Whatever decisions the College Football Playoff selection committee eventually make, there seems to always be some form of controversy, and the 2025 bracket was no different after a consequential decision between Miami and Notre Dame.

With that controversy in mind, ESPN college football announcer Chris Fowler believes the playoff format and selection process could undergo yet more reform in the future.

More change could be on the way

“This is a bracket that’s going to be talked about forever. And not just because Notre Dame got excluded. But because of the framework that created the choices that the committee had to make,” Fowler said on Sunday’s selection show.

Fowler pointed to the “tweak” the College Football Playoff made a year ago, when it ended the confusing distinction between seeding and ranking, and believes another structural alteration could follow after this year’s dilemma.

“There’s going to be something more than a tweak going forward because all of a sudden, inclusivity, which most people in the sport think is a pretty good idea…

“Inclusivity sounds good until teams like Notre Dame and Texas and Vanderbilt get squeezed out. Then people have a serious problem with it.” he said.

Notre Dame felt it coming

Schools take a brave face in public when they have a chance to make the playoff, but the reality behind the scenes is often a little more nerve-racking.

Fowler added: “This is one we’re going to talk about for a long, long time. If you’re Notre Dame, you’re crushed. They were worried about this.” 

“I know they projected confidence, but there was a lot of unease on the part of Marcus Freeman and others because they saw them drop last week and now in consecutive weeks without playing, they have dropped in the rankings. And it ends up costing them despite a 10-game winning streak to finish the season.” 

Miami over Notre Dame was the right call

Notre Dame had been ranked ahead of Miami in the College Football Playoff rankings until Selection Day itself, when they swapped the Irish for the lower-ranked Hurricanes at the most crucial moment.

Still, despite whatever criticism there may be around the selectors’ decision-making process or timing, what happened on the field still should trump everything else, the ESPN veteran says.

“I have no problem with Miami getting in based on the head-to-head, even though it was early in the season,” Fowler said. 

“They won that game at the line of scrimmage… That was real. It was a late field goal that won it, but it still matters. And I think has to matter, or there’s no incentive to schedule any kind of meaningful non-conference game. 

“That’s not the committee’s job to protect that, or the committee’s job to protect with a sentimental eye [the] conference championship games, but those are also in danger, as we know, going forward.”

Read more from College Football HQ

The Iowa State Cyclones will not play a postseason bowl game after all.

Iowa State (8-4) has reportedly declined a bowl bid as the program moves immediately into a coaching transition that accelerated this week, multiple people familiar with the situation told On3.

The decision arrived after Matt Campbell accepted the Penn State job, and Iowa State named Washington State’s Jimmy Rogers to replace him.

The Sun Belt fined Marshall $100,000 after it withdrew from the Independence Bowl in 2024 because of a mass player exodus.

The Big 12 itself has fined member schools previously in 2025 for other infractions, so financial penalties or public reprimands are within the conference’s authority.

The Big 12 will formally review Iowa State’s decision and consult with bowl partners to determine a potential fine or punishment. 

The Cyclones opened the 2025 season 5-0 and at one point reached the national rankings, but a four-game midseason slide pushed them off that path.

The team recovered with late wins over TCU, Kansas, and Oklahoma State and reached bowl eligibility with a 20-17 road victory at TCU on November 8.

The season finished at 8-4 overall and 5-4 in conference play.

The reported decision to decline a bowl is tied directly to off-field upheaval.

Campbell’s move to Penn State and the subsequent arrival of Rogers left Iowa State confronting immediate questions about who would coach a bowl game, which assistants would stay for postseason preparation, and how roster availability might be affected amid late-season transfers and staff turnover.

Initial reporting cites those uncertainties, along with the program’s desire to pivot quickly toward building for 2026, as the rationale for opting out.

This choice comes on the heels of a similar development earlier in the week: Kansas State, another bowl-eligible Big 12 team, informed the conference it would not accept a bowl invite.

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• Andy Reid reportedly involved in coaching candidate rejecting Penn State

The College Football Playoff has changed basically everything about college football. If there was any doubt on that front, Sunday’s bowl selection situation provided plenty of proof. Several lower-tier power conference teams turned down bowls, leading to several previously ineligible 5-7 teams being offered bowls only for those teams to turn down bowls. But that whole fiasco was a relatively minor issue compared with the day’s biggest story.

Booger McFarland Goes Old School

While ESPN analyst Booger McFarland has covered college football for over a decade and a half and is aware of all the new shifts in the game, he is at heart still something of an old-school guy. Behind the successful broadcaster lies a nasty former defensive lineman who is nicknamed “Booger” after all. And McFarland’s sensibilities were justly set askew by the Notre Dame Fighiting Irish.

Notre Dame Drops Out

After being the first team out of the College Football Playoff field, Notre Dame turned down an opportunity to play in a bowl game. Reportedly offered a slot in the Pop Tarts Bowl against a BYU team that was the second team out of the CFP field, the Irish instead decided to take their metaphorical ball and go home. Enter Booger with some truth bombs.

Booger’s Thoughts

McFarland elaborated in another Tweet, stating, “I understand Notre Dame being upset about the playoff but to throw a pity party and not play in a bowl game is quite a new precedent for a 10-2 football team.” In yet another Tweet, he sarcastically suggested that Notre Dame’s behavior was “really teaching the kids a great lesson.”

Florida State Stayed In

This situation is virtually unprecedented. In 2023, an undefeated Florida State team was turned down by the then-four team CFP. Amid much hand-wringing, No. 5 Florida State ended up in the Orange Bowl, where they (without starting QB Jordan Travis due to injury) were waxed 63-3 by Georgia. That said, embrassing as that performance was, Florida State did show up and play the game.

Other Bowl Dropouts

Kansas State and Iowa State also both turned down bowl bids. 8-4 Iowa State is in the midst of a coaching transition after Matt Campbell headed to Penn State and new coach Jimmy Rogers is newly hired. Likewise, Kansas State saw Chris Kleiman retire and Collin Klein begin his own tenure. Both schools were reportedly fined $500,000 by the Big 12 for turning down bowl bids.

No other team has had the audacity to say “CFP or bust” like Notre Dame. Whatever tweaks the CFP will make after a controversial season, to have teams diving out of bowls over a perceived slight is an issue that will certainly be considered. It doesn’t sound like Booger McFarland will forget Notre Dame’s decision anytime soon.

There was no way everyone was going to be happy with the final College Football Playoff rankings. In the wake of the conference championship games, it was clear that three teams, Notre Dame, Miami, and Alabama, were competing for two at-large spots. In the end, it was the Irish who got left out.

In the wake of that snub, Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua ripped the selection committee, calling the rankings an “absolute joke.” Further, he’d add that the program is shocked to be left as the First Team Out.

“My feelings and the feelings here are just shock and, really, an absolute sense of sadness for our student-athletes,” Pete Bevacqua told Yahoo Sports on Sunday. “Overwhelming shock and sadness. Like a collective feeling that we were all just punched in the stomach.”

Notre Dame had entered the weekend ranked ahead of Miami, despite losing to the Hurricanes in Week 1. At No. 10 and with the Hurricanes at No. 12, the Irish sat right on the cut line. That all changed over the weekend, as BYU lost, dropping them in the rankings. That led to a direct comparison between Notre Dame and Miami, which is when head-to-head finally became a factor. Meanwhile, Alabama lost over the weekend but didn’t slip from No. 9 at all.

For Notre Dame and Bevacqua, it was inexplicable. In fact, the College Football Playoff even feels stolen to them.

“There is no explanation that could possibly be given to explain the outcome,” Bevacqua said. “As I said to Marcus [Freeman], one thing is for sure: Any rankings or show prior to this last one is an absolute joke and a waste of time. Why put these young student-athletes through these false emotions just to pull the rug out from underneath them having not played a game in two weeks and then a group of people in a room shatter their dreams without explanation? We feel like the Playoff was stolen from our student-athletes.”

Hunter Yurachek, the chair of the selection committee, spoke on ESPN shortly after the rankings came out as well. There, he did his best to explain the decision-making process.

“The first move in that (decision-making process) was we felt like the way BYU performed in their (Big 12) championship game with a second loss to Texas Tech in a similar fashion was worthy of Miami moving of them in the rankings. And once we moved Miami ahead of BYU, then we had that side-by-side comparison that everybody has been hungering for with Notre Dame and Miami,” Yurachek said on ESPN.

“And when you looked at those teams on paper, they’re almost equal in their schedule strength, their common opponent, the results against their common opponent. But the one metric that we had to fall back on again was the head to head. I charged the committee members to go back and watch that game again, the Miami-Notre Dame game because it was so far back, and we got some interesting debate from our coaches on what that game looked like as they watched it. With that in mind, we gave Miami the nod over Notre Dame in that 10^th spot.”

ESPN’s Rece Davis would counter, wondering why this was the first time head-to-head seemed to matter in this discussion. However, again, Yurachek explained it wasn’t discussed until BYU fell from No. 11, making them directly next to one another in the rankings. That process would seemingly become the issue that Davis took issue with. Given that Bevacqua feels the Playoff was stolen from Notre Dame, it appears that frustration isn’t unique to him.

Bevacqua would go on to explain to ESPN that there is frustration with the process. On top of that, they’ve not yet considered what their bowl future is going to look like.

It is easy to point to big NIL deals as an excuse for why Kentucky players don’t appear to be fully invested in the effort department as of late. I know I’m certainly guilty of it. Kentucky’s extremely high payroll is low-hanging fruit as to why this team looks like it would rather be doing anything else than playing basketball with each other.

After every embarrassing loss (the likes of which keep piling up), the term “$22 million!” gets thrown around not only from fans of opposing teams mocking Kentucky, but also from within Big Blue Nation, embarrassed that this staff appears to have totally botched their epically large piggy bank.

However, I’m not talking about the roster construction aspect of NIL frustration. Assembling basketball pieces that don’t fit is its own gigantic problem, but oftentimes, fans place blame on players’ paychecks for their lack of hustle.

The argument goes something like, “Why would that player dive on the ball for a loose ball when they are being paid a couple of million dollars?”

But the money is far from the issue.

It ain’t about the money

As Jessie J says, it’s not about the money. Former Kentucky backup point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander signed a $285 million dollar contract this summer, a number far exceeding anything these Kentucky players (or most humans) will ever see, and that doesn’t stop him from playing hard every night and leading his team to an NBA record-setting 22-1 start.

But even if you dismiss this hyperbolic analogy and call it an unfair comparison to liken college role guys to one of the biggest stars on the planet, look at any of the many other transfer portal rent-a-players and elite freshmen who are getting paid big bucks. Take your pick. Most of them don’t seem to be having a problem leaving it all on the line every night and winning along the way.

If this were the issue, what is the fix for this? Pay less? If a player only gets paid $500,000 instead of $1,000,000, is he going to be more motivated to hustle? To give effort? To show more pride in wearing the name Kentucky across his chest?

I don’t have that kind of money, but I don’t buy that argument. At some point, it’s not the money. It is the personalities to whom you gave the money in the first place.

Oh, and coaching too

The blame doesn’t stop with the players. There is clearly a disconnect between the coaching staff and the group of guys they handpicked to wear the Kentucky jersey. Mark Pope makes more than twice as much money as any particular player, and while it is impossible to judge effort as he stands stoically, arms crossed, on the sidelines, his post-game press conferences would suggest he cares deeply. However, he also seems lost on how to motivate his team to care.

Money doesn’t factor into poor coaching just like it doesn’t factor into poor play. However, it would be that expectations and promises associated with money do.

Mark Pope’s relentless positivity is one of his more endearing traits, but is it possible his sunshine-pumping is coming back to haunt him? Everyone spun the fact that Kentucky’s roster was 12-plus players deep as a good problem to have, but if you tell each one of them about how big a role they will play and compensate them accordingly, promises will inevitably be broken.

It’s just math. There are only 200 minutes to be played in every basketball game. Kentucky averages 72 possessions per game. Not everyone can play 30 minutes and get up 10 shots. I’m not in the recruiting room with Mark Pope, so I can only speculate as to what he is promising recruits and portal transfers, but big money often comes with big player expectations, at least in players’ eyes, and when those expectations become incompatible with reality, egos get bruised and frustration kicks in.

Ultimately, this is all just an attempt to grasp at straws. Money, expectations, chemistry, personalities, coaching, whatever. Fans and (unfortunately) coaches are searching for answers, and as of now, there is one to be found.