Dustin Nelson
5.3K posts

Dustin Nelson
@coachdrn
Valparaiso Community Schools Elementary Principal, Dad to 5 awesome kids, married to Kari Nelson! All opinions posted are my own.
Griffith, IN Katılım Nisan 2009
680 Takip Edilen373 Takipçiler

Not digging the camera angle of the #bearsvspackers game on Prime.
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@_breanna_x3 You ever figure this out? Mine are doing the same thing.
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Dustin Nelson retweetledi

#CFPplayoff IU vs Bama…I’d love to be a fly on the wall in a room with the committee today. 😂
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Dustin Nelson retweetledi

⚠️ Warning: Extremely long post about the CFP — but it needs to be said.
Since the beginning of the College Football Playoff, there has been only ONE team that was in position to make the playoff, lost a conference championship game, had idle teams behind them, and did not drop in the rankings the following week:
2025 Alabama.
There have been only TWO teams total who were in CFP position, lost a conference championship game, and did not fall at all:
• 2022 TCU
• 2025 Alabama
Let’s talk about why those situations are not the same — and why the Alabama one is a problem.
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2022 TCU
TCU was ranked #3 and lost the Big 12 Championship by 3 points in overtime.
The team directly behind them at #4 USC got blown out by 23 in their conference championship game.
If the committee dropped TCU to #4 and moved idle #5 Ohio State to #3, Michigan would have played Ohio State twice in three games, and OSU would have faced Michigan back-to-back.
That was a clear structural reason not to reshuffle the rankings.
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Now compare that to 2025
This is where it gets uncomfortable.
• Both teams around Alabama were idle — yet Alabama doesn’t drop to #10
• Both teams around BYU were idle — BYU drops to #12
• Both teams around UVA were idle — UVA drops to #19
So let’s be honest:
Is dropping Alabama to #10 really “punishment” when they’re in either way?
Or are we protecting the ACC’s last at-large team by making sure no one sits between Miami and Notre Dame?
Because if Alabama drops to 10, suddenly there’s a problem the committee doesn’t want to solve.
And let’s be clear — that’s the ACC’s fault, not Notre Dame’s.
The ACC Championship tiebreaker was asinine. If Miami had been in the ACCCG and lost, does anyone actually believe they wouldn’t have dropped?
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History is very clear
Conference championship losers have absolutely been passed by idle teams and missed the playoff:
• 2022 USC
• 2017 Penn State
• 2015 Iowa
• 2017 Auburn — beat Georgia three weeks earlier, then lost the SECCG and got jumped
So the argument that “Alabama beat Georgia earlier” is not a shield.
We’ve seen that exact scenario before — and it didn’t matter then.
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Ranking position shouldn’t matter
Whether you’re ranked 1 or 22, the criteria should be applied the same way.
4-team playoff
12-team playoff
16-team playoff
The rules don’t change.
Yes, fringe teams will get squeezed sometimes — that’s the trade-off.
Playing a conference championship game gives you control:
• Win and you’re in
• Lose and you hope the cards fall your way
That’s how the system has always worked.
So stop with the “we can’t punish conference championship losers” narrative.
It’s simply false — and honestly, idiotic.
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It gets worse when you look at the week before
Go back one week before the conference championship games.
Alabama got moved UP after a “great” 27–20 win over 5–7 Auburn — a team that was:
• Winless at home vs SEC teams
• Playing under an interim head coach
Why did Alabama move up?
Because leaving them at #10 would have caused issues if:
• BYU won
• Alabama lost the CCG
Suddenly the committee might have had to bump Alabama out.
So they preemptively solved the problem.
⸻
And the résumé argument doesn’t hold up
“Alabama beat four ranked teams in a row and has the best win of the year.”
No — they didn’t.
• Georgia dog-walked them last week, proving teams change
• Only two of those wins are still ranked
• Vanderbilt, Tennessee, and Missouri have ZERO wins over ranked teams
• Tennessee and Missouri have a combined ZERO wins over FBS teams with winning records
Those rankings were inflated by preseason bias.
⸻
So what’s actually going on?
Why can’t we question this?
There has been no rule change saying conference championship losers can’t drop.
This is not a Notre Dame problem.
This is a CFP problem.
And the longer we pretend otherwise, the worse the credibility gap gets.

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Dustin Nelson retweetledi

Notre Dame painted itself into a corner. The Irish thought it had the Big 12 waiting in the wings to take ND in all sports minus football, were Notre Dame to leave the ACC. The reality is, no one wants to deal with Notre Dame's pompousness and entitlement. espn.com/college-footba…
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@lackmeftwich806 @JpIrish88 I’m loving the “we” here…would love to see your personal stats this season. 😂
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@JpIrish88 My head coach is also a finalist and we are playing in the playoffs. Why would I be jealous lmao
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This coach threw a tantrum and snubbed his seniors out of their last cfb game. Is he really coach of the year material?
Notre Dame Football@NDFootball
The Golden Standard ☘️ Coach Marcus Freeman has been selected as a finalist for the Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year Award #GoIrish☘️ | @TheFWAA | @Marcus_Freeman1
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If I could ask a committee member it would be this: in retrospect, is there any scenario that could have occurred last Saturday that would have resulted in ND making the playoffs? I think the honest answer to that question is very telling. #NotreDame #CFP2025
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@TheBurner114599 @Marques_J_Smith @RGIII @OuttaPocketRG3 @Gretegiii You lose, you drop…past precedent.

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@coachdrn @Marques_J_Smith @RGIII @OuttaPocketRG3 @Gretegiii Ohio st only dropped to the team they lost to. Who was Bama going to drop behind? An idle ND and Miami? Again, BYU is the only team that should be upset for dropping a ranking.
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@Alejand50633711 @wakeupbarstool You do realize they were 5-1 against ACC opponents this year alone, right?
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@wakeupbarstool You play a bunch of nobody every year , and you lost to Miami this year , simple as that , you out
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It’s not hard to connect the dots…ESPN is owned by the same company that owns the ACC and SEC network…of course it’s a conflict of interest issue that’s the elephant in the room. #NotreDame
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Dustin Nelson retweetledi

Nobody can blame Kenny Minchey whatsoever for entering the transfer portal. He'll go elsewhere to be an instant starter and win a lot of games.
Gotta give props to him for being a Notre Dame team player by pouring himself into backing up CJ Carr, too.
on3.com/teams/notre-da…

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Dustin Nelson retweetledi


@TheBurner114599 @Marques_J_Smith @RGIII @OuttaPocketRG3 @Gretegiii Why? Every other team that lost in the Conference Championship dropped but Bama? 🤷🏼♂️
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@Marques_J_Smith @RGIII @OuttaPocketRG3 @Gretegiii Who were they suppose to drop behind? Miami and ND didn’t play in a conference championship. You can’t punish a team for losing a championship game. Ohio state only dropped behind the team that beat them. Only question I’d ask is how Miami jumped BYU.
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Dustin Nelson retweetledi

@CBSSportsCFB @bmarcello Did anyone notice that he didn’t answer the question?
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College Football Playoff Chairman Hunter Yurachek tells @bmarcello why the committee kept Alabama in the playoff field after their blowout loss to Georgia in the SEC Championship.
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Dustin Nelson retweetledi

@KNELSON2424 Happy Birthday! And Dustin has a great shirt on ;) 💪❤️🤼
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Happy Birthday, Jayden!! Can’t believe you are the big 20 today. It was a rough year for him health wise, but he is feeling great now!! Here’s to a wonderful year #20, Jay!! Mom and Dad love you so much! 💙🎂



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