Chicago Paper Claims Notre Dame May Have Missed Playoffs Because Coach Marcus Freeman Is Black

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish missed out on the 2025-2026 College Football Playoff by the slimmest of margins. And even for those of us who aren't Notre Dame fans, we consider it a bizarre sequence of events. 

Despite their only result over the last few weeks of the regular season being a blowout win over the Stanford Cardinal, the Irish were passed by the Alabama Crimson Tide and Miami Hurricanes. The Irish had a deserving resume; their only losses were to top-10 quality opponents by a combined four points. And they were dominant against the remainder of their schedule, with 99+% win expectancy in each of their final 10 games. 

But there are obvious reasons why both Miami and Alabama were included ahead of them. 

Alabama enjoys the protection of the SEC, and the committee decided that simply making the SEC conference championship game justified putting them in the field. That's absurd, offensively idiotic logic, but committee members knew that Greg Sankey and ESPN commentators, among others, would have gone ballistic if the Tide were punished for repeatedly playing poorly. That conference patch just means more. 

RELATED: Is SEC's Greg Sankey Going To Ruin The College Football Playoff Moving Forward?

Miami had the head-to-head win advantage. But more importantly, the committee had to get one ACC team into the field, or risk angering that conference. Notre Dame was the odd man out. Don't tell the Chicago Sun-Times that, however. As one would expect from a left-wing media outlet, it found a way to make it about race.

Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Marcus Freeman on the sideline during a game in the 2025 regular season. MICHAEL CLUBB/SOUTH BEND TRIBUNE / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images 

Column Makes Ridiculous Argument About Notre Dame, Marcus Freeman

The column makes the case that the committee and the college football world are tired of Notre Dame, and that "hate" for the school might explain its exclusion. But then the paper goes on to just ask questions about the fact that the Irish happen to have Marcus Freeman as their head coach. 

"Take Notre Dame. Please. Take their omission from the College Football Playoff. Take Marcus Freeman ‘just happening’ to be the coach," it says.

 "…is it the Notre Dame of it all or the Marcus Freeman of some of it? It sure feels more one than the other," it continues.

What would Marcus Freeman have to do with it? Skin color, of course.

"Not saying that Freeman being Black is the reason ND found itself "disrespected" the way that it was, but the feeling that there might be some connection — be it strategic or happenstance — between the color of his skin and the treatment given to the university is the feeling that sat within, even as we see evidence to refute that feeling, even as no one seemed to scream it out loud in the media. It remained quietly impossible to disregard."

What? What now? It's extremely possible to disregard, because it's absurd and insane. There's even more absurdity.

"A year ago, there was a celebration of the advancement of Black coaches in NCAA football because two Black coaches, for the first time, had led their programs to games in the CFP," the article says. "This season, things done changed. And the face in the scope of that change: of course, a coach who happened to be . . . Black."

Again, what on earth is this? The writer employs a ridiculous, and all too common tactic: the "I'm not saying, I'm just saying" argument. Marcus Freeman's race has nothing to do with Notre Dame not making the playoff. There's not even the slightest hint of a connection. Because there isn't one, it's entirely made up by someone who has nothing else to say.

There are clear, obvious reasons why the Irish didn't make the playoff. They're ridiculous ones, but they exist. Implying some sort of bizarre racism on the part of the committee when the vast majority of the rosters on all the playoff teams are black, when Mario Cristobal, who is Cuban, had his team included, is absurd. It's also par for the course with the legacy media.