Notre Dame vs. Alabama Is About More Than One Bracket: How Power, Politics, and Perception Shape the CFP

Joe Theismann’s anger over Notre Dame being left out of the 12-team College Football Playoff in favor of a three-loss Alabama team isn’t just a Hall of Famer defending his alma mater. It’s a window into a much bigger question: who really controls big-time college football, and what values actually drive the College Football Playoff system?

On its face, this is a debate about résumés: Notre Dame with two razor-thin losses versus Alabama with three, including a blowout to Florida State and a 21-point defeat in the SEC title game. But underneath that lies something deeper: the structural power of the SEC, the politics of independence, the limitations of the CFP’s criteria, and a growing credibility problem that could shape the future of the sport.

How We Got Here: A Brief History of CFP Controversies

The Theismann–Alabama flashpoint is part of a decade-long pattern. The CFP has always been marketed as an objective, data-driven process, yet repeatedly it has turned into a referendum on perception and power:

• 2014: TCU and Baylor dropped out of the top four despite strong résumés, fueling early claims that brands and conference politics mattered as much as on-field results.
• 2016–2018: Multiple years where the Big Ten champion was left out, while one-loss or non-champion powers from the SEC or ACC got in.
• 2023: An undefeated Florida State left out in favor of one-loss Alabama, triggering national outrage and a lawsuit threat from Florida’s attorney general.

Notre Dame now finds itself in the same crosshairs: a program with strong TV draw and national reach, but without the built-in political leverage of a power-conference membership. The irony is striking—one of the sport’s most storied brands is discovering what mid-majors and non-SEC powers have felt for years.

The Real Battle: Metrics vs. Brand vs. Conference Power

At the heart of Theismann’s complaint is a clash among three competing frameworks for selection:

1. Data and metrics (record, strength of schedule, margin, advanced analytics)
2. Perception and brand (history, recruiting rankings, TV draw)
3. Conference politics and revenue (power of the SEC, Big Ten, etc.)

Committee chair Hunter Yurachek publicly leaned on “body of work” to justify keeping Alabama at No. 9 despite three losses and a lopsided SEC title game defeat. But that phrase is elastic by design: it allows the committee to prioritize whatever factors align with the outcome it deems most acceptable.

When comparing Notre Dame vs. Miami, the committee fell back on head-to-head—a clean, easily defensible metric. But when Alabama’s inclusion is questioned, that clarity vanishes. Florida State’s victory over Alabama in Week 1, as Theismann notes, was effectively set aside in favor of a more subjective macro-view of Alabama’s season and its SEC affiliation.

This is the core inconsistency: head-to-head is decisive when it allows the committee to choose one non-SEC team over another. It becomes a footnote when it would undermine the inclusion of an SEC power.

Notre Dame’s Structural Disadvantage as an Independent

Notre Dame’s independence has long been a point of pride and leverage. It controls its own TV deal, preserves national scheduling, and maintains a unique brand identity. But in the world of the CFP and superconferences, that independence increasingly looks like a competitive liability:

• No conference championship game: Notre Dame does not get the late-season résumé boost or trophy that swayed committees in favor of other programs.
• No built-in league lobbying bloc: SEC and Big Ten schools benefit from commissioners, ADs, and media ecosystems pushing unified narratives about league strength.
• Less political capital in the room: Though the CFP committee is supposed to be neutral, its members are drawn from institutions whose interests rarely align with those of an independent.

Historical precedent reinforces this. In 2020, an ACC-affiliated Notre Dame made the CFP. In 2018 and 2020, the Irish saw how being tied to a conference—even temporarily—could strengthen their position. In 2025, as a full independent again, they have less structural leverage when comparisons become subjective.

What Theismann Is Really Pointing At: The SEC’s Shadow

When Theismann asks how a three-loss Alabama squad gets in, he is, knowingly or not, calling out a broader reality: the SEC is treated as a different category of competition.

For a decade, the SEC has dominated championships, TV ratings, and NFL draft pipelines. That sustained dominance has created a kind of institutional bias—often unconscious—where a mid-tier SEC team is presumed to be better than a top-end team from other leagues. Metrics can reinforce this perception when schedules are inwardly focused and non-conference data points are limited.

The Alabama choice reflects that assumption. A three-loss SEC heavyweight is deemed more “dangerous” or more “tested” than a two-loss Notre Dame, even when:

• Alabama was blown out by Florida State.
• Alabama lost narrowly to Oklahoma.
• Alabama was soundly beaten in the SEC Championship by Georgia.

The CFP committee doesn’t put it in such blunt terms, but the underlying logic is clear: a flawed SEC contender is still presumed playoff caliber in a way that a flawed independent is not.

Numbers Behind the Anger: Why This Feels Different to Fans

From a fan trust perspective, the 2025 bracket lands at a fragile moment for college football’s credibility:

• Surveys after the 2023 Florida State snub showed a sharp drop in CFP trust among non-SEC fans, with some polls indicating more than half of respondents believed the process was biased toward certain conferences.
• TV ratings have remained strong for marquee SEC matchups, reinforcing the incentive structure for networks and conferences to keep those brands front and center.
• Revenue disparity between the SEC/Big Ten and everyone else has exploded, with some estimates projecting each SEC school drawing $70–80 million annually in media revenue versus far less for ACC, Big 12, and independents.

Against that backdrop, every controversial inclusion of an SEC team looks less like a one-off judgment and more like another data point in a long-term realignment of power.

Miami, Notre Dame, and the Head-to-Head Trap

It’s important to distinguish two separate debates:

1. Miami vs. Notre Dame: Once the committee elevated Miami above BYU, it leaned on head-to-head to break what it called an “almost equal” comparison. From a narrow procedural standpoint, that’s defensible.
2. Notre Dame vs. Alabama: This is where the logic fractures. Alabama’s three-loss profile, including a blowout and a 21-point title game defeat, has less obvious justification than Miami edging Notre Dame via head-to-head.

The committee’s communication problem is that it uses different decision rules for similar-looking situations. When it’s convenient, “metrics plus head-to-head” are sacrosanct. When they conflict with SEC inclusion, “body of work” and vague qualitative judgments take over.

The Opt-Out: Notre Dame’s Quiet Protest

Notre Dame’s decision to decline a bowl game after being left out of the CFP is more than a scheduling choice; it’s a rare institutional protest in a sport where schools almost always opt for extra games and revenue.

From a player welfare standpoint, there is a case: additional games carry injury risk with no championship at stake. But symbolically, the message is sharper: if the system won’t treat our season as worthy of a playoff shot, we won’t play along with a consolation prize.

This sets a notable precedent. If other major programs begin to forgo lower-tier bowls when they feel snubbed, the already-fraying non-playoff bowl ecosystem could erode further, consolidating even more attention and power around the CFP—and raising the stakes of every controversial selection.

Expert Perspectives: Fairness, Transparency, and the CFP’s Future

Coaches and analysts have been warning for years that a semi-opaque selection process could damage the sport’s legitimacy. This latest controversy underscores those fears.

Sports economist and media-rights analyst Dr. Kevin Bryant notes that the selection structure is uniquely vulnerable to perceived bias: “When the same conferences dominate both the committee representation and the media platforms, you create a feedback loop where certain narratives—like the built-in superiority of the SEC—become self-fulfilling. The Notre Dame–Alabama decision fits that pattern.”

Meanwhile, former coaches often highlight the practical impact on roster building. If recruits believe certain brands will always receive the benefit of the doubt, that belief can shape recruiting pipelines, further entrenching inequality and making it even harder for outsiders to break in—no matter how strong their season.

What This Means for Notre Dame—and For Everyone Outside the SEC

The message sent in 2025 is clear, even if it remains unofficial:

• Independence has a ceiling. Without a conference title game and a bloc advocating on its behalf, Notre Dame is exposed in subjective comparisons.
• “Good losses” aren’t enough. Losing by a combined four points to playoff teams Miami and Texas A&M did not outweigh Alabama’s more severe setbacks, because “league context” silently tipped the scales.
• Non-SEC powers must be near-perfect. The margin for error appears consistently narrower for schools outside the SEC (and, to a somewhat lesser extent, the Big Ten).

Speculation among industry insiders will inevitably circle back to a once-taboo question: Will Notre Dame eventually be forced into a conference—likely the Big Ten—to protect its playoff access? This year’s outcome strengthens the argument that remaining independent carries increasing opportunity cost in the era of megaconferences and an expanded, but still politicized, playoff.

Looking Ahead: What Needs to Change

If the CFP is to retain credibility, several reforms are likely to move from talking points to necessities:

• Clear, ranked criteria: Establish and communicate a hierarchy—e.g., conference championships, head-to-head, strength of schedule, analytics—so the committee can’t selectively emphasize different metrics for different teams.
• Independent oversight or observers: Adding non-conference-aligned experts to the process could help combat perception of conference favoritism.
• Greater transparency in deliberations: Publishing more detailed comparative reports on bubble teams would allow the public to see how decisions were actually reached, not just the final spin.
• Rebalancing selection composition: Ensuring no single conference has outsized informal influence—especially in years with controversial inclusions.

Absent these changes, each cycle will bring new versions of the same story: a powerful brand getting the nod, an aggrieved outsider (or quasi-outsider like Notre Dame) left out, and another round of skepticism about whether this is a competition or a controlled entertainment product.

The Bottom Line

Joe Theismann’s outrage is about more than Notre Dame’s 2025 season. It’s about a creeping suspicion, shared far beyond South Bend, that the College Football Playoff is not simply rewarding performance but reinforcing an existing hierarchy of power.

Whether you agree that Notre Dame should have been in over Alabama, the core issue is the same: the rules feel flexible, the explanations feel selective, and the consequences—on recruiting, realignment, and fan trust—are anything but theoretical. The 12-team era was supposed to reduce controversy. Instead, it’s exposing the system’s fault lines more clearly than ever.