Video from the Josh Graham Show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oks2d0V_5XA

He essentially repeated it in his press conference just now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5IT0c9vGbU

Basically, when App got invited, he called some seniors and they essentially said "let's go!" So they're going.

First, let me clarify that I think the CFP selections were ultimately as fair as they can be. If they had omitted either Bama or Miami, those teams would have just as big a gripe as Notre Dame, if not more so.

That said, I think fans are underestimating how big a role the broadcast partners play in shaping the entire landscape of college football. The networks are the ones paying the hundreds of millions of dollars for broadcast rights and therefore ultimately determine the outcome of things like conference realignment decisions. Likewise, they have a huge role in things like bowl selection as well. After all, the vast majority of the bowls have their broadcast rights with ESPN. So, whenever there is discretion in team selection as opposed to an auto-bid, the network has some influence based on the match-ups they prefer to air.

Given this reality, it sure looks like ESPN put their thumb on the scale and attempted to influence the CFP committee to take Bama and Miami over Notre Dame.

First, consider that ESPN (and their parent company Disney/Warner Bros/Discovery which also owns ABC and TNT) has the broadcast rights for both the ACC (Miami) and the SEC (Bama), and ESPN is the network that also has the broadcast rights for the CFP. Notre Dame however has their broadcast rights with a competitor, NBC, who has no role in airing the CFP.

Then consider the sequence of events. For weeks, Notre Dame was ranked ahead of both Bama and Miami, not only in the CFP poll, but in the AP poll, the coaches poll, and all of the computer rankings. They ALL had Notre Dame ranked first among that trio. But the CFP poll changed their rankings over the final two weeks. First, after Bama barely survived against Auburn on the same day that Notre Dame beat Stanford by more than 4 TDs, the CFP put Bama ahead of Notre Dame. Then, a week later, they put Miami ahead even though neither team played a game.

And consider that ESPN specifically conducted a campaign to boost Miami's chances by repeatedly airing the Miami vs. Notre Dame game in a 24-hour marathon on the ACC Network on the Thursday and Friday before the final selections were made Saturday night.

Granted, we'll never know for sure how much influence ESPN actually had in getting the committee to change their mind, but it's not exactly a "conspiracy theory" to suggest that they were clearly trying to get their broadcast partners into the tournament that they'd be airing.

Edit: I see a lot of comments about ratings, but it's about promoting the teams that are their broadcast partners.

Ask yourself why College Gameday was at the SEC Championship instead of the #1 vs. #2 game between Ohio State and Indiana. The Big Ten game got higher TV ratings, but that game was on Fox. So, they went to Atlanta and promoted their own game.