in the SEC Championship on the horizon, the committee was trying to protect the Crimson Tide from dropping out of the playoff field. If Kalen DeBoer’s team suffered a blowout loss (which it did), the committee could “drop them” and still solidify their spot in the playoff. 

The plan seemed to be going perfectly until the Crimson Tide lost 28-7 to the Bulldogs. Surely, a three-touchdown loss would push Alabama down quite a bit. Yet, the committee decided that wasn’t egregious enough to move down even one spot. 

Don’t worry, however, the SEC bias came out to rear its ugly head. Alabama became the only conference championship game loser over the last two years (the inception of the 12-team College Football Playoff) to not move down at least one spot in the final playoff rankings. If it were a grind-it-out game decided by a small margin, it’s understandable. Propping up a team that just got smoked on a big stage, however, is a tough move to validate. 

The Miami-Notre Dame conversation 

The minute that it was announced that Alabama was sticking at No. 9, I got nervous for Notre Dame’s chances. With that head-to-head loss looming, many had predicted that Miami would jump the Irish if they ended up next to one another in the rankings. That, however, isn’t why most Notre Dame fans are frustrated. 

If Miami was going to jump the Irish, it should have happened on Tuesday. Both teams had concluded their regular seasons, giving the committee all the data they would seemingly need to make a sound decision. Instead, they left Notre Dame two spots ahead of the Hurricanes and then changed it at the last minute. 

We are coming off a weekend where neither program played a football game. In fact, the only opponent on either schedule that played was Boise State, which Notre Dame beat by three touchdowns earlier in the year. The Broncos won the Mountain West Conference Championship, the only data point between the two teams that could be gained. Despite that lack of new information, the flip happened. 

No new data. No new information. Yet, it was enough for the committee. 

If Notre Dame was moved down in favor of Miami on Tuesday night, the fanbase would have been upset and disappointed. They would have, however, somewhat understood and accepted it. Doing it now makes no sense. This feels like a committee making decisions on impulse, while fans everywhere just want a consistent and stable process. 

I don’t want to hear anymore about a bias towards Notre Dame. The SEC bias is alive and well. Other than that, it’s just a bunch of incoherent people doing things just to do them, led by Hunter Yurachek.

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