Irish 'byes

 So Notre Dame got squeezed out of the College Football Playoff, which is either insufferable elitists finally getting theirs (the anti-Domer version), or (the Domer version), a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham.*

(*Woody Allen, "Bananas")

Me?

I blame Stanford.

If the Cardinal hadn't been such a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a football team, see, Notre Dame wouldn't have somehow skidded from ninth in the CFP poll to out of the CFP  without even playing last weekend. Which means Notre Dame 49, Stanford 20 nine days ago was  the last the CFP selectors got to see of Marcus Freeman's lads.

What that says to me is the Cardinal simply was not good enough for Notre Dame to impress anyone with a mere 29-point tool-up. Thus, it's all Stanford's fault.

But enough about that.

Enough about the Irish getting elbowed out of the CFP by a three-loss Alabama team, which got thoroughly paved by Georgia in the SEC championship game two days ago. Clearly rushing for minus-3 yards against the Bulldogs carried great weight with the selectors.

More shocking (and unsettling) than that is what the Irish did next: Turn down a projected Pop-Tarts Bowl bid to play BYU, the other first-team-out in the CFP voting yesterday. This followed on the heels of Kansas State and Iowa State declining to play in Big 12-affiliated bowls because both just lost their head coaches -- a move that prompted the conference to fine both schools half-a-million dollars.

In Notre Dame's case, the anti-Domer crowd immediately seized on this as proof Notre Dame is a hotbed of crybabyin' snots who, because they didn't get their way, decided to take their ball and go home. Hey, we're NOTRE DAME. We don't play in loser bowl games like the Pop-Tart Bowl (even though Pop-Tarts are delicious). If we can't play in the Big Show, we're not playin' in any show.

Or something like that.

What I think is the anti-Domers are missing the larger point, which is that the advent and expansion of the CFP has rendered moot every bowl game except those folded into the CFP. Really, what does a Kansas State or Iowa State, let alone Notre Dame, have to gain by playing in a Pop-Tarts Bowl? Or a Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl, a Tony The Tiger Sun Bowl, a Scooter's Coffee Frisco Bowl or a Bucked Up LA Bowl?

(All of which are real bowl games, by the way. Come on, you think I could make up something called the Bucked Up LA Bowl?)

Every one of these bowls is not so much a reward for that glorious 6-6 season, but an occasion for Directional Hyphen State to spend a bunch of money it likely could use to build up its NIL war chest. And this is truth squared for a school like Notre Dame, which is both insulated and increasingly isolated by its independent status and the NBC contract that fuels it.

That status, and that longstanding deal, means Notre Dame does not have to revenue share like the Power 4 conference schools do. Notre Dame's loot is all Notre Dame's, and it's the main reason -- plus the cushy arrangement it has with the ACC -- football has never found it necessary to join a conference. Why split the take when you can keep it all and still kinda-sorta play a conference schedule?

But as yesterday's snub illustrates, circumstances are catching up with the Irish. They may still have the clout to carve out their own CFP status, but joining a conference now has advantages it didn't before. Had ND played in a conference championship game Saturday, for instance -- this team, playing the quality of football it's playing right now -- is there any doubt it would be one of the 12 CFP qualifiers, instead of looking on from outside the gates?

I mean, look what it did for Alabama. Even though the Tide got rolled.

Instead, the CFP said 'bye to the Irish -- and then the Irish said 'bye to the loss leader every bowl game outside the CFP has become.

A strange new world. And getting stranger.