Notre Dame thought it was too good for The Pop-Tarts Bowl.
The Fighting Irish opted not to play in the game, a wildly entertaining football spectacle. Sprinkles decorate helmets, sidelines, and end zones. The trophy doubles as an actual working toaster. After the game? Sacrificial deaths of the mascots. This year, Cookies & Cream, Protein Slammin’ Strawberry, and Cherry Pop-Tarts all appeared ready to be lowered into the toaster and then eaten by the victorious BYU Cougars — but Protein jumped off the platform and escaped.
Georgia Tech had so much fun preparing for the game that they brought together its student engineers, roboticists, and scientists to determine the best Pop-Tart flavor.
Yet, Notre Dame was too good for all these pastry shenanigans. The Fighting Irish were upset that they didn’t get in the College Football Playoff field over Miami, which had beaten them earlier in the season. So just like Slammin’ Strawberry, Notre Dame decided to run away.
BYU, also outside of the playoff, gladly accepted its invite. The Cougars rallied in the game to take down Georgia Tech, and coach Kalani Sitake joyfully smashed a Pop-Tart in celebration.
You would think the Pop-Tarts Bowl sacrificing someone, then having that person be reborn and consumed in celebration would be a natural fit for Notre Dame, but here we are.
Notre Dame is incapable of humbling itself. Their false sense of entitlement as the center of the college football universe will not allow it. Less than 24 hours after the Irish missed out on making the playoff and opting out of the delightful pastry sacrifice bowl game, Fighting Irish Athletic Director Pete Bevacqua worked overtime to let everyone know how unfair everything was and that the ACC had done “permanent damage” to its relationship.
Yes, he actually complained about ACC not promoting them — a non-member school — over one of its actual conference members. Hilarious.
If Bevacqua’s whining wasn’t enough, then came the announcement that a South Bend bookstore had canceled a book signing by Ivan Maisel because he was a member of the CFP Committee — ignoring the fact that he had written a wonderful book about the famed Fighting Irish coach Frank Leahy. Thankfully, someone stepped in and un-canceled it.
Then, we learned about a guarantee made to the Fighting Irish by the conferences; if the Irish are ranked in the Top 12 in a 12-team playoff starting next year, they automatically get a spot. That controversy has sparked reports that athletic directors from the larger conferences might freeze out Notre Dame on future schedules.
That sense of entitlement also played a role in Notre Dame and USC not being able to agree to continue their rivalry game. That contest had been played every year since 1946, except for the COVID year in 2020.
This program played in the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl just a few years ago. Why not the sprinkled field?
The story of college football itself cannot, and should not, be told without Notre Dame being front and center.
Knute Rockne, “The Four Horsemen,” Touchdown Jesus, “Rudy,” Catholic versus Convicts, the half-dozen or so legit national rivalries, and enough individual Heisman Trophy winners to field their very own 7-on-7 team.
There is no doubt that the Golden Domers are an integral thread in the fabric of college football, and when you walk on that campus and approach the stadium in South Bend, Indiana, you truly feel the history. It is a hallowed place.
The problem is, Notre Dame’s front-and-center status when it comes to football is almost entirely the product of history — the past — a past when the sport was still in its infancy.
Notre Dame has 11 claimed national titles, but seven of them occurred before 1950. In fact, only one has taken place in the past 48 years, and that took place in 1987 under legendary coach Lou Holtz. By the way, the list of perennial powerhouses that have won national titles since Notre Dame’s last one includes Georgia Tech, Colorado, Washington, and Tennessee.
Notre Dame essentially rolled up national titles in an era when titles were awarded before bowl games and often handed out by multiple organizations, when linemen weighed 210 pounds and wore leather helmets, and teams didn’t allow African-Americans to attend universities, much less play for said teams.
The same goes for Notre Dame’s Heisman winners, with six of them coming before 1964. The lone exception was Tim Brown striking the immortal pose in 1988 — a year after the Irish claimed its last national title.
In fact, most of the Irish’s rich history occurred before TV itself was even a reality. In the decades since, Notre Dame has lived off its reputation and history. It has consistently been regarded as one of college football’s top programs, despite its on-field results.
Before last year’s run to the national title game, the most memorable moments in Notre Dame’s modern history were the “Bush Push” game against rival USC (a defeat) and when the world discovered that Manti Te’o had been “Catfished.”
This is the program that believes it is too good for the Pop-Tarts Bowl? Seriously?
There is also the harsh reality that in the past 25 years, every time the Irish had a chance to write a championship chapter in their bloated historical ledger, they have gotten mollywhopped. From the start of the Bowl Championship Era through the College Football Playoff era, Notre Dame appeared in eight so-called “New Year’s Day Six” bowl games, which included CFP games and BCS National Championship Games.
The taking to behind the woodshed for beatings began with the 2001 Fiesta Bowl, which saw them get steamrolled 41-9 by football powerhouse Oregon State. Not the Nike-backed program with the 1,800 different flashy uniform combinations. Nope. The other team in the state was left behind in the corpse of the Pac-12.
There was also the 2007 Sugar Bowl, which saw LSU pound them into submission by the final score of 41-14, and being bullied by Alabama, 42-14, in the 2013 BCS National Championship Game.
The switch from BCS to CFP didn’t help the lopsided results either, as Clemson beat them 30-3 in the 2018 Cotton Bowl Classic and then Alabama routed them 31-14 in the 2021 Rose Bowl.
Notre Dame went 0-8 in marquee postseason games and lost by an average of 20 points. That’s nearly three touchdowns, and that is not how elite college football programs perform consistently on the biggest stage — but it is how a second-tier program does.
Supporters — both media and fans alike — will tell you that the Fighting Irish are a top brand. They will point to their independent nature. They will also point to the fact that Notre Dame has been on NBC for 35 years and that it is a huge draw, which applies to ticket sales but not television viewers.
This season, there was only one Fighting Irish game of the season — the stand-alone game on Labor Day against Miami — that made the Top 20 in most-viewed games this season.
In boycotting this game, Notre Dame showed its true colors as the most entitled program and fan base in college football. That says a lot considering Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan, and Texas exist.
Yes, last year was a great season for the program. Notre Dame overcame a historic home loss to Northern Illinois to go on a magical playoff run, which included taking down SEC powerhouse Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, edging out Penn State in the semifinals before falling short against Ohio State in the title game. It was a season in which Notre Dame changed the public sentiment against them for the better. They had a dynamic and likable head coach in Marcus Freeman, they played tough football, and it was all documented in an excellent docuseries on Peacock.
There is no doubt that Notre Dame was playing some of its best football of the season down the stretch this year and probably deserved a spot in the playoffs. But they got left out. It happens. It happened to Miami last year, and they still played in their bowl game — which was, you guessed it — the Pop-Tarts Bowl.
What Notre Dame and its fan base don’t realize is that college football doesn’t need them.
In the nearly four decades since Notre Dame last won a national title, every major powerhouse program has fallen on hard times. Due to NCAA violations, terrible coaching hires, headline-grabbing scandals, or a combination of all three.
Alabama, Nebraska, USC, Texas, Michigan, and others have also gone from the top of the mountain to fighting to earn a spot in a second-tier bowl game.
Did college football decline? Was the sport put on life support? No. It not only survived, but thrived. So much so that it has become a billion-dollar behemoth.
So why does Notre Dame think that the sport can’t live without them?
Maybe Notre Dame wasn’t too good for the Pop-Tarts Bowl; maybe the game was too good for the Fighting Irish.
Raymond Partsch III is the co-host of “RP3 & Meche” which is broadcast weekdays (11-1) on ESPN 103.7 Lafayette and 104.1 Lake Charles — Southwest Louisiana’s Sports Station.
