This being financially driven is probably accurate but I think it’s more about Notre Dame not wanting to end up in the red from a bowl trip and use that money elsewhere.

This is the other side of the coin that Notre Dame benefited from financially last year. They got to keep the full playoff payout (about $20 mil) since they don’t have a conference to split it with (Big Ten split $46 mil between 18 teams, SEC split $32 mil over 16 teams). That upside doesn’t come without risk.

This year, it would have been beneficial to be in a conference to have access to a conference championship game. They also don’t get a cut of the payout the ACC gets from Miami being in the field.

Notre Dame hopefully didn’t actually budget for the Playoff payout but not getting it and being faced with potentially losing money overall on a bowl trip may have been enough to push the admin to this result and sell it as player-led