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The College Football Playoff bracket was unveiled on Sunday, and officials sparked controversy when the Notre Dame Fighting Irish were left out despite only having two losses – one to the Miami Hurricanes and the other to the Texas A&M Aggies.
Both the Hurricanes and Aggies made the field of 12. Miami leapfrogged Notre Dame in the final ranking despite the Fighting Irish being in the field when the penultimate rankings were released. Neither team had a conference championship game to play before the official field was released.
The debate over Notre Dame and Miami was one to be had over the last few weeks. Who would get into the Playoff? Miami had the head-to-head overall advantage.
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Former Notre Dame Fighting Irish and NFL quarterback Joe Theismann stands on the sideline before the game between the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the Arizona State Sun Devils at Sun Devil Stadium on Nov. 8, 2014. (Matt Cashore/USA TODAY Sports)
Former Notre Dame star quarterback Joe Theismann told Fox News Digital he was in “disbelief” when he saw the Fighting Irish outside of the bracket. He added that pundits talking about the College Football Playoff are missing one question: How does a three-loss Alabama Crimson Tide team get into the postseason?
“How could they be so wrong? I just find it hard to believe that you’re gonna put a three-loss team in the playoffs,” he said. “Miami going in? All right. Notre Dame should’ve been in. Now all of a sudden you’re gonna turn the conversation into head-to-head competition in the first game of the year? Well, what about Alabama being beat by Florida State the first game of the year? Did nobody bring that up? Was that not part of the conversation? I just think it’s so wrong.”
Ultimately, Theismann felt bad for head coach Marcus Freeman and the players that he coaches and pointed to Notre Dame not having a bad loss.
The Fighting Irish lost to the Hurricanes and Aggies by a combined four points. Alabama, on the other hand, was throttled by Florida State in the first game of the season and then lost to the Oklahoma Sooners by two.
Notre Dame QB Joe Theismann (7) in action vs. USC at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles on Nov. 30, 1968. (Walter Iooss Jr. /Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)
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Alabama made it to the SEC Championship, but lost by 21 points to Georgia.
“I feel like I’m a person who tries to really be objective when it comes to analyzing situations,” Theismann said. “Alabama being in this makes no sense.”
College Football Playoff Committee Chair Hunter Yurachek, who is also the athletic director at Arkansas, which also plays in the SEC, defended Alabama’s spot as the No. 9-ranked school during the selection show. He said the Crimson Tide’s “body of work” was enough to get in.
“In spite of their performance yesterday in the conference championship, they deserved to say in that nine spot,” he said.
Yurachek added that the committee flipped Miami over Notre Dame after BYU lost to Texas Tech in the Big 12 Championship, 34-7.
“Once we moved Miami ahead of BYU, then we had that side-by-side comparison that everybody had been hungry for, Notre Dame and Miami,” he said. “And when you look at those two teams on paper, and they are almost equal, on their schedule strength, common opponents, results against common opponents, but the one metric we had to fall back on was the head-to-head.”
Tulane and James Madison were the other conference champions to get into the field. Duke, the ACC champions, were not selected.
Notre Dame decided to forgo an opportunity to play in a bowl game after being left out of the College Football Playoff. Theismann said he had no issue with the decision.
Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Marcus Freeman (middle) leads the team onto the field to play the Pittsburgh Panthers at Acrisure Stadium on Nov. 15, 2025. (Charles LeClaire/Imagn Images)
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“Not at all,” he told Fox News Digital. “I respect and admire the decision.”
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