On the eve of the Notre Dame-Clemson ACC Championship showdown Dec. 19, Fighting Irish head coach Brian Kelly turned a relatively innocuous inquiry into a chiding of the College Football Playoff (CFP) committee.
Asked whether he believed that with a loss his team would still be selected to the Jan. 1 four-team CFP, with the games held at the Rose Bowl (Pasadena, Calif.) or Sugar Bowl (New Orleans), Kelly took to the soapbox. It was directed specially at the Rose Bowl, which is located in an area where the county has a stay-at-home order that includes no spectators at any venue because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Maybe they [CFP] need to spend a little less time on who the top four teams are and figure out how to get parents into these games because it is an absolute shame and a sham if parents can't be watching their kids play,” Kelly said.
“I'm not sure we'll play in the playoffs if the parents can't be there … why would you go to a game where your families can't be part of it? What's the sense of playing a game in an area of the country where nobody can be part of it? So there's no real reward. Go home and see your families, go home for Christmas — that's the reward really more than playing in a bowl game.
“… I get it. We're in a pandemic, and there are restrictions, but we’ve got to think about the student-athletes in this situation. Not having a chance to share this with their families after being away and sacrificing so much, you can see why they wouldn't want to play."
Shortly after the infamous Pearl Harbor invasion by Japan on Dec. 7, 1941, the fear of another attack on the West Coast led the Rose Bowl, played 25 days later, to be moved to Duke University between the Blue Devils and Oregon State.
Nearly 80 years later, flexibility is what Kelly prefers now too, especially because the players can’t even go home for Christmas.
"Why can't it be the Rose Bowl in Las Vegas, or can it be the Rose Bowl in another town?" Kelly said. “The one thing these kids have been is incredibly flexible, and then on the other side we can't be flexible? …They can't be around their families for Christmas, and you're going to tell me we're going to have a playoff and maybe one site can have families and the other can't? Please."
When the playoff pairings are announced this Sunday, Kelly said the ultimate decision about what to do will come from his players.
“I don't drive it,” Kelly emphasized. “I'm echoing their concerns … If in fact we're selected to be a part of it, this will then be No. 1 on their radar, so then I'll have to address it with our leaders as to how they feel about this.”
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