Notre Dame's Brian Kelly floats possibility of skipping College Football Playoff if parents can't attend games

Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly hinted Friday his team might not participate in the College Football Playoff should families of the student-athletes be prohibited from the stadium on game day.

Kelly made the comments in a press conference ahead of the Fighting Irish’s first-ever appearance in the Atlantic Coast Conference title game against Clemson.

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"I'm not sure we'll play in the playoffs if the parents can't be there," Kelly told reporters, via ESPN. "Why would be we play if you can't have families at the game? If you can't have families at bowl games, 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?"

Should Notre Dame get the No. 2 seed in the Playoff, it would mean a chance to play in the Rose Bowl in California where officials have barred fans from the stadium because of the coronavirus pandemic. Kelly floated the idea of having the game at a different site and put it on the Playoff committee to do something about getting parents to the stadiums.

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"Maybe they [CFP] need to spend a little less time on who the top 4 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," he said. "My kids have been on campus since June. They haven't seen their families very much at all. They've had to fight through COVID, some of them have had COVID. 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."

Kelly added that he was "sick and tired" of the committee talking about having the games at sites where parents wouldn’t be able to watch their kids play.

The coach made clear he was "echoing" the concerns of his players.

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Notre Dame will take on Clemson and, if they lose, they might not even get into the Playoff anyway. The Fighting Irish defeated the Tigers in a double-overtime thriller earlier this season.