How Notre Dame should fit itself into the Wild West of college football | Telander

Notre Dame, I actually feel sorry for you. I do.

You think you’re a better football team than Tulane (the mighty Green Wave)? Better than James Madison (a.k.a.: "Father of the Constitution")?

Well, you are. Those two teams lost their first-round games in the College Football Playoff tournament by a combined 48 points to Ole Miss and Oregon. I’m guessing the Irish would have done about the same to either loser.

But as Notre Dame screamed and hollered and rent its clothes for being left out of the 12-team tourney, for not even getting a chance to prove its worth, it really had nobody to blame but itself. 

This is the Wild West of professional college football, people. Young pros. Figure it out. It was declared by the Supreme Court after decades of baloney. It’s the arms race and gold rush and nuclear fission mad dash all at once without apparent laws, ethical boundaries or even flashing yellow lights, just the pursuit of talent, fame, money, power, and wins. Get some.

Sound familiar? Kind of like U.S. politics? Ha.

The haphazard "rules" of the playoff stipulate that a "committee" – Oh boy, is that a loaded term – picks the top 12 teams in the country, comprised of the five highest-ranked conference champions and seven at large teams. Notre Dame has chosen, of its own accord and nobody else’s, not to be in a conference.

Thus, the Irish can’t be a conference champion. It has to be an at large bid.

When it lost its first two games of the season — read, 0-2 — whatever Notre Dame did afterward, even winning 10 in a row, which it did, was almost useless. That first loss was to Miami, and no matter how much Notre Dame progressed or annihilated foes, that could not be undone.

There are several answers to this dilemma. First, don’t lose. Second, don’t beat — don’t schedule — teams like Navy, Syracuse, Stanford, North Carolina State. Third, join a conference. Fourth, beat the top teams you play, i.e: Miami and Texas A&M. Fifth, wait until the CFP expands to 16 teams, then 24.

Sixth, and most important, figure out what you’re involved in. 

Need I repeat? This is the Wild West, where the marshals and judges and jails haven’t shown up or been built yet. Seen one of those old Westerns where the rich bad guys run the town, the banks, the herds, the land until justice and dignity arrive? There’s your NCAA right now, folks.

In a nutshell: You want a great team? Buy one. 

I admire Notre Dame for its collegial integrity and educational seriousness and campus spirit. But seven of the 12 quarterbacks in the 2025 football tournament came to their teams through the portal, meaning they were bought. 

The past four quarterbacks to win the Heisman Trophy started at one school and moved to another. We love upstart Indiana, never a football power, being undefeated and ranked No. 1. And it’s great that the Hoosiers’ quarterback and Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza is smart and excitable and coachable and praises God to the heavens.

But he was the starter at Cal last year, and it appears his reported $2 million payout at Indiana might have something to do with his transfer. And why wouldn’t it? We should have dispensed with the mythic glory of so-called amateurism long ago. If you could finish college as a multi-millionaire, wouldn’t you do it? Should coaches be the only rich guys in a sport they don’t even play?

Get this: Oregon’s defensive coordinator, Tosh Lupoi, no higher than the third man on the Ducks’ totem pole, has a $2 million salary. Texas Tech’s player payroll is $25 million. A dozen head coaches make $10 million or more.

Texas, Texas A&M and TCU, and even back-from-the-death-penalty SMU, are watching what Tech did with its wallet. They’re furious, ready to start the old-school Texas oil-money dance once again, this time above the table.

It’s like a Dan Jenkins novel come to life, like Big Bob Bookman saying of a criminal recruit he wants for his beloved Horned Frogs, "Hell, we’ll buy him his own 7-Eleven, so he can rob it whenever he wants."

The portal starts anew on Jan. 2., meaning almost every star college player is in play. Notre Dame, what should you do? Need we say more?

Of course, there is danger here. There is always danger in a race for the top. If you want to play with the big boys— the legacy cutthroats like Ohio State and LSU and Alabama and Michigan and Georgia — be ready. 

The University of Colorado is a cautionary tale. It went out of its mind in 2023, sold its soul and integrity to slick-talking mercenary Deion Sanders, who came in with his two sons and eventual Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter, won for a while, then started losing. Now, signed to a five-year contract worth at least $50 million, he has the athletic department on the hook for a projected fiscal year deficit of $26 million.

Real guidelines will come to college sports someday. But they’re not here yet. 

Enjoy and good luck and beware.

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