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Kirk Herbstreit did not hold back on critiquing Notre Dame’s college football schedule this season.
During an appearance on ESPN’s “Get Up” on Friday, Herbstreit tore into Norte Dame’s lack of tough opponents this year, calling the program’s schedule an “embarrassment.”
“Notre Dame plays two games where they’re going to be challenged. This one (against BYU on Saturday), where they’re favored, and Miami at home,” Herbstreit said. “Think about what Alabama and Georgia and Ohio State and these teams with what they’re dealing with. That cannot continue. That’s an embarrassment and incredibly unfair.”
Herbstreit’s comments came as the group on “Get Up” was discussing reports of the NCAA expanding to a 24-team College Football Playoff next season, adding that Notre Dame needs to be “playing real games” if they want to be in the postseason.
“Your ass better be playing real games against real teams to give fans and players games to get excited about,” Herbstreit said. “The idea of going the Indiana way or some of these teams that play nobody in the non-conference has got to be over.”
As a solution, Herbstreit suggested an independent scheduling office examining each conference’s scheduling, along with ensuring competitive non-conference matchups.
“Instead of each conference doing the scheduling, I think we need a national scheduling office that is in charge of getting games set,” Herbstreit added. “So we have not only somebody that’s looking at each conference, but looking at the totality of the conference scheduling, and we gotta have better non-conference games.”
Despite singling out the Fighting Irish during his rant, Herbstreit clarified that scheduling needed to improve for “a lot of teams.”
Notre Dame, who doesn’t belong to a college football conference, was infamously left out of the 12-team College Football Playoff last season, and the program struck back by declining to play in a non-playoff bowl game.
For the remainder of their schedule, the Fighting Irish play just three teams currently ranked in the top 25: No. 8-ranked BYU, No. 3-ranked Miami, and No. 24-ranked SMU.