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By Michael Gallagher
Sports Content Coordinator
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Depending on who you ask, Notre Dame’s decision to decline a bowl invitation after being left out of the 12-team College Football Playoff field is either completely justified or a major overreaction.
ESPN college football analyst Paul Finebaum falls in the latter camp.
The Fighting Irish were bumped from the final CFP rankings for the Miami Hurricanes, who finished with the same 10-2 record but didn’t play for a conference championship over the weekend.
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CFP selection committee chair Hunter Yurachek explained the reason Notre Dame wasn’t in the final 12 was due to its head-to-head loss to Miami in its season opener — an explanation that had social media divided given that head-to-head loss didn’t play a factor in the Irish’s CFP ranking in any of the previous weeks.
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While most agree Notre Dame has a right to be upset with how things played out, Finebaum argued on ESPN’s “Get Up” on Monday that the way the school is handling a frustrating situation is embarrassing.
“[The committee] got it right, and the crying from Notre Dame is quite frankly embarrassing,” Finebaum stated. “Everything Notre Dame has done since the moment this was announced is really beneath a great institution that should stand for principles.
“Instead, they cried. They didn’t get their way, and then they said, ‘You know, we’re going home. We’re taking our ball like a 5-year-old on the playground by not going to a bowl game.’ Why did they get it right? Because Notre Dame had very little to show on its resume. They’re not in a conference. That’s their own fault. They think they’re too good to be in a conference.”
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Finebaum also threw shade at Notre Dame for refusing to join a conference — something that’s been hotly debated for years.
The Irish are members of the ACC in every major sport except football, and Finebaum argued that had the school not been so bullish about remaining an independent, it would have made the CFP field as the likely ACC champion.
“Had they joined the ACC, which they, by the way, are a member of, in every other sport, they would have played for the ACC championship game,” Finebaum added. “They would be in the playoff today, and they wouldn’t be a bunch of sniveling crybabies, and really, quite frankly, in my opinion, the laughing stock of college football.”
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