Notre Dame AD says College Football Playoff politics damaged relationship with ACC

Following the relase of the 2025 College Football Playoff bracket, there's one athletic director madder than a wet hornet: Notre Dame's Pete Bevacqua. His Fighting Irish were left on the cutting room floor on Sunday's selection show after the committee opted to slide Miami above ND and into the field, leaving Marcus Freeman's group out.

Ever since the first set of rankings was released, the central debate of the 2025 CFP field has been Miami vs. Notre Dame. The Hurricanes beat the Irish at home in Week 1, and since, both schools finished with 10-2 records and were surging down the stretch. Alas, Miami rebounded well enough from two midseason losses to earn the nod thanks to the head-to-head win.

That's all fair for Notre Dame and their athletic director. But Pete Bevacqua took issue with just how hard the ACC publicly campaigned against the Irish getting in the playoff field. In a Monday morning interview on the Dan Patrick Show, Bevacqua explained why Notre Dame was taken aback by the ACC's behavior.

"I have tremendous respect for Miami and all the teams in the ACC — wonderful universities," Bevacqua prefaced. "We have no gripes about any of the schools in the ACC. But we were mystified by the actions of the conference, you know, to attack their biggest, really, business partner in football, and a member of their conference in 24 of our other sports."

Notre Dame AD Pete Bevacqua says the ACC did “permanent damage” to its relationship with ND for all of the anti-Irish playoff politicking the conference publicly leaned into in the lead up to the selection show.

“We didn’t appreciate the fact we were singled out repeatedly.” pic.twitter.com/6oF2ZxqIo6
— Tyler Horka (@tbhorka) December 8, 2025

You can understand the ACC promoting its own team, Miami, to get in the field, But Pete Bevacqua make a good point in revealing that it's sort of counter-productive for the ACC to ride hard against a school that has scheduling pacts with many ACC teams, and is a member of the conference in most other major sports. That's why Bevacqua is so alarmed.

"I would tell you, Dan, I wouldn't be honest with you if I didn't say they have certainly done permanent damage to the relationship between the conference and Notre Dame," Bevacqua added. Dan Patrick followed up by asking why that's the case.

"Just, 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 — but it raised a lot of eyebrows that the conference was taking shots at us," Bevacqua reiterated. "And you know, that's just not something we chose to do, we wouldn't choose to do that in the future. People might disagree with us, but that's just not something that we'd be comfortable with."

Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua is certainly attempting to take the high road here, claiming that the ACC's attacks on them were shocking and confusing while promising the Irish would never sling mud over college football resumes. Either way, it sounds like there is legitimate strife between Notre Dame and the very conference they're most closely aligned with.

Great for the ACC that Miami got in the field, but otherwise, it's been a rough stretch for this conference on the football field — and off.

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