Joe Theismann might be a little biased, but he still thinks Notre Dame getting snubbed from the 2025 College Football Playoff is an “injustice.”
The longtime ESPN broadcaster first came to fame as Notre Dame’s quarterback in the 1970s. A Super Bowl champion and NFL MVP with Washington, his career was cut short, and he entered the broadcasting booth in the late 1980s. He would go on to work on ESPN’s Sunday Night Football from 1988 to 2005 and on Monday Night Football in 2006. He briefly returned to TV as part of the NFL Network’s Thursday Night Football broadcast crew in 2010 but has been mostly off TV since then.
That doesn’t mean he no longer has strong opinions, especially when it comes to Notre Dame. Theissman appeared on SiriusXM College Sports Radio with Dusty Dvoracek and Danny Kanell on Monday to voice his disgust with the 10-2 Fighting Irish getting overlooked while three-loss Alabama made the CFP.
Notre Dame Legend, @Theismann7, didn’t hold back when talking about the Irish being left out of the College Football Playoff.
He sounded off this morning to @DustyDvoracek & @dannykanell. pic.twitter.com/a6tRGqQsoe
— College Sports on SiriusXM (@SXMCollege) December 8, 2025
“It was disgusting. It really was,” said Thiessman. “You look at the rankings, just as an example, Notre Dame and Miami should have been in. But what is Alabama doing in this? They’ve lost three games. It’s the first three-loss team that’s ever been in. And to leave Notre Dame out, Notre Dame was ranked above Miami all year until the committee decides on who winds up in the CFP.
“It’s insulting, it’s deplorable, and it’s just flat wrong, to be honest with you. People talk about the system being broken. You don’t need to look very deep into this system to realize there’s no three-loss team that should be in the playoffs. If you wanted to put somebody in, BYU only lost two games. Texas lost three games, but yet Alabama still is at number nine with three losses. They lose to Florida State.
“I guess I’m getting on a little bit of a roll, okay? But the bottom line is, I really feel like Notre Dame has been done an injustice.”
The debate over whether or not Notre Dame truly deserved the spot over Miami, or if they deserved to be in over three-loss Alabama, is a fair one to have, wherever you stand. We get the sense that many Notre Dame fans sound like Thiessman today.
About Sean Keeley
Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Managing Editor for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.