Notre Dame cornerback still sounds bitter about Miami's CFP bid

Notre Dame cornerback Leonard Moore said this week that the Fighting Irish are on a "revenge tour" after last season ended one spot short of the College Football Playoff. Moore pointed to Notre Dame's losses to Miami and Texas A&M as the source of that frustration, which is fair enough.

But he also described the Irish as being "excluded" from the CFP, which misses the point of what actually happened. Notre Dame did not have a playoff berth taken from them by some arbitrary opinion from the football minority. The Fighting Irish lost twice, including head-to-head against Miami, and got left home because they did not do enough to earn the final spot.

Notre Dame can only blame themselves for being "excluded"

Moore specifically pointed to the loss at Miami and the Week 3 loss to Texas A&M as the games that kept him awake. He also said, "We got to get back. We got to make it right from last year."

That is a good mindset for any athlete to have, and it sounds like he understands exactly where the season got away from ND. But it is also why the "excluded" quote is a mischaracterization of what actually happened.

Excluded suggests something was taken from Notre Dame. That is simply not what happened. The Irish opened 0-2, then spent the rest of the season trying to climb back into position. And to their credit, they got close, but it wasn't enough to finish the job.

Notre Dame had its chance, and Miami took the last spot

Miami finished No. 10 and Notre Dame finished No. 11 in the final committee rankings before the CFP.

CFP selection committee chairman Hunter Yurachek said that once Miami moved ahead of BYU and landed in a side-by-side comparison with Notre Dame, the two teams looked almost identical in schedule strength, common opponents and results against common opponents. The differentiator was the one thing Miami earned outright: the 27-24 win over Notre Dame on Aug. 31.

Miami then validated the committee's decision by making a run to the national championship game. By the time the season ended, nobody felt like ND was excluded or snubbed. Everybody felt like the committee made the correct call. And with what we know now, the committee makes that same choice 10 times out of 10.

So, Moore is well within his right to use last season as fuel, just like any competitor should. But, when reviewing the results from last season, nobody was excluded. Instead, every team that was included earned the right to be there within the rules of the sport.