Notre Dame AD says CFP selection committee pulled rug in 'farce' - ESPN

Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua told ESPN that the program is in utter disbelief and shock after being left out of the 12-team College Football Playoff on Sunday.

The Irish had been ranked in the top 10 of every CFP rankings release until Sunday, when they were placed No. 11 and were the first team out. Miami, which beat Notre Dame in Week 1, moved ahead of the Irish in the final rankings to take the final at-large berth.

Bevacqua expressed frustration with the entire process, telling ESPN's Jen Lada that the team felt as if it had the rug pulled out from under them, in part because they believed they were well situated to make the field because of where it had been previously ranked.

In the first CFP rankings release on Nov. 4, Notre Dame was No. 10 and Miami was No. 18. The Irish moved up to No. 9 for a few weeks before dropping back to No. 10 last week. Miami had slowly moved up the rankings and was No. 12 last week.

Bevacqua told ESPN that any rankings ahead of the final ones are a «farce and total waste of time.»

Adding to the confusion for Notre Dame was that neither they nor Miami played this weekend.

CFP selection committee chair Hunter Yurachek said Miami's 27-24 head-to-head victory on Aug. 31 wasn't a deciding factor until the Hurricanes jumped BYU in the CFP rankings and were evaluated side-by-side with the Irish. Yurachek also said he encouraged committee members on Saturday night to go back and watch the Notre Dame-Miami game from Labor Day weekend.

«Once we moved Miami ahead of BYU, then we had that side-by-side comparison that everybody had been hungering for,» Yurachek said. «You look at those two teams on paper, and they are almost equal in their schedule strength, their common opponents, the