By Dustin Hollinger

Why did Notre Dame reject the 1996 Independence Bowl only to play there a year later?

Why did The Fighting Irish decline a bid to the Pop Tarts Bowl after they played in The 2019 Camping World (now the Pop Tarts Bowl) in 2019?

Last December’s rejection of The Pop Tarts Bowl brought on nationwide disdain. It lead to Kansas State and Iowa State doing the same thing and the Big 12 fining both of those schools $500,000. The Pop Tarts Bowl went on to stage a great game between #14 BYU and #22 Georgia Tech (ranking reflects the CFRA Poll, a NCAA-Approved National Champion Selector). BYU won this competitive game 25-21. This zany corporate-theme bowl did fine without them.

The Pop Tarts Bowl wasn’t the first time the Fighting Irish declined a bowl. When they were no longer considered for a major New Year’s Day Bowl, the Irish declined a bid to the 1996 Independence Bowl. Are these bowl declines due to arrogance or something else? Before you answer, you should know Notre Dame had an internal bowl ban from 1925 to 1969.  After Notre Dame won the 1924 National Championship, they were rewarded with a trip to the 1925 Rose Bowl where they beat Stanford. The aftermath of a long train trip to Southern California was a bowl ban due to travel and academia.

This policy changed in 1969.  In a sense of irony, Notre Dame felt they had to conform because the national champion wasn’t selected until after the bowls. Now that Notre Dame will no longer abstain from the bowls, did that imply the Irish will be an annual bowl fixture? Not exactly. The Cotton Bowl’s “sizable” $340,000 payout was an added bonus to change course. The bowl payouts were used to support Notre Dame minority scholarships. On New Years Day 1970, Notre Dame’s close loss to #1 Texas didn’t damper their postseason taste. 

Prior to ending the postseason ban, internal conditions had to be met. First , the Irish were only interested in the Sugar, Orange and Cotton bowls. Second, the bowl would have to boost their chances to improve in the polls.  After those conditions were met, a majority player vote was needed. By the 1980 Season, the Irish had appeared in nine bowl games. Five of them were against a #1 ranked team.  Eight were the Orange, Sugar and Cotton Bowls. The lone “exception” was the 1976 Gator Bowl when a chance to play against Penn State Coach Joe Paterno was too good to pass up. Things got interesting in the 1980s as Notre Dame appeared in multiple minor bowls. In the days leading up to their November 20, 1982 game against Air Force, the Fiesta Bowl offered The Fighting Irish (6-2-1) an invitation. Notre Dame University VP Joyce said “we will not accept a bowl game if we lose to Air Force”, which they did. Ironically, after a late season loss to Air Force the following season, Notre Dame (6-5) accepted a bid to the 1983 Liberty Bowl. University officials weren’t pleased but the players were excited to play in this minor bowl against the Boston College Eagles. Perhaps it was the enthusiasm to play this new rivalry against a fellow Catholic school. Then, the following season, #17 Notre Dame (7-4) accepted a bid to the Aloha Bowl against to play Southwest Conference co-champion #10 SMU (9-2).

After #7 Notre Dame beat #10 Alabama in November 1987, the Fighting Irish (8-1) accepted a Cotton Bowl invite.  In the days leading up to that game, Cotton Bowl Executive Jim Brock was hanging around the Notre Dame Campus handing out Cotton Bowl pins,stickers, etc. like a candidate seeking election . After their impressive win over Alabama, Jim Brock joined the post game celebrations by purchasing drinks for fans at the bar and leading the Notre Dame victory march. It was a running joke that Jim Brock would give Notre Dame a Cotton Bowl bid during spring practice. Likewise, when news broke that the Orange Bowl gave Notre Dame a midseason invite for the New Years 1991 game, an anonymous Orange Bowl Official said “Notre Dame brings TV ratings. If you don’t take them, then they might end up in The Sugar Bowl during the same TV time slot”. 

In the 1992 Season, #4 Texas A&M was matched up against #5 Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl. However, the Aggies originally wanted to play #3 Florida State with the hopes of sharing the national championship with the Sugar Bowl winner between # 1 Miami and #2 Alabama. Leading up to the Cotton Bowl, there was serious debate about whether Texas A&M should win a share of the national championship, but their 28-3 loss to Notre Dame answered that question. Then came the 1994 Bowl Season, when the Fighting Irish accepted a Fiesta Bowl invite. Two years earlier, Notre Dame said the other independents “did not deserve automatic bids to the bowl coalition because of their soft schedules”, but in ‘94, two of the Irish’s losses were against Boston College and Michigan.  That year, The Fighting Irish were the first unranked Fiesta Bowl team in 15 years!  What caused more outrage was the fact #4 Alabama and #8 Kansas State were available for the Fiesta Bowl to take instead of Notre Dame.  Instead, Alabama and KSU played in the Citrus and Aloha Bowls respectively. 

The Irish’s Fiesta Bowl opponent that season was the # 7 Colorado who was hoping to play a higher ranked team and earn a chance at a national championship.  After the inital letdown, Colorado was cordial. Colorado players said things like “its never a letdown playing Notre Dame”.  In that game, Notre Dame donned their green jerseys for the first time in nine seasons. However, all the Fighting Irish mystique and tradition could not stop the Buffalo Stampede, as the Buffaloes ended up clobbering the Irish 41-24. 

What makes the Notre Dame Pop Tarts Bowl rejection from this past season odd is that Irish played in the same game in 2019 when it was known as the Camping World Bowl. The Irish also declined the 1996 Independence Bowl in similar fashion, and just like the Pop Tarts Bowl from this past season, the 1996 Independence Bowl turned out to be a great game. In that matchup, an unbeaten Army squad fell behind Auburn 32-7 but then scored 22 unanswered points and had a last second field goal attempt that would have tied it. In 1997, Notre Dame accepted a bid to play # 15 LSU in The Independence Bowl.

As you can see, the Notre Dame Pop Tarts Bowl rejection is another chapter in the Irish’s complicated and hypocritcal history of bowl selectivity.