No. 2 Notre Dame, still unbeaten after five games, is rolling into LaVell Edwards Stadium Saturday night to face No. 8 BYU, but don’t let the rankings fool you. College football has basically given the Irish a discount pass to the College Football Playoff for decades, a setup that absolutely skews everything in their favor. BYU is finally getting their shot at the Irish.
The CFP’s “Favorite Child” Status Is Still Unfair
Even if Notre Dame somehow loses to BYU, the Irish still seem destined to qualify for the College Football Playoff. Why? Because the whole arrangement is just so slanted in their favor. College football has awarded Notre Dame a discount pass to the playoffs that practically lets them go straight to the front of the line and bypass everyone else. It’s a special kind of coddling.
Notre Dame has been college football’s “favorite child” for what feels like a hundred years. They get treated special, mostly based on a reputation that’s way, way in the rearview mirror. The “Notre Dame Era” has been over for decades, but the powers-that-be clearly haven’t noticed. They still treat Marcus Freeman’s team as if Knute Rockne himself is running the show. It’s like there are rules for the Irish, and then there are rules for everybody else.
A Century of Unmatched Preferential Treatment
The lore of Notre Dame is huge, stretching back to the 1920s. We’re talking Rockne, win-one-for-the Gipper, Rudy, Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian, Johnny Lujack, Paul Hornung, the Joes (Montana and Theismann), seven Heisman winners, and 11 national championships. Hollywood even made movies about them!
Back in the ’20s and ’30s, Rockne, who was a legendary coach and a marketing genius, took Notre Dame’s football team on national train tours. They played games all over the country and turned them into massive media events. He literally created a traveling press box on the train, inviting the most famous writers to come along with first-class accommodations. They had staged practices for local media at every stop. Newsreel cameras were at every train depot, and that film would be shown in movie theaters nationwide. The Irish were a traveling football circus, and Rockne was the ringmaster, creating a huge national following, especially among millions of Catholics.
They won national championships in the 1920s (two), ’30s (one), ’40s (four), ’60s (one), ’70s (two) and ’80s (one). Few would argue it was ever fair, but Notre Dame was given preferential treatment, and it set a precedent that still exists. Nobody has benefited more from the crazy, nonsensical system of deciding national championships over the decades than Notre Dame. There was even a “Notre Dame exception” written into the rules of the Bowl Coalition (1992-94) and the Bowl Alliance (1995-97). These were special provisions, like a prescribed ranking and number of wins, that carved out a clear, easier path for them to one of the major bowls used to determine national champions. The old BCS (1998-2013) also had a special stipulation that awarded an autom…
This Saturday night, it’s not just a game between No. 2 and No. 8. It’s BYU’s chance to finally challenge a system that has historically favored Notre Dame, and for Marcus Freeman’s unbeaten Irish, it’s about proving they belong at the top without any asterisks. You just know this one is gonna be wild.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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