Notre Dame’s Systemic Privileges Under Fire as BYU Awaits Long-Overdue Clash

If you need another reason to cheer against Notre Dame in Saturday night’s highly anticipated matchup against BYU, you have plenty of historical context to consider. The Fighting Irish enter the season unbeaten in five games and ranked second in the nation. Regardless of the outcome against BYU, Notre Dame appears virtually certain to qualify for the College Football Playoff, benefitting from a system widely perceived as heavily slanted in their favor. College football’s playoff structure has effectively granted the Irish a discount pass, allowing them to bypass the standard competitive hurdles faced by other programs.

A brief historical perspective is necessary to understand this dynamic. Since the days of early stadium seating and legendary coach Knute Rockne, Notre Dame has been treated as college football’s favored child. Decades after their era of dominance has passed, the sport’s governing powers continue to coddle the program, acting as if the legendary coach were still at the helm.

A century ago, Notre Dame cultivated a massive, enduring fan base. The Irish became iconic figures through legendary players and coaches, boasting seven Heisman Trophy winners, eleven national championships, and a cultural footprint that inspired Hollywood films. In the 1920s and 1930s, Rockne, a master strategist and promoter, took the team on national train tours, transforming games into major media events. He established a traveling press box, invited top writers to travel with the team, and utilized newsreel cameras at every stop, ensuring the Irish were a national spectacle.

As a traveling football circus, Notre Dame won national championships across multiple decades, including the 1920s, 30s, 40s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. While the level of competition was often debated, the preferential treatment set a lasting precedent. Over the decades, no other program has benefited more from the inconsistent and often nonsensical methods of determining national champions than Notre Dame.

This preferential status was formalized in the rules of the Bowl Coalition and Bowl Alliance in the 1990s, featuring special provisions that created an easier path to major bowls. Under the subsequent Bowl Championship Series (BCS) system, Notre Dame was uniquely granted an automatic bid to BCS bowls if they finished in the top eight, a stipulation awarded to no other school.

Most recently, in the spring of 2025, a Memorandum of Understanding was established, taking effect in 2026. This agreement stipulates that Notre Dame need only finish in the top twelve of the final rankings to automatically qualify for the national playoff. In contrast, all other teams must either win one of the four Power conference championships or secure the highest ranking among the Group of Five conferences, with only six at-large berths available. Furthermore, unlike other major programs, the Irish do not belong to a conference, meaning they are exempt from playing a demanding conference schedule or a conference championship game. This independent status is not merely tolerated by the College Football Playoff; it is actively accommodated.

This independent scheduling advantage allows the Irish to carefully select their opponents. This season, they have faced a series of moderately competitive teams, outscoring their opponents by a combined score of 272 to 66, averaging 33 points per game. The Irish have won sixteen consecutive games by double digits dating back to last season, and in 2024, they advanced to the national championship game, ultimately falling to Ohio State.

It is a highly advantageous arrangement, particularly for a program that has not secured a national title since 1988. The irony is sharp: when the Irish were excluded from the playoff last year without the benefit of the special Memorandum of Understanding, they opted out of their scheduled bowl game entirely. Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua publicly criticized the selection process, calling it “a farce and total waste of time,” and claiming the playoff was “stolen” from their student-athletes, despite years of systemic advantages.

On Saturday, the Irish will finally face BYU in a contest that should have taken place ten months ago, offering a platform to test the limits of this long-standing privilege.

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