Notre Dame has taken its ball and gone home, and everyone is worse off for it.
The 10-2 Fighting Irish on Sunday announced they would not accept a bowl bid, hours after being the first team left out of the College Football Playoff field, replaced by Miami despite neither playing last weekend. They’re understandably angry — I had Miami and Notre Dame both in the field in my rankings, for what it’s worth — but punting on finishing out the season because you got snubbed is short-sighted and embarrassing, and it removed any sympathy fans may have had for the Irish missing the Playoff field.
It’s too early to say if this is a death knell for bowls, but it’s another unprecedented line crossed. No, I don’t think the Irish did this to honor the program’s 45-year no-bowls policy that lasted until 1969.
“We appreciate all the support from our families and fans, and we’re hoping to bring the 12th national title to South Bend in 2026,” a nameless team statement read.
It’s hard to see how giving up weeks’ worth of bowl practices helps that 2026 run, especially for a team with so many bright young pieces. That’s an entire spring camp’s worth of practice the Irish are just giving up. They have a budding star redshirt freshman QB in C.J. Carr and just signed the No. 4 recruiting class in the country, one of the best and most drama-free Notre Dame has ever had. It would’ve been nice to have some of those early enrollees take advantage of the perk of bowl practices, no?
No. Instead, a team with hurt feelings will wallow in those feelings.
I’m not oblivious to the reality of the modern bowl system. I understand why NFL-bound players sit out of bowls. Especially at Notre Dame, where former linebacker Jaylon Smith once tore his ACL and MCL in a non-playoff Fiesta Bowl against Ohio State to end the 2015 season. Jeremiyah Love was probably never going to play in a bowl this year, and that’s OK.
We’ve also seen rosters decimated after coaching changes in the transfer portal era, like LSU playing with just 45 scholarship players in the 2021 Texas Bowl. That’s not good. Some places really can’t field teams for these games.
But Notre Dame isn’t that. This isn’t a team going through a coaching change like Kansas State and Iowa State. This isn’t a team that had a miserable fall and just wants to end it — Notre Dame has won 10 games in a row. This isn’t a team short on players due to the transfer portal, because the portal doesn’t open until January now. Somehow, dozens of other teams playing in bowl games will be able to field rosters. It’s just a team that didn’t get the postseason spot it wanted.
Are the days of scorned teams being motivated to win their bowl games over? The comparison to 2023 Florida State is the obvious one people want to make here. That Seminoles team, truly snubbed by the committee despite a 13-0 season, fielded what was basically a JV team against No. 6 Georgia and got pounded 63-3.
But that’s an outlier, even recently.
Jeremiyah Love likely would’ve opted out of a bowl game, but a whole program deciding not to play after falling out of the field hasn’t been seen. (Justin Casterline / Getty Images)
In 2022, when Alabama was the first team out, the Crimson Tide and their top stars, including Bryce Young, played the Sugar Bowl and beat Kansas State. Last year’s Alabama team, again the first team out, saw most of its top players, including Jalen Milroe, suit up and play Michigan.
Reports indicate Notre Dame was likely to play BYU in the Pop-Tarts Bowl. That’s BYU, a team that has a case that it was snubbed by the committee two years in a row. What did BYU do after last year’s CFP shutout? The Cougars stomped Colorado in the Alamo Bowl and made people think they may have gotten the Cougars wrong. (Bonus credit to Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter for playing in that game, by the way.)
Much like Lane Kiffin leaving a national championship-contending Ole Miss for LSU during the season, what Notre Dame is doing here is another line crossed in the modern era.
The point of playing football is to play football. Business decisions and economics are part of it, but the business (and coverage) of this sport has warped too many of us into believing all that matters is the championship at the end. For 100 years, that’s not what college football was about. There has always been talking out of both sides of one’s mouth, whether that was amateurism when coaches made millions or preaching loyalty as people changed jobs. But there was still a throughline that teams weren’t being viewed through a pro sports playoff mindset.
Indiana played Ohio State in a Big Ten title game that, from a Playoff perspective, didn’t really matter. But players lined up and played hard, because that’s football, and you only get so few chances to do this.
You saw the emotions of Indiana winning its first Big Ten title in 58 years, beating Ohio State for the first time in 37 years, and you remembered what this is actually about. You see Texas Tech fans, with a CFP spot already locked up, in tears for winning their first real conference championship in 49 years. Duke didn’t have a real Playoff shot, and the Blue Devils played their asses off to win their first ACC crown in 36 years. The Playoff doesn’t have to be everything.
Maybe the independence of it all is what led Notre Dame to its decision. There was no fine from a conference coming like Iowa State and Kansas State received. The Irish have always been different, received special treatment, and the rest of college sports has hated them for it. I’ve always appreciated it, to be honest. As everyone else has shed traditions, it was Notre Dame keeping it alive, remembering the past. The sport is at its best when it honors that.
That’s why the Irish skipping a bowl game is so disappointing. Notre Dame has long been viewed as the example of what college football is in any given era. And if that’s the case, right now, it doesn’t look good.
