BREAKING: Notre Dame Football RAGE QUITS after Playoff "snub"

Today's statement from the ACC commissioner doesn't support that excuse (it also ignores their actions). The fact is that ND makes a lot of money for the ACC, as well as helping them play the game with the big boys in the cartel (the SEC and the Big Ten). The ACC should have been promoting ND and Miami to the detriment of Alabama and Oklahoma.

If you are a poor school in a lesser bowl, you probably aren't going to make money at that bowl.

Yes it is arrogance and being sore losers. Unfortunately more than ever thanks to social media/internet, image is important for a business. These schools are all greed driven, business first. They may lose a little in the short term but make it up in "reputation."

They are ultimately phonies crafting an image, as "reputation" these days is all a bunch of smokescreen BS. Anyone overly concerned with their "reputation" is generally an inauthentic individual or entity.

Whether the playoff is 4 teams, 12, 16, or even 32, there's bound to be controversy with who gets in and who's left out as long as there's a selection process based on rankings.

The only way I can think of to remedy the issue is to completely overhaul the system. Here is my proposal, which is admittedly radical and unlikely to ever happen:

• Add 8 schools to the FBS to create a league of 144 teams.
• Arrange the 144 league teams into 8 conferences of 18 teams.
• To start, the conferences are as competitively balanced as possible based on performance the last 10 years (or maybe 25), but the primary organization is based on school location. No more Southern California schools in the same conference as those in the Northeast.
• Each conference is organized into two competitively balanced divisions with 9 teams in each division.
• Every team plays every other team in their conference division during the season. That's 8 division games per team. There's enough room in the schedule for everyone to play non-division games, in order to keep things interesting and preserve traditional rivalries as desired.
• At the end of the season, the teams with the best record in their respective divisions play each other for the conference championship. Only the division records count, so as to not penalize teams who elect to play tough non-division opponents. If there's a tie for the best record within a division, the tiebreaker is based on the head-to-head result. If that's not enough to settle it (for instance, if there are more than two teams at the top with the same record), then the tiebreaker goes to the team with the highest point differential in their division games.
• Each conference champion then advances to an 8-team national playoff consisting of only conference champions. There's no seeding in that playoff; matchups are determined by random draw.
• There are no other bowl games. Just the conference championship games and the national playoff. The national playoff determines the national champion.

Agree. And using that logic, Ole Miss should have been left out this year.

This too. Notre Dame has already announced it won't forget the ACC, their conference for everything else and one they have a sweetheart football deal with lobbied heavily to get Miami in ahead of them.

And there is nothing for them to gain by going to a bowl. Win it and loads of people will say they should have been in the playoffs, something they firmly believe already. Lose the bowl, very likely if they have a mass of opt outs, and everyone says it proves they didn't belong in the playoffs.

Its amazing how everyone's sense of history is only 2 weeks old. ND has been criticized for YEARS for being unfairly ranked too high compared to Big 10 and SEC. Do you remember that? They have made playoffs based on largely just being ND. Now they don't make it because of their own fault and we are supposed to feel sorry for them? If they win the ACC against either bball school, they are in. But they wanted to be the only team that gets special treatment and doesn't have to play in a conference. They have been invited...many times. Keep ND out for good until they wise up.

Bowl bans for teams that don't play in a bowl including playoff ban the following year. NFL would never put up with this.

Pish posh. Revisionist history. ND gave the ACC (and Big 10 several times) the middle finger saying they don't want to play football in any conference because they are special. Turns out, everyone is sick of their act. The ACC owes them nothing. ND told the ACC they are too good for the ACC. ND made their own bed. ACC can do what they want, ND doesn't play with them. If they did, in all likelihood they would have won the championship game and be going to the playoffs.

ND AD is an entitled b!tch

Exactly this. No team on the cusp of the CFP that doesn't get in should bother with a bowl game. If you're good enough to be in consideration, you'll absolutely have players who are seriously disincentivized to play in a regular bowl game, and then your team ends the season getting railroaded in a competition that they're not at full strength to play.

ND and Lane Kiffin.. how are the two situations related? Over the last two weeks they have both helped to pull the Band-Aid off and exposed college football for what it is. A massive cash grab and pro sport league mascaraing as collegiate athletics.

You cant have coaches bolting for the next big paycheck, then turn around and ask players to rally together and play in the Weed Eater Bowl for the pride of good ol' State U!

This is a professional sport and needs to be 100% divorced from the rest of collegiate athletics.

All of this would have been quite obvious long before "the last two weeks" unless you were willfully blind to it. How far back to you have to go to see football and basketball coaches not being the highest paid state employees in nearly every state? At least the player compensation is a little more equitable.

The ACC cut a deal with ND that it wanted. It wasn't everything they wanted, but it was a good enough deal to make ND a member. The ACC constitution does not differentiate between rights of a member for all sports or ND, so they should get the same support. The deal does give the ACC certain rights with respect to ND football, including a minimum number of games per season with other ACC teams -- a deal which is financially beneficial to the conference.

In the past decade the SEC in particular has benefitted from inflated rankings for teams below the top. How did Indiana, Penn State and Georgia fare against ND in the playoffs last year.

Of course, the cartel can exclude ND for any and all reasons (absent an unusual antitrust argument). But if the cartel wants to promote and actual championship, rather than a money grab featuring major conference teams, they need to consider ND (or any other independent for credibility. The notion that any team needs to support lesser post-season bowls is absurd in the day of transfer portals and early draft opt-ins. The teams can't require players deciding to transfer or declare for the draft to play. The only justification for the requirement would be ESPN's desire for increased ratings regardless of actual product on the field.

There is a guaranteed minimum payout from even the lesser bowls. Most of this is funded by TV payments to bowls. All bowls are televised, no matter how meaningless. In today's new media world, bad live football is still better than most options to get ratings.

This 'bowl revenue' actually is then given back to the school's conference. This money plus any playoff money for the conference is pooled, and then redistributed to all conference members.

This is why Big12 is fining its members $500k, who opt out of bowls. It's less revenue for all the conference schools.

Notre Dame as independent does not share bowl or playoff payments with anyone.

Obviously Notre Dame deserves to be in the tournament (if you assume it’s a tournament to figure out who the best team in the country is).

Runner-up last year that stumbled out of the blocks with two close losses to two very good teams then gets its stuff in gear and kicks butt all season while many other teams faltered.

If you’re arguing that this is because of conference affiliations and justified, then you’re too deep in the BS to see straight.

Enjoy your tournament of the best teams that belong to various corrupt conferences. Sports are so romantic!