Notre Dame Athletic Director Pete Bevacqua took aim at the conference with which his school shares a partial football membership and full membership in two dozen other sports, claiming that his program “felt targeted by the ACC.”
“I would tell you, we have the utmost respect for the universities in the ACC,” Bevacqua told reporters Monday afternoon. “It’s not about the universities. But what we were surprised and disappointed by was the way the ACC went on a social media campaign attacking our football program.
“Why would you attack an important business partner? I don’t see the logic in that.”
As for mending ties between the Irish and the ACC, including a formal apology from the conference, don’t count on that happening any time soon.
“To be quite frank, I don’t think an apology does anything. At the right time, we’ll sit down with the ACC and have a productive conversation. That time is not right now.”
Perhaps more foreboding about the future of the Notre Dame-ACC relationship than anything Bevacqua said during his press conference were his comments on the Notre Dame podcast The Echoes, where he said that the ACC’s actions had “gotten the attention of people far more important” at Notre Dame than himself, and that there would be “consequences and repercussions” as a result.
In his opening statement, Bevacqua echoed the frustrations that he expressed on Sunday after the committee announced that Notre Dame would not be included in this year’s playoff. Saying that he, Irish head coach Marcus Freeman, and the players felt “mystified” and “shocked” at being excluded from the 12-team bracket after having led Miami in the committee rankings for the entire year, and Alabama, up until the penultimate week of the rankings.
“It boggles my mind that when we stepped off that plane after the Stanford game, our season was over. We are one of the handful of teams that can win the national championship this year.”
Bevacqua stressed that the CFP’s rejection, though unfortunate, had reinvigorated head coach Marcus Freeman’s preparations for Notre Dame’s 2026 season.
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