ATLANTA — In an impromptu one-on-three interview Saturday that swelled to something like one-on-27 by its conclusion, Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua showed how deftly he could finesse a pop-up identity crisis, among other things.
“Jack,” a questioner addressed Bevacqua, Jack Swarbrick’s successor as ND’s AD, near the end of the session.
“Jack?” Bevacqua responded, followed by a smile, a pause, a chuckle. “Pete.” Smile. “How are you?” Smile.
“Good,’ the questioner proceeded before barreling forward. “Three years later, is there anything about coach [Marcus] Freeman that’s surprised you?”
Not that Bevacqua has been around for all three of those years.
“Well again, so Pete,” Bevacqua reminded the questioner. “And no problem.”
When Bevacqua had finished his thoughtful response, this happened:
“Jack, another one …”
“Still Pete,” Bevacqua said with a smile.
The question then got cut off by Bevacqua’s handler, who grabbed him by the arm and told the media crowd, “He’s gotta go.”
The irony is that Bevacqua didn’t want to start over from scratch when Swarbrick handed him the keys to stewardship of the 26 Irish athletic programs, including the one that plays for national championship in college football on Monday night a short walk away from where Bevacqua was whisked away.
TV start time for the College Football Playoff National Championship Game between the seventh-seeded Irish (14-1) and 8 seed Ohio State (13-2) is 7:30 EST on ESPN.
Before that, though, Bevacqua had CFP business on Sunday morning in Atlanta as part of the CFP management committee. On the agenda for Bevacqua and the commissioners of the 10 FBS conferences in the 90-minute confab was examining whether tweaks could/should be made to the 12-team format as early as next season.
The CFP Board of Managers, comprising university presidents including ND’s Rev. Robert A Dowd, were to meet themselves with a not totally overlapping docket. They represent the highest echelon on the CFP food chain.
But the commissioner level that includes Bevacqua still drive the ideas, refinements and fixes. And that’s where Bevacqua is most “Jack-like” by design. Maybe not necessarily in approach, but certainly when it comes to impact that Swarbrick had on keeping Notre Dame from being relegated to the college sports kids’ table.
“First of all, for the first year of a 12-team playoff, I think it’s been a wonderful success,” Bevacqua said when asked what he wanted to voice in Sunday’s meeting. “But look who you’re talking to. I wouldn’t change a thing. We should do this every year.
“But I think it’s been great. We were just talking about that, the movement from four to 12 — all the different fan bases that are involved in this, all of the different dialogue and the discourse and the intrigue, what teams are going to be in?
“As we moved toward the end of the season, all of the conversation around it, I think it added interest. And I think it added more national interest, because of all of those additional fan bases that were in the conversation.
“And yet it did that in a way, in my opinion, that didn’t minimize the importance of the regular season. Now, we’re a perfect example of that. We feel like every game we played was a playoff game after a loss to NIU (16-14 on Sept. 7). So, to be able to add teams without, in any way, decreasing the importance of the regular season, I think that’s been a fantastic success.”
But … and there was a but.
“Now we owe it to ourselves, we owe it to the sport to always think about what went well, what went REALLY well, And quite frankly, what could we do better?
“And I think there are going to be two moments in time. There’s going to be what we change — if anything — from this year to next year as the remaining year on the original ESPN deal. Will there be tweaks? Perhaps, and we’ll start discussing that [Sunday, with more possibly next month and definitely in meetings scheduled for this spring].
“And then there’s going to be the move into the new six years, where I think there will be more material changes. So, I think you’re going to have two series of conversations. What are the tweaks we could make now, that would require unanimity? And then what are the long-term changes that we’ll perhaps start to discuss for the out six years, those remaining six years on the extension element with the ESPN deal?”
Bevacqua got tugged in a lot of different directions during his 15 minutes (of fame?) before the first “Jack” misidentification came up. Here’s a sampling:
ON WHETHER HE’D EVER PUSH FOR NOTRE DAME TO BE IN A POSITION TO GET A FIRST-ROUND PLAYOFF BYE:
“We’re comfortable that if conference championship games continue as they’re currently configured,” he said. “Part of the deal we made is that we wouldn’t get a bye, and that’s understandable. And quite frankly, I wouldn’t trade that Indiana game at Notre Dame Stadium {Dec. 20] for anything in the world.
“But you also have to be smart and strategic, and your odds of making a national championship game are increased if you get to play one less game. So, I think a lot is going to depend on the fate of the conference championship games.
“Should they go away — and that’s obviously not my decision — should they be altered in some sort of material way, where it’s not the top two teams playing for a championship but something else, then I think we absolutely have to relook at Notre Dame’s ability to get a bye if we end up being one of the top four teams.”
ON NOTRE DAME NOT HAVING TO SHARE ITS CFP MONEY AND WHETHER THE IRISH ARE IN A FINANCIALLY COMPETITIVE PLACE WITH COLLEGE FOOTBALL’S NEW ELITE CLASS:
“It’s an interesting year to bring that up,” Bevacqua said. “If we hadn’t made the CFP, we don’t get a dollar. There’s no safety net for us. So, we have been able to do [well] this year, because we’ve been able to advance. We won the game at home. We beat an unbelievably great team in Georgia in the Sugar Bowl. We beat a great Penn State team in the Orange Bowl. Now we’re here, and we play Ohio State in the National Championship Game.
“But if this year had been last year and we don’t make the CFP, we gert zero dollars from the CFP this year and next year under the current model. Now that changes in the future, but we very much more than anybody financially control our own destiny.
“So, people don’t realize that element of this. But in terms of where we are economically and where you need to be economically right now to succeed, when you think about our new NBC deal. When you think about our future CFP model after next year. When you think about the ability for us to participate in the ACC with 24 of our 26 programs — the other exception being hockey — financially we’re where we need to be in a very competitive position.”
ON PENN STATE COACH JAMES FRANKLIN ESPOUSING THAT NOTRE DAME NEEDS TO JOIN A CONFERENCE FULL-TIME FOR FOOTBALL:
“I mean that was his opinion,” Bevacqua said. “We laughed about it when we heard about it. But as he said, I don’t think he meant anything. He certainly — he and Marcus have a great relationship.
“I think James Franklin certainly knows Notre Dame is an important piece of the college football landscape. One person’s opinion? The most important thing is how we feel. We love being independent in football and we are very bullish in continuing to be independent.”
ON WHETHER THE WAY TEAMS WERE RANKED AND SEEDED IN THE 12-TEAM PLAYOFF INFORMED HIM OF POSSIBLE TWEAKS FOR FUTURE SCHEDULES:
“So much of our schedule is baked for the next few years, but we always want as great a schedule as we can possibly put together,” Bevacqua said. “We have those great rivalries. Think about the rivalry with USC. We have every intention and every desire to keep that USC rivalry going.
“We were thrilled to add a home-and-home with Texas. We’re having some real interesting conversations at the ACC in terms of the ACC component of our deal. You look at our schedule next year, we have an unbelievably great schedule next year. We open up with Miami at Miami.
“Our home opener is Texas A&M. A few weeks later, we have Boise State. We have USC coming to Notre Dame. I think it’s always been Notre Dame’s style to play the best teams available. Now you can’t play Murderer’s Row every year. But you never know what you’re going to get.
“It’s not shocking news, but if we were sitting here in August of last year and looking at the schedule and you and I were having a conversation of what’s the team you’re going to play that’s going trip you up this year, you probably wouldn’t have circled NIU, right?
“So these are all young kids who want to play and compete day in and day out. So whether you’re playing Ohio State or a different team, you always know you’re going to get your best when those teams are playing Notre Dame, and we’ll continue to schedule as aggressively as we can.”
ON WHETHER ND IS CLOSE RELEASING ITS FULL 2025 SCHEDULE:
“We’ve had some good conversations [with the ACC,” Bevacqua said, “We feel like we’re going to be in a good spot. Not ready to announce yet, but we feel like we’re in a really good spot.”
ON WHAT THE CONVERSATIONS HAVE BEEN LIKE WITH THE ACC:
“It would be premature for me to comment on that, but just our ACC obligation and our relationship with the ACC is incredibly important to us,” Bevacqua said. “And when you think about when we play a team like Clemson, I think that has become such a great rivalry in such a short amount of time.
“I mean, I would tell you that’s the type of game I’d love to play every year. So, we’re starting some of those conversations with the ACC and [ACC commissioner] Jimmy Phillips. You know, I think the world of Jimmy. He’s going to do what’s best for the conference and we feel great. We love being independent, as you will know. But also that ACC relationship for Notre Dame is very important.
“It’s the home of 24 of 26 programs, and we want to do everything we can to help them in those sports. But also, what can the power of Notre Dame football do? When you think about some of those ACC programs coming together and playing — I think it’s great for us, and I think it’s great for the ACC.”
ON THE ORIGINAL “JACK” QUESTION REGARDING MARCUS FREEMAN AND ANY SURPRISES:
“No, I think to have your first coaching job being Notre Dame is like rolling out of bed one day and waking up and being Mayor of New York City,” Bevacqua said. “I don’t think anybody’s prepared to do that job until you do that job.
“And to see how he has embraced it, to see how he has succeeded. And what I think is one of the many things that is impressive about coach Freeman is he’s the perfect coach for Notre Dame on the field, off the field. Obviously, we’re here in the national championship game, but everything he does off the field.
“How he embraces, as he says, when you come to Notre Dame as a student-athlete, you choose hard. Because you’re going to have every resource imaginable to succeed athletically, where you’re also going to have those resources and the expectations to succeed academically.
“He doesn’t shy away from that. He embraces that. So, it’s been so wonderful to see the confidence he has in himself, the confidence he has in the team, the program, the university.
“The university alignment, to make sure we can provide him with all the resources he needs to be as successful as possible, because a successful Notre Dame football program is great for Notre Dame football, is great for Notre Dame athletics. It’s great for Notre Dame.”
