Big 12 commish: Irish AD’s behavior ‘egregious’

Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark took issue Tuesday with Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua’s criticism this week of the ACC, calling his behavior “egregious.”

After Notre Dame was left out of the College Football Playoff field in favor of Miami, who had a head-to-head win over the Fighting Irish, Bevacqua accused the ACC of favoring the Hurricanes over his school on social media and in league programming.

Yormark, speaking at the Sports Business Journal’s Intercollegiate Athletics Forum on Tuesday, took aim at Bevacqua, saying Bevacqua “is totally out of bounds in his approach, and if he was in the room, I’d tell him the same thing.”

All of Notre Dame’s varsity sports other than football (which is an independent) and men’s hockey are members of the ACC. Since 2014, Notre Dame football and the ACC have had a scheduling partnership in which the Irish play at least five ACC opponents per season.

Bevacqua has criticized the ACC in multiple media appearances since Notre Dame’s CFP omission, including earlier Tuesday, when during a news conference he alleged the conference orchestrated a sustained, targeted social media campaign against the Irish program.

ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said in a statement Monday that the conference stands behind its efforts “to support and advocate for all 17 of our football-playing member institutions.”

Yormark said Tuesday that he doesn’t like how Notre Dame has responded and said the ACC “saved” it in 2020 when the Irish played a 10-game ACC schedule during COVID. They went 9-0 in league play that year, before losing in the league championship game in a rematch to Clemson, but still were selected as the No. 4 seed in the four-team College Football Playoff, where they lost in the semifinals to Alabama.

Yormark said CFP chair Hunter Yurachek was transparent about the committee’s logic.

“I think Pete’s, his behavior has been egregious,” Yormark said. “It’s been egregious going after Jim Phillips, when they saved Notre Dame during COVID. … The chair said that as Notre Dame and Miami got closer together, head-to-head would be a factor, OK?”

Yormark noted that one of his own Big 12 teams, BYU, also was excluded from the CFP based on the committee’s criteria despite going 11-2, with its only losses to No. 4 Texas Tech, once in November and again Saturday in the Big 12 championship game.

“BYU lost,” Yormark said. “They became closer together, [and] head-to-head made a difference in that decision.”