In Pro sports, it’s kind of an unwritten rule that you don’t want to make yourself the topic of the news cycle during the playoffs or a championship game unless you’re one of the teams playing for the championship.
So it’s considered bad form to announce your new head coaching hire in the middle of the World Series. Or, if you have a star player that you just extended, you don’t make that announcement during the NBA finals.
Notre Dame operates on the opposite principle.
A few weeks ago, they got snubbed for a spot in the College Football Playoffs and they’ve been whining about it ever since.
I wrote here about how their elitist and entitled attitude was rubbing the entire college football world the wrong way when they decided that they were too good to play in a bowl game. Apparently, that’s beneath them. Bowl games are for the peasant class of college football. How could they, the “crown jewel” of college football, be denied entry into the College Football playoff?
It’s been a few weeks now since the College football playoff committee made their selection so you’d think that the whining by Notre Dame would be over.
You thought wrong.
Since Notre Dame was snubbed in favor of both Alabama AND Miami, teams Notre Dame assumed would be behind them in the selection process, Notre Dame fans have been spouting off on social media non-stop.
It’s clear to me that Notre Dame fans are receiving talking points from some kind of centralized Notre Dame Propaganda Command Center because the talking points are the same and when the narrative changes, the talking points immediately change as well.
Here’s an example:
Last weekend was the first round of the College Football playoffs, and Notre Dame fans were glued to their TV sets and their phones.
First came the Alabama-Oklahoma game, in which Alabama looked UGLY for about 1.5 quarters. Alabama was getting blown out by Oklahoma and Notre Dame fans were all over the internet blabbering incessantly about how this was PROOF that the committee got it wrong. They took every opportunity to remind the college football world how much better the playoffs would be with Notre Dame blessing us all with their expert football play.
But then something happened. Something quite unexpected. Alabama came roaring back with some key plays to tie the game going into the half. They parlayed that momentum into a dominant second half to beat Oklahoma, somewhat convincingly, on the road!
Notre Dame fans suddenly couldn’t keep talking about how bad Alabama was and how their poor performance was PROOF that Notre Dame should’ve gotten the nod.
So what did they do? Every Notre Dame fan, at the same time, began posting a new narrative – BOTH teams were horrible, which PROVES Notre Dame deserved to be in the College Football Playoff.
The next day was the game that I’m calling “The Notre Dame Irish Bowl” sponsored by Kleenex. I call it that because it pitted the two teams who had beaten Notre Dame in the regular season against each other in the first round of the playoffs.
Miami was playing at Texas A&M, who was a slight favorite. Remember, Miami had beaten Notre Dame by 3 points but that was the first game of the season. Miami had later suffered two conference losses and didn’t even make their conference championship game, so Notre Dame fans had been arguing for weeks that Notre Dame should’ve gotten the nod over Miami, even though Miami had won the head to head matchup.
The Miami-A&M game turned out to be a low-scoring affair that was highly influenced by strong, gusty winds. Miami held on to beat Texas A&M, which most college football fans interpreted as clear evidence that the committee had picked the right teams for the playoffs.
But according to Notre Dame fan logic, the outcome of this game actually PROVES that Notre Dame should have gotten the nod.
How exactly did that game prove their assertion?
Their claim is that the game showed how bad both teams were. Notre Dame would obviously have beaten either team by at least 2 TDs. Therefore, Notre Dame should have been in the playoff.
This week, Notre Dame fans continue to make noise as it was just announced that the historic rivalry between USC and Notre Dame will not resume next year.
Fanbases from both teams have expressed frustration, sadness and disappointment that the rivalry will not take place next season or for the foreseeable future. However, Notre Dame fans, in their quest for notoriety and relevance, are once again mobilizing their social media minions to gaslight the entire college football world regarding the circumstances that led to this rivalry game disruption.
The narrative being pushed this time is that USC is scared of Notre Dame and therefore backed out of the rivalry.
This kind of gaslighting simply ignores the current landscape of college football and the seismic changes that have taken place in just the last 2-3 years.
Notre Dame, as I wrote about here, is an Independent in football, which means they can set their own schedule every year. In the current college football environment, this is a huge advantage.
Forget about Notre Dame’s TV contract or the fact that they don’t have to share revenue with others. By not playing in a conference, Notre Dame can schedule a hodge podge of teams from around the country without worrying about having to navigate the gauntlet of a tough conference schedule.
Take next year’s schedule as an example, It’s been reported that Notre Dame has already replaced the USC game with BYU.
Most of the games on Notre Dame’s schedule are against teams from the Big 10 and ACC who were in the middle to the bottom of the conference. The two best teams on their schedule, at least by this year’s record, would be Miami and BYU. Those two teams combined for 22 wins so far this season.
The rest of the slate has only 49 wins. So the other 10 teams averaged less than 5 wins each. The total W-L record for next year’s opponents is 71-75.
By contrast, USC’s 2026 opponents have a record this year of 82-54.
A lot is being made by Notre Dame fans about the fact that USC wanted to change the timing of the game to earlier in the season, before they get too deep into their conference schedule.
Notre Dame fans have all retorted, no doubt from the Central Propaganda machine, that the USC-ND game has always been played late and so why change it now?
Well, the Trojans are in a different conference now, an arguably tougher one in which they have to travel a lot further than they used to.
Yeah, but they were always in a conference so why make the change?
Because this conference is tougher AND the conferences are all bigger, which means a higher likelihood of having multiple marquee games.
USC, for example, in 2026, plays Ohio State, Indiana, Oregon, Washington and Penn State. Notre Dame, in terms of marquee matchups, plays only Miami and maybe BYU (they for sure play BYU, I’m just not sure I’d consider that a marquee matchup).
The bottom line with Notre Dame is that in the midst of a rapidly changing college football landscape, they don’t want to change at all. They refuse to join a conference and yet they expect everyone else to continue scheduling them just as they always have, even though their football schedule is probably easier now than it was in the past.
Notre Dame thinks that they can just schedule one or maybe two games per season against a traditional P5 powerhouse school. The rest of their schedule is littered with has-beens and gimmes. They don’t have to worry about a conference championship game and, as it turns out, they have a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) starting next year that if they are ranked in the top 12 when the season ends, they will be guaranteed a slot in the playoff.
In addition to conference realignment, the path the National Championship is much different now than it was during most of the years the rivalry has existed.
For years, this rivalry existed in the context of a voters poll determining the champion. In that context, playing a marquee, non-conference game late in the season actually helped your chances of winning a national championship because if you win that game, it provides a very recent memory for the voters as they rank teams to determine a champion.
But none of that exists now. College football fans, coaches and players all wanted to win a championship on the field. Therefore, it’s imperative that you make it to the playoff field if you’re going to have any chance to win the national championship.
With the playoff field expanded to 12 teams, it’s easier to get into the playoffs with a loss. Even 2 losses doesn’t automatically eliminate a team from contention.
In this new environment, the rankings are paramount. And if you’re on the bubble, it’s best to have losses early rather than late.
So all of these factors led USC to the position that in order to continue the rivalry, it’s best to move the game to the front of the schedule before they enter conference play.
But Notre Dame is an independent and so every one of their games is a non-conference game for their opponent. After the first 3 to 4 weeks, every one of their opponents is having to play Notre Dame as an interruption to their conference schedule.
USC decided that they no longer wanted to do this favor for Notre Dame as it doesn’t benefit USC one bit. It only benefits Notre Dame.
If you truly value the tradition of the rivalry, as Notre Dame and their fans insist they do, why not adjust the details of the scheduling to make it beneficial to BOTH parties? Instead, Notre Dame insisted on keeping the schedule as it had always been.
The ending of this rivalry is nothing more than two parties who could not agree on the specifics of their arrangement. Notre Dame wanted things to remain exactly as they have been, even though the dynamics of the structure have affected them less than any other college football program.
USC wanted the timing of the game to change, given that the changes of the structure have affected them more than most other programs.
So for now, the rivalry is over.
Rather than just saying they couldn’t come to an agreement, Notre Dame, and their fans, in typical fashion, have decided that it’s in their best interest to demonize the other party.
The response is petty and juvenile, but it’s not surprising, given their elitist and entitled attitude. Notre Dame believes they are the best in the country.
That’s one thing we all definitely agree on. Notre Dame is the best in the country…at whining!
Photo by Steven Van Elk on Unsplash
The Lowedown 