Notre Dame athletics director Pete Bevacqua. Michael Clubb / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

'Permanent damage'? CFP-snubbed Notre Dame vents about ACC

By John Banks | Last updated Dec 8, 2025 2:08 PM ET

In addition to ripping the College Football Playoff committee, which left Notre Dame out of this year's 12-team postseason tournament, the Fighting Irish are now venting about the ACC.

"We were mystified by the actions of the conference to attack their biggest, really, partner in football and a member of their conference in 24 of our other sports," Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua said Monday on "The Dan Patrick Show" (h/t ESPN.com). "[T]hey have certainly done permanent damage to the relationship between the conference and Notre Dame."

Bevacqua is peeved at the conference for pushing for Miami (10-2) over Notre Dame (10-2) in the final CFP ranking. On Aug. 31, the Fighting Irish lost to the Hurricanes 27-24, making the CFP committee's selection of Miami for the CFP a no-brainer given both teams finished 10-2 and had schedules of similar difficulty.

In a November tweet on "X," the conference stated the obvious: Miami merits the CFP invite.

No hypotheticals, just facts.

Team A ✅ https://t.co/2SshUcSWhK pic.twitter.com/eyHadwcQYt
— ACC Football (@ACCFootball) November 11, 2025

"We didn't appreciate the fact that we were singled out repeatedly and compared to Miami. Not by Miami; Miami has every right to do that," Bevacqua said. "But it raised a lot of eyebrows here that the conference was taking shots at us."

For the 2013–14 academic year, Notre Dame joined the ACC for all sports except football and men’s ice hockey. The football team remains independent, meaning it is not a full ACC football member.

As part of its ACC membership arrangement for other sports, Notre Dame agreed to play about five ACC football opponents each season. That agreement was first formalized in 2014, and the ACC and Notre Dame extended it through at least the 2037 season.

Memo to Notre Dame: Stop the whining. It's not becoming for a prestigious institution.

Instead of carping to the media, the Fighting Irish could have ended all CFP debate by defeating the Hurricanes way back in August. Those early games count, too.

In 2026, Notre Dame will have plenty of opportunities to take out its anger on the conference on the football field. The Fighting Irish have six games scheduled against ACC opponents — starting with an Oct. 3 game at Bill Belichick's North Carolina Tar Heels.

John Banks

A longtime editor at ESPN and The Dallas Morning News, Banks has written for The New York Times, Civil War Times, America's Civil War, Military Images and other publications. He lives in Nashville.

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