Brett Yormark, the Big 12 commissioner, believes Pete Bevacqua overreacted following Notre Dame’s exclusion from the College Football Playoff.
During a Tuesday panel discussion in Las Vegas, Yormark criticized Bevacqua for the manner in which the Notre Dame athletic director publicly addressed the ACC and its commissioner, Jim Phillips, recently.
“I don’t like how Notre Dame’s reacted to it,” Yormark said, via the Sports Business Journal. “I think Pete, his behavior has been egregious … I think he is totally out of bounds in his approach, and if he was in the room, I’d tell him the same thing.
Even with a strong 10-2 record, Notre Dame was unexpectedly excluded from the College Football Playoff on Sunday. The university promptly decided against participating in a bowl game. Bevacqua promptly expressed to Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports that the decision brought him “overwhelming shock and sadness,” subsequently labeling the CFP’s weekly ranking broadcasts a “farce.” He declared that the playoff “was stolen from our student-athletes.”
Conversely, Miami secured the last at-large position in the playoff bracket over Notre Dame, despite the latter consistently holding a higher ranking in the weekly CFP polls during the season. The Hurricanes, who also finished 10-2, had defeated the Fighting Irish in the opening week of the regular season.
Although it is understandable why Bevacqua would defend his institution after perceiving they were unjustly deprived of a championship opportunity, he soon escalated the situation by criticizing the ACC, an organization of which Notre Dame is a partial associate. The Fighting Irish operate as an independent entity in football, but they are members of the ACC for various other athletic programs and face numerous ACC rivals each football season.
Bevacqua asserted that the ACC had inflicted “permanent damage” on its connection with Notre Dame by advocating for Miami’s inclusion in the College Football Playoff rather than his own team.
“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,” he said. “But it raised a lot of eyebrows here that the conference was taking shots at us.”
Later on Monday afternoon, Phillips released a formal declaration addressing Bevacqua’s remarks.
“The University of Notre Dame is an incredibly valued member of the ACC, and there is tremendous respect and appreciation for the entire institution,” Phillips’ statement reads. “With that said, when it comes to football, we have a responsibility to support and advocate for all 17 of our football-playing member institutions, and I stand behind our conference efforts to do just that leading up to the College Football Playoff Committee selections on Sunday.
“At no time was it suggested by the ACC that Notre Dame was not a worthy candidate for inclusion in the field. We are thrilled for the University of Miami while also understanding and appreciating the significant disappointment of the Notre Dame players, coaches and program.”
Numerous individuals align with Notre Dame’s perspective, and Bevacqua continues to voice his opinions. On Tuesday, he characterized Notre Dame’s performance following consecutive losses at the start of the year as “one of the most dominant 10-game runs in the history of college football.”
Evidently, however, other figures within the sport are displeased with him. The future dynamics of the university’s relationship with the ACC remain uncertain. Nevertheless, given the football team’s independent status, Bevacqua appears unconcerned by the opinions of Yormark or similar individuals.
