Biggest CFP Lessons Learned + Notre Dame Drama & Big Ten vs SEC

Summary

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Josh Pate's College Football Show

Episode: Biggest CFP Lessons Learned + Notre Dame Drama & Big Ten vs SEC
Date: December 10, 2025
Host: Josh Pate (iHeartPodcasts)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Josh Pate delivers a thorough post-mortem on the College Football Playoff (CFP) selection and conference championship fallout. He shares the biggest lessons learned from the latest CFP cycle, addresses the uproar surrounding Notre Dame’s playoff snub and bowl opt-out, and tackles the ever-contentious Big Ten vs. SEC debate. The episode is packed with behind-the-scenes insights, sharp takes, and Josh’s trademark blend of tough love and humor.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Lessons Learned from the 2025 CFP Process

(Begins at 04:43)

A. Not All Conference Championships Are Equal

• Inequity in Conference Title Game Weight: Losing the Big Ten or SEC title doesn’t hurt your playoff chances like losing a Big 12 or ACC title does.
  • "Not all conference championship games are equal because not all conferences are equal." (05:15)
• Favoritism or Rational Observation?
  • The committee treats Big Ten and SEC differently from other leagues, largely based on the reality of where “the good teams and the good talent are.”
  • "If you call rational observation of the sport favoritism, yes... I don't even tell you I agree with it. I'm telling you it makes sense. And that's the way it is." (07:07)

B. The Playoff Rankings Show Is Counterproductive

• Weekly Rankings Show Critique: Adds more confusion than clarity. Suggestion: If it continues, increase transparency in the committee's discussions and explanations.
  • “The weekly rankings show for the playoff committee is trash... If we're going to keep the rankings and the rankings reveal show on Tuesday night, I want to observe the deliberation. I want far more than just Hunter Yurichek giving me prepared talking points.” (09:28)

C. Most Arguments Lack Consistent Principles

• Fandom Over Principle:
  • Most outrage is rooted in self-interest, not objective standards.
  • “98% of people yelling right now are yelling because of something happening or not happening to the team they love, which is fine. That’s called cheering. That is not what it was being presented as.” (10:39)

D. Fix Simple Things First: Conference Tiebreakers

• Broken ACC Tiebreaker:
  • The ACC’s tiebreaker debacle (leading to 7–5 Duke in a title game) was unnecessary.
  • Proposal: After head-to-head, use the College Football Playoff ranking for tiebreakers to ensure the best team goes to the conference championship.
  • “Just wake up one morning and do the right thing with their tiebreaker system... If we changed nothing other than that, this mess would have been alleviated.” (13:00)

E. The Field Is Wide Open (Ohio State Is Vulnerable)

• More Parity This Year:
  • “Ohio State bled” (lost conference title) – now more teams have a legit shot.
  • “Just because Ohio State bled a little bit, it changed my entire worldview on the playoff.” (14:38)

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2. Notre Dame Drama: Playoff Snub & Reaction

(Begins at 20:25)

A. Was Notre Dame Truly Robbed?

• Josh’s Take: They weren’t owed a playoff spot; any of Bama, Miami, or ND making it would be justifiable.
  • “I don’t think Notre Dame got robbed... They weren’t owed a playoff spot. They didn’t outright convincingly earn a playoff spot.” (22:08)
• Key Selection Rationale: Miami’s head-to-head win over Notre Dame tipped the scales.
  • “When it came down to Notre Dame or Miami, I thought Miami should be in because I think anytime you have comparative resumes...head to head should rule the day.” (22:55)

B. Notre Dame’s AD (Pete Bavacqua) — The Criticisms & The Legitimate Grievance

• Calls Out ACC: Notre Dame upset the ACC lobbied for Miami over ND.
  • Josh: Of course the ACC would back its own member, rather than the non-member (ND).
    • “Miami is a member...because of reasons like, oh, you know, Miami was the only ACC member institution with a shot to make the playoff. You’re not a member institution, dude.” (24:00)
• Real Grievance — Committee Messaging: Notre Dame/ND fans were misled; at issue is process, not result.
  • “...the process was horrifically bungled... We were led to believe we were in the playoff... and then all of a sudden it mattered [head-to-head], and Selection Sunday comes and Miami jumps Notre Dame. How do we even explain this to our players? How do they explain it to us? Oh, they didn’t. Well, they tried and failed miserably.” (28:01)

C. The Eyeball Test Argument

• Josh’s Stance: “I think you’re better than Miami. I’d pick you to beat Miami. I don’t care because I’ve been wrong before... I don’t even value my eyeball test.”
  • “You really think I value the eyeball test of people who are probably hitting the sack by 8:30 tonight on that committee? Absolutely not.” (32:24)

D. Notre Dame Opting Out of a Bowl Game

• Personal Dislike but Understanding:
  • Josh hates the opt-out on principle — “it’s a football game, man” — but understands the sentiment.
  • “It wasn’t the biggest crisis of the week... I understand it. On the level of one to ten, it was like a four and a half for me.” (33:22)

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3. Big Ten vs. SEC Superiority Debate

(Begins at 43:20)

A. Measuring Conference Strength: Depth vs. Top-End

• The SEC has more depth; Big Ten is more top-heavy currently.
  • “If you define success and best and superiority by which league wins the national title, then it’s a great time to be the Big Ten. ...I tend to judge the overall conference by the competitive depth of the conference. So like, I still think the SEC has the edge there.” (44:00)
• Recruiting Class Analysis:
  • Big Ten’s top teams signed higher-ranked classes, but after the top few, the SEC’s overall pool is deeper.
  • “The top of the Big Ten. The tallest trees in the Big Ten right now look to be taller than the tallest trees in the SEC. I think the SEC forest is way thicker than the Big Ten’s.” (45:45)

B. Playoff Implications & AQ Model

• SEC got 5 teams in; Big Ten 3. If the automatic qualifier (AQ) model prevailed, Big Ten would have gotten more.
  • “The SEC is sort of banking on the fact that, hey, we’re deeper than you. Now. We may not have the best top end teams, but we could litter the top 12 in a manner that your conference can’t.” (47:10)

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4. Most Disappointing Teams of 2025

(Begins at 45:52)

• Clemson: Preseason #4, finished 7–5, disastrous losses to Georgia Tech and Syracuse.
  • “That had to be my most disappointing team.” (48:28)
• Florida: AP #15, but finished 4–8. DJ Lagway underperformed.
  • “The worst part is DJ Lagway just never even remotely came close to what I thought he was.” (49:40)
• Penn State: Started #2, finished 6–6, major collapse.
  • “All the signs were there to the point where everyone said, I don’t know how Penn State doesn’t make the playoff... Finished just a few games short of worst case.” (53:31)

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5. Listener Mailbag & Behind-the-Scenes Insight

(Begins at 54:25)

A. Mike Campbell (Penn State) Hiring & Trip Stories

• “Coaching search took 54 days... ended up getting the best candidate for the job. Spoke to them a great deal about the recruiting class evaporating, about what they’ll do.” (57:17)
• Fun details on logistics from a day at Penn State, including working with their new coach and travel schedule.

B. G5 (Group of Five) Debate — Should They Be in the Playoff?

(61:44)

• Josh’s Stance: Only let G5 in through at-large, not automatic qualification.

  • “I don’t believe the G5 should automatically be in the playoff.” (62:22)

• Argument Against Using Blowouts as a Rationale:

  • It's not whether James Madison would get blown out — it's about whether their schedule is tough enough to earn a spot.
  • “I don’t care about what you’re capable of. I care about what you earned. And to even warrant consideration for a playoff spot requires a minimum struggle requirement that a G5 schedule does not give you the ability to clear.” (64:10)

• Illustration: JMU played no top 30 teams, only one top 50 team (lost), best win over #52 Old Dominion.

  • “Oklahoma faced eight teams tougher than JMU’s toughest opponent… They’re not playing the same sport.” (65:21)

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6. Bold Predictions: The Carnage

(Begins at 71:01)

Josh revisits outrageous listener predictions made before the season and relishes in their spectacular collapse.

• Jackson Arnold (Auburn) Will Lead SEC in TD Passes:
  “Jackson Arnold finished 16th in the SEC in touchdown passes…” (71:52)

• Colorado & Deion Sanders Win 9+ Games:

  • Colorado finished 3–9.
  • “This one crashed and burned into the mountainside.” (74:10)

• FSU Makes ACC Title Game and Playoff Final Four:

  • FSU started 3–0, then went 0–4 down the stretch and missed the playoff.
  • “The season that began with an upset win over Alabama ends with the athletic director having to make a statement that we’re not firing Mike Norvell.” (75:01)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the CFP Selection Show:
  “The weekly rankings show for the playoff committee is trash... I don’t need that. I need really detailed in the weeds explanations.” (09:50)
• On Committee Consistency:
  “Very few people have guiding principles and value systems that are just bedrocked... It’s fandom that is a beautiful thing. That’s not a bad thing. That’s a great thing.” (11:29)
• On Notre Dame Bubble:
  “Inside the Notre Dame bubble, everyone in there thinks everyone outside the Notre Dame bubble either agrees with them or they’re corrupted.” (26:55)
• On Bowl Opt-Outs:
  “It’s a football game, man. So on the surface, I feel that way about that.” (33:25)
• On Evaluating G5 Teams:
  “There’s no way that James Madison could earn a playoff spot in my mind because there is no minimum baseline pushback that this schedule could give them.” (64:55)
• On Conference Debates:
  “The tallest trees in the Big Ten right now look to be taller than the tallest trees in the SEC. I think the SEC forest is way thicker than the Big Ten’s.” (45:45)

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Important Timestamps

• 04:43 — CFP Lessons Learned
• 20:25 — Notre Dame’s Playoff Snub, AD Comments & Bowl Opt-Out
• 43:20 — Big Ten vs. SEC Debate
• 45:52 — Most Disappointing Teams
• 54:25 — Behind-the-Scenes (Penn State Trip)
• 61:44 — G5 Playoff Debate
• 71:01 — Bold Prediction Results & Recap

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Tone & Style

The episode is delivered in Josh’s conversational, jocular, and slightly self-deprecating style, balancing passionate takes with humor and humility. He tackles tough topics directly (“Let’s tell the truth about conference championships,” “Notre Dame’s tantrum”) but takes pains to separate fact from fandom. Listener engagement is ever-present, from mailbag questions to behind-the-scenes details.

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This summary highlights the episode’s main insights, arguments, and memorable commentary, offering both a comprehensive recap and a flavor of Josh Pate’s signature approach to college football discussion.

Transcript

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[Josh Pate]

It always fascinates me when I become active in the live chat before the show and people think it's Jesse. I don't even give Jesse full Internet access. It is not him in the live chat. Before we go live, it is me. We're jam packed. We're high atop a mild downtown Nashville, Tennessee, on this Tuesday night, December 9th, the year of our Lord 2025. I've learned some things. I think I've learned some things about the College Football playoff, about the overall state of college football, about where we are, where we've been, where we're headed. Maybe nobody knows anything, but I think I've learned some things. I will share those with you tonight. Notre Dame in the midst of a historic college football tantrum. A fraction of it is warranted. A lot of it is not. I will share thoughts because our inbox has been inundated with requests for such. There was a question about the Big Ten in the sec and is there superiority and are they pulling away? Is one pulling away from the other? It's all part of the mailbag. We're going to dip into the mailbag fairly heavily on this show and I regret to inform you that now that the regular season has concluded, we can revisit some of your bold predictions. Emphasis your bold predictions, not mine. And some of you crashed and burned in epic fashion. And we will absolutely revel in that on tonight's show. Jam packed show. They're watching us in Spring Hill, Tennessee. They're watching us in York, Pennsylvania. They're watching us in warm, beautiful Key Biscayne Florida and Sunset, Texas. What a lovely name. So two requests for you tonight. One of them is very simple. We're well over 500,000 subs, which means our next stop is a million. We're skipping over 6, 7, 8, 900k. We're just going straight to a million. So check and see if you're subscribed to the channel. If you're not, please do so. And then the other little piece of news, little business item to check off the list here.

Tons of you per year. Ask how you get a job with us. At the live show the other night, several people asked, how do I get a job with you? Well, the answer is to just stay tuned into the show. And you're in luck because I have a need. So before we post the job opening or before we just start scanning the yellow pages or anything like that, very old reference there, paper popper. I need a studio engineer. I need one in Nashville. So there you go. If you want to get in touch with us, write this email down because I didn't know we had this until today. Jesse's just been hoarding and siphoning all of your correspondence off on this email address. Freights, plural. Freightspatestate.com studio engineer. Now, here's what I didn't say. What I didn't say is, hit us up. If you're not a studio engineer, but you just want to use the email address to get a different kind of job, those opportunities will come. Say that again, Jesse.

What did I say? Freightspatestatemail.com yes. All right. Also, I can barely hear you, which is probably for the best. Don't adjust anything. All right, let's dive into the show tonight. So anyway, yeah, studio engineer. That's what we're looking for right now in Nashville. The College Football Playoff rankings are done, the bracket set, the matchups are taking place. Personally, I've got two games circled. You can guess which two. I think I'm going to go to the Alabama, Oklahoma game. I think I'm going to go on down to College Station the next morning for Miami and Texas A and M. But those aren't the lessons I've learned. Those are just plans that I've made. What lessons have we learned? I'm sure you've learned a lot. I'm sure you have a lot of takeaways. The first thing that I have learned is we really need to tell the truth about college football Conference championship games. It's going to be an uncomfortable truth, but I think it's a truth most of us know not all conference championship games are equal because not all conferences are equal. So there was a big question floating around last week when Ohio State did not drop after losing the Big Ten title game and Alabama didn't drop after losing the SEC title game, but Brigham Young did drop after losing the Big 12 championship game. And the question was, why is this product and process so hypocritical? Why did one team drop when they lost their conference title game, but two didn't? Do you want the truth? The truth is because the Big Ten in the SEC are different than the Big 12 and they will be treated as such. Now, that's a lesson that I think most of us knew. Not all of us want to admit it, but most of us knew that and it was put on display. Was it favoritism? If you call. If you call rational observation of the sport favoritism, yes, I do know there are a lot of conspiracies out there that. Well, since this conference is in bed with this network or that conference is in bed with that network, that's where the favoritism comes from. I don't necessarily know that it's as much that as it is just acknowledging where most of the good teams and the good talent is. You don't have to like it. I don't love it, but that is the way it is. And. And so that's why, like, even on our show, notice in the lead up to the final Saturday of the season, I never said if any conference runner up drops, it's wrong. I said, if they drop Alabama, it's wrong because I was already aware of this truth. This truth has been evident to me for a while that not all conferences are going to get treated equally. Again, I'm not asking you to agree with it. I'm not even telling you I agree with it. I'm telling you it. It makes sense. And that's the way it is. Another lesson I learned. This one I think I'll have more agreement on. The weekly rankings show for the playoff committee is trash. It doesn't serve a purpose. It actually serves a counter purpose. It just confuses people more. So I think we ought to do away with it. Now. I was listening to Ryan Rossillo on his show earlier today before Canal came on. When Canel came on, I just fast forwarded. But before he brought Cannell on, he was talking about the ranking show and how a lot of people think that it doesn't serve a purpose. And he said, hey, fair point. Okay, then the counterpoint is let's just do away with it. And he was kind of walking that through to a logical conclusion. And he was asking fairly, do you know how crazy that would be? Like, yeah, you get fed some television product masquerading as a legitimate rankings reveal process right now, and you get all up in arms and you argue and then it gets flipped on you at the 11th hour. But do you know how much more crazy it would be if you just had to guess what the committee was looking at? And he made a good point that I hadn't thought of, but is accurate. If the playoff rankings don't exist until the final week of the season, it's not like there won't be rankings. It would be a network or an entity that just creates a product to fill that void. Because people are dying for rankings in sports, especially college sports, you got to have your rankings. That's why the AP poll segments traditionally do our highest traffic of the week. People love polls. They love rankings. It's why it's always been foolish to ask not to do AP rankings until week six or not to do preseason rankings. You can't outlaw that. People want it. And so with the playoff rankings, okay, if we're not going to get rid of them, then let's keep them, but let's really turn the volume up and let's expose the entire process. So in other words, if I'm college football commissioner and you tell me that we're going to keep. Well, I tell you that we're going to keep the playoff rankings. I'm not just telling you we're going to keep it status quo. If we're going to keep the rankings and the rankings reveal show on Tuesday night, I want to observe the deliberation. I want far more than just Hunter Yurichek giving me prepared talking points. Actually, it should have been prepared for him this year. It would have gone a lot better for four and a half minutes. I don't need that. I need really detailed in the weeds explanations. And you know what? If you have to have more than one person on air, like if I know I'm getting five questions from Reese Davis and I have to, I kid you not, if I have to take one committee member per question, one committee member per scenario, just educate yourself on this one lane so that when we put you on TV for 93 seconds, you know what to talk about, so be it. At least we'll get a better explanation and a better line of thinking than what we have now. The third lesson, very few of these arguments that we just heard over the past few weeks were based in principle, which is why I never really dove that deep on them. I had my thoughts, you had your thoughts, but I like to think my thoughts would be applicable independent of the brands. And that is not the case for 98% of people yelling right now. 98% of people yelling right now are yelling because of something happening or not happening to the team they love, which is fine. That's called cheering. That's called fandom. That is not what it was being presented as. A lot of people were arguing on behalf of Notre Dame and they were arguing to basically look past a head to head result that I know full well they would have been using as exhibit A had they beaten Miami. And. And their argument was Miami's and Miami's was Notre Dame's. So you're not standing on principle. You're just rooting for your team, which is fine as long as you admit you're rooting for your team. But no, it wasn't that. Just like with Alabama. Alabama folks said, well, if we lose our conference championship game, we ought not be able to fall. But you know good and well if you were sitting at number 11 or 12 and you needed someone to fall and it was a conference champion runner up, then you'd have no problem with them falling. It's happened to you before. Bama fans know that because it's happened to them. It's happened at their benefit before. So there's very little principle in play here. Very few people have guiding principles and value systems that are just bedrocked and it's what they believe. It's their college football worldview, no matter what, that doesn't really exist. It's fandom that is a beautiful thing. That's not a bad thing. That's a great thing. Speaking of bedrock, speaking of foundation, that's the foundation of what makes this stuff worth watching. Because you care about it. But a whole lot. I care about it a whole lot. We love it. But man, it can pull the wool over your eyes when it comes to walking arguments through to a logical conclusion independent of the brands, independent of the stickers in front of you. The fourth thing I learned.

Is that maybe we ought to just fix conference tiebreakers before we burn the entire system down and start from scratch. This is a widely held opinion that I've heard. I happen to agree with it. If you don't know what I'm talking about. The ACC was a disaster this year on the field in that very few of their teams were good, but then off the field administratively, they didn't have their affairs in order and they didn't have their tiebreaker system properly calibrated. And that's how you end up with 7 and 5 Duke playing for a conference championship. Now, what's the fix, Josh? Very simple fix. Your conference tiebreakers should be number one. Head to head results. So if you and I are both 10 and 2 and we played each other and I beat you, I'm going and you're sitting at home. Well, if we're. I guess it would be what, Jesse? Six and two in conference or seven and two. I can't remember how many conference games they play. They play eight. Okay, so if you and I are both six and two in league play, but I beat you, that's tiebreaker number one. That's the easy one. Everyone does it like that. The second tiebreaker, especially in conferences like the accuracy, ought to be College Football Playoff ranking. If we changed nothing other than that, this mess would have been alleviated. Because if we did that, Miami would have gone to Charlotte to play for an ACC championship. They almost certainly would have won and they would have been in the playoff as one of the five highest ranked conference champs. What does that do? Well, it puts them in and it removes one of these G5 teams and we're looking at it and all of a sudden, wow, it makes a lot more sense. So much of the noise, 95% of the noise was turned down and Notre Dame's still in. Jesse, I think we got room for Alabama still, don't we? We just don't have room for James Madison. So we got like the teams that were all vying for that final spot. We got them all in there. And notice I didn't have to burn the whole playoff down. All I had to do was have the ACC.

Just wake up one morning and do the right thing with their tiebreaker system. I don't know if we're going to see that happen. My guess is we're going to see that happen. I have heard from many a person who has knowledge of that that we're going to see it happen. And lastly, and this may be the most important part, because this is the part where we look forward to the playoff. Ohio State bled on conference championship Saturday. Ohio State bled.

Now, I'm not being a Buckeye hater when I say that I'm reverting back to a point I made a few weeks ago. Someone asked on the show how many teams can win the national title. I said, that's all up to Ohio State, because up until that point, Ohio State had looked utterly dominant. And I said, if they really are as good as they look, very few teams can win a national title. But if we change nothing about this sport other than Ohio State's a little more vulnerable than they have looked, then it's game on. Well, they did more than look vulnerable. They lost. They gave up 13 points in a conference title game and still lost. So they bled. So now it's game on. Ohio State can still win it. They're still the favorite. Indiana can win it. I know. I've already seen them beat Ohio State. But Georgia, Yes. Oregon, yes. I'm going to get back to Texas. You know what I want. Texas Tech outside shot. Yes. But now we start to think about the Texas A&M's of the world. Bama. I still have a real hard time seeing, ironically, I picked them to win the national title and they're the team in that group I feel the least confident in. But even with Alabama, if you walk it through, if they just come out against Oklahoma and Jam Miller's back and Josh Cuevas is back, they're just a little bit healthier. The pass game clicks a little bit more, offensive line a little bit more crisp. I mean, Alabama, like people are forgotten about that run they went on because they faltered down the stretch. Well, maybe they get right or maybe they don't. The point is, if they do, Alabama at their best could be in that mix. Miami, I skipped over Ole Miss. They qualify, too. Miami got in the playoff. They could be in that mix. Like Miami could lose in the first round, but they could also win the whole thing. Just because Ohio State bled a little bit, it changed my entire worldview on the playoff. So those are some of the lessons I learned. Be very interested to hear the lessons you learned. I'm out of bliss stacks. I'm having to manually apply right now. Quick Trip could have stopped by there earlier today and grabbed unlimited amounts. Last check. Jesse. I don't even think they limit the amount of lip balm that you're allowed to purchase at Kwik Trip. See, that's how they roll, man. They don't try and limit you. They don't try and interfere in your life. They remove the restrictions and limitations. And that could apply just as easily to cold brew. Although I would argue there's a certain amount of cold brew past which you probably do need someone to step in. But it's not going to be a Quick Trip attendant. It could be your guardian or. Or your chaperone or your parent. But Quick Trip, whether you need fuel, literally or figuratively. You know, food, drink, cold brew on tap. Quick Trip has you and Quick Trip fueled us all the way down to Atlanta and back Saturday a few days ago. We went to Penn State yesterday, but we needed a different kind of fuel to get up there. I'll talk about that later. Someone asked for some behind the scenes stuff from our Penn State trip and it occurred to me that we used to do that all the time on the show. Just little odds and ends behind the scenes and I don't know why I stopped. We're starting back up tonight. Anyway, thank you to Kwik Trip always fueling us wherever we need to go.

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Limu, what are you doing on their team?

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[Josh Pate]

Next up.

Notre Dame's making a lot of noise right now Notre Dame got left out of the playoff Many, many, many of you asked me over the past 24ish hours, hey, what do you think about the Notre Dame athletic director? What do you think about them opting out of a bowl game? Not to mention, hey, what do you think about them being left out of the playoff? Well, the latter part I talked about a lot on the Sunday show. I thought the committee got the teams right as far as their current protocols are set up. Of course I don't want two G5 teams in the playoff, but their current protocols mandated that that's who should be in the playoffs. So like that part notwithstanding, when it came down to the whole triple comparative debate, Alabama, Miami, Notre Dame, they put the teams in that I would have put in. So my problem was not with the product. I had a huge problem with the process. But that's not really what you guys were asking about. You were asking about Pete Bavaqua, who I went on national television this morning and called Pete Bakwava. My apologies, but Pete Bavakwa, who is the Notre Dame athletic director, has had a lot to say. Now I'll give him credit. He fights for his program and he fights for his brand. No different than Jim Phillips fights for the acc, which apparently the Notre Dame athletic director has a big problem with. But I'm going to ask you to do one thing. I will gladly talk about this on the show. I just want you to promise me one thing which our audience is pretty good about. It's the drive by crowd that's not so good at it. Please listen to what I say and not what I don't say. Okay? I will tell you exactly what I think about this so you don't have to guess or read between the lines. Firstly, I don't think Notre Dame got robbed in a sense that I don't think they were.

They were left without something they were owed. They weren't owed a playoff spot. They didn't outright convincingly earn a playoff spot. There were a lot of shades of gray in this. So if it's your opinion Notre Dame should have been in, that's fine. A lot of you think that other people think they shouldn't have been. But it's this definitive fist against the table. This result and anything else is evil. Anything else means you're bought and paid for by a network or anything else and you're blind. No, just means you got a different opinion on something that is very subjective. Very subjective. So it just so happened to be my viewpoint that if Alabama was already in the top 10, I'm not dropping them out for losing the SEC championship game. So they're going to be in. And then it came down to Notre Dame or Miami and I thought Miami should be in because I think anytime you have comparative resumes or comparable resumes, then the head to head should rule the day. It's very simple. You could disagree with that and that'd be fine. But even I'm not sitting here telling you my opinion is definitive. And anyone who disagrees is stupid because Miami's got a very flawed resume. Alabama had a flawed resume. Notre Dame had a flawed resume. But the point there is, at the very least, you have to admit, no matter which of those teams would have been left out, it wasn't some crime against college football humanity that it happened. You were going to have to put a flawed team in no matter what. But that is not what the crux of the talking points have been coming out of Notre Dame. So the first thing I think is you didn't get robbed. You may have been misled. You were misled, I was misled, we were all misled by the committee. But that doesn't mean you got robbed. It just means that they completely horrifically mismanaged the messaging leading up to the final reveal. And if you want to complain about that, I'm about to join you in a second. So Pete Bavaca, who is again the Notre Dame athletic director, went on a number of shows over the past day or two and he voiced his displeasure with the entire process. He went after the acc. He really got mad at them. He said they've done damage, they've done permanent damage to their relationship with Notre Dame. And look, I. I listened to some of that and it sounded pathetic. Some of what Pete Pavakwa said was brilliant and I agree wholeheartedly with it, and some of it was just pathetic. I heard Brett, your mark, who is the Big 12 League commissioner, earlier Today, call him out for going after Jim Phillips and the acc. I mean, they got off because the ACC stood up for Miami, which is exactly what they should do because of reasons like, oh, you know, Miami was the only ACC member institution with a shot to make the playoff. You're not a member institution, dude. You've been extended an invitation. You've turned it down. I'm going to say again, I'm all for Notre Dame maintaining their independence. I would be the same way if I were them. This is not about Notre Dame joining a conference. It's about them understanding you've got a relationship with the acc. Miami is a member of the accident. So the ACC was looking at one of two possibilities. Either we campaign hard for Mario Cristobal's team to get in, or we're not going to have a team in. Because I'm pretty sure if Notre Dame made it in, they weren't splitting any of that playoff revenue with the ACC out of the kindness of their hearts. Unless it works that way, and I don't know, I can assure you they weren't voluntarily giving the ACC any money. So they got mad because the ACC was pushing Miami. What else were they going to do? Like, you're insane if you think that way. And also, I don't care if Jim Phillips himself went in his own pocket and bought billboards in every major town, put the Notre Dame logo on it with devil horns above it. It's the committee that makes the decision. The playoff committee makes the decision, not the acc. So? So even in the worst of worlds, even if they outright targeted you and just resulted to Gestapo tactics to cut your knees out from under you, it's the playoff committee that has to be the sucker who falls for it. And they didn't fall for it. They just judged your resume against Miami's and theirs was better because they played you on a field and they won. And that wasn't even the argument that Pete Bavaqua or Notre Dame should have been making, because very a minority of the country agrees with you on that. There's the Notre Dame bubble. And if I was in it, I'd be saying the same thing. I get it. There's the Notre Dame bubble. And inside the Notre Dame bubble, everyone in there thinks everyone outside the Notre Dame bubble either agrees with them or they're corrupted. I don't know how many times today I got told that this show has been bought and paid for by ESPN News. To me, I thought we owned all of it, but apparently I'm employed by ESPN now. And they own this show. And how do they know that? Well, because I didn't think Notre Dame should make the playoff. And there's no way a free thinking human could believe that other than they've been bought and paid for. So, like, the Notre Dame bubble's been a little myopic about this. And the outside world has largely looked at Notre Dame like a. Like a petulant child. That's kind of how they've looked at him on that front. I've looked at it and I've said, yeah, that argument's stupid. But this other thing, Pete Bavaqua said that's what he should have spent all his time on because he did some really, really good explaining of, as it turns out, what the real problem is. The problem whether. Look, let me pause. They certainly believe they should have gotten in the playoff. I don't necessarily agree with them, but let's just establish that. He went on a number of shows yesterday and he said, look, this is not us versus any team. This is us complaining that the process was horrifically bungled. Yes, Pete, keep talking on that. Keep talking. Cause even if I don't think you should have gotten in the playoff, I. I completely agree with you on this, man. Keep talking. And he did. And he said we were led to believe we were in the playoff. We were led to believe we had done what we had to do to get in the playoff. And you know what? He's right. And I would have thought the same thing if I were a Notre Dame fan, player, coach, ad I would have thought to myself, well, surely if we're sitting there in the top 10 or the top nine before the last weekend and even in the last weekend got dropped to number 10. Surely if we don't play this Saturday and Miami doesn't play this Saturday, that committee's known about the head to head result for weeks. It's not like we're going to play again. So. So the hay's in the barn as far as the resumes go. And then you're telling me you guys went behind a curtain during conference championship Saturday when neither us nor Miami played and you were already armed with the information that we had played in week one and you knew that for weeks, so seemingly it had already been baked into the cake, certainly that's not going to matter. And then all of a sudden it mattered. And selection Sunday comes and Miami jumps Notre Dame and Bama doesn't fall behind them and Miami is in and Notre Dame's out and they're like, how do we Even explain this to our players. How do they explain it to us? Oh, they didn't. Well, they tried and failed miserably. I stood right out here and watched it on a monitor and. And I watched Hunter Jureczyk look America in the eyes. And after what, five or six weeks of these reveal shows, he said, well, you know, when it really came down to it, we had to compare Notre Dame and Miami and there was a head to head result we had to acknowledge, like the game had just been played 24 hours prior and not two and a half months prior. It's just mind numbing ignorance. It's indefensible. And Pete Bavak was looking at that, saying, that's the problem, buddy. If your opinion is that you've got like 90% of America behind you and the only 10% that's not either hates Notre Dame and wouldn't agree with you on principle, or they're the kind of people who argue that the sky is not really blue because everyone else agrees the playoff rankings process sucks. The committee's process sucks. Their messaging's terrible. They serve every purpose other than the one they're supposed to serve. They have a lower approval rating than Congress, and I don't even know that we've taken their approval rating. Maybe that's something that we should internalize. But if you just stuck to that, you would have made a lot more headway. Instead, it's like so hard to isolate arguments and to hone in. Like when you're on the debate stage and you've got your opponent pinned down, one of the tactics in classical debate, they'll use, I call it the ping pong style, which is where they'll just bounce and they'll genuflect and you don't allow them to do it. You keep your mouth shut, you let them make a point that's irrelevant and then you drill right back down on the same point you know you had them pinned down on and you don't relent, you don't let up. That's what Pete Bavacqua should have done. That's what a lot of Notre Dame folks should have done. Instead, they're ping ponging all around with these disingenuous side arguments that don't even matter because the main argument's the main argument. So that's that. And for the record, very, very much a side note here, the eyeball test thing, the eyeball test. Notre Dame folks that have made that argument, to me, not all of them have, but a lot of Notre Dame folks have made the eyeball test argument. We think we should be in because we're the best team now. You don't know that. You don't. Well, Josh, I know we'd be favored. I do, too. I got the numbers right here. On a neutral field. According to FanDuel, on a neutral field, Notre Dame would be a 2 1/2 point favorite against Oregon, 2 1/2 point favorite against Texas Tech, 4 point favorite against Bama. You'd be a 5 1/2 point favorite against Miami. There you go. Matt, my own sportsbook partner is definitively telling you you'd be favored on a neutral field against Miami. I don't care. I don't care because I don't think you earned your spot. I think you're better than Miami. I'd pick you to beat Miami. I don't care because I've been wrong picking games before. So my eyeball test is irrelevant. And like I said the other night, and like, I'll continue to maintain this if I don't even value my eyeball test.

You really think I value the eyeball test of people who are probably hitting the sack by 8:30 tonight on that committee? Absolutely not. And then lastly, as for the bowl opt out. No, I hated it. I hated the bowl opt out because I feel like I'm 90 years old when it comes to the spirit of competition in sports. I think a football game's worth playing because it's a football game, because you only get to play so many of them. And especially if I'm a senior on Notre Dame's team, I ended my season sure that I was going to have at least one more game, if not several, and then the playoff rug got yanked out from under me. But still, I'm going to play a bowl game, right? Nope. We're done. My career's over. I'll never play a football game again. That doesn't sit well with me at all. And also from a competitive standpoint, I've got a lot of young guys who I'd love to get through bowl practices. I'd love to get in some live reps in a game. I'd love to give my fans that want to go the experience, but I just.

[Doug]

It's a football game, man.

[Josh Pate]

So on the surface, I feel that way about that. But they're not the only one who opted out of a game. I'd be lying if I said I didn't understand the sentiment because if I was in their shoes and I felt like I got jilted by the playoff committee. The last thing I'd want to go do is participate in, sadly, what many think is just some exhibition now. Bowl games used to be great. They're not viewed that way anymore. So it wasn't the biggest, you know, it wasn't the biggest crisis of the week to me that Notre Dame opted out of their bowl game. I understand it. I don't have to like it, but I understand it. On the level of one to ten, it was like a four and a half for me. They're watching us in Durango, Colorado, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Roanoke, Virginia. Thank you guys so much. Two cities in Virginia I've never been to, Roanoke and Norfolk. I've known them my whole life because I was a child of the Weather Channel. My first grade teacher reached out to me the other day. She saw us doing the Altcast, and she posted, I think, on Facebook, which I check about once a month. And she was talking about how she remembered that I knew all 50 of my state shapes in first grade because of the Weather Channel. And then I had to remind her I knew my capitals in kindergarten and the shapes by first grade because I watched the Weather Channel religiously. And not only did I know my state capitals, I knew a minimum of three cities in every state and Roanoke and Norfolk. And ironically, Newport News was the third city that I always remember memorizing in Virginia. Ashburn. Nice little rail town, too. So it's completely irrelevant to my next point. I just. We got a lighter show tonight, so I, I thought I could fit that kind of stuff in there. Bradley, go to the inbox. Go to the Pate State mailbag there. Give me this question from Davenport, Iowa. Chris P. In Davenport, Iowa, said, is it safe to say if the Big Ten wins a national title, the Big Ten has surpassed the sec? Chris, Chris, Chris, Is it really that simple? Is it really that basic? Maybe it is. I've got thoughts on this that I've shared before. I don't think I've shared them in the last few weeks, though. So it's a really good time for the Big Ten, but not all the Big Ten, but it's a really good time for the logo of the Big Ten. If you define success and best and superiority by which league wins the national title, then it's a great time to be the Big Ten. It's never a bad time to be the Big Ten because they've been either number one or number two in the power conference pecking order for a long time now. They could be number one right now or number two depending on your criteria. So let's walk it through. Let's say Ohio State or Indiana wins the national title this year. Well, my answer then wouldn't be any different than it is now. It all depends on how you define superiority. Number one, number two. And I think that I value both a little bit. So I think there's, there's a lot to be said about both. I tend to judge the overall conference by the competitive depth of the conference. So like, I still think the SEC has the edge there. But if you're the kind of guy who thinks, well, hey man, if I got the best two teams in the country, I don't care if you have number three and five and six and seven and eight. Cool. To each his and her own. The reason I think it's a great time for the Big Ten is cause the overall landscape of the sport has changed to the benefit of the Big Ten. Which means a couple of things. The first one's obvious. The first one is with what's happened with nil, Many more Big Ten programs have leaned into paying players because everyone's doing it now legally. And so that is also. That's also redistributed some of the talent. But I think that's happened more in the SEC than the Big Ten. What I mean by that is in the Big Ten, Ohio State and Michigan, Penn State, Oregon, usc. Now those will always be places that recruit at a fairly high level. Ohio State is a juggernaut recruiting program. USC just landed the number one class, which is great, but Oregon's done it. But the point is, if you think about it in terms of talent concentration, the talent is far more concentrated in the Big Ten than it is in the sec. Which means two things. That means Georgia may lose a few elite players. Bama may lose a few elite players that go to like randomly Ole Miss or South Carolina or Arkansas. Cause that does happen occasionally. But that still means the talent's in the league. It's just more distributed. Whereas in the Big Ten, no one ever turns down Ohio State to go to Wisconsin in the sec. It just makes sense to people that Dylan Stewart is playing at South Carolina over Georgia. Because that stuff just happens in the sec. Freak athletes go to places where it's very unlikely they're going to win a national title. But still those places get legit talent in the Big Ten. Who in the world is voluntarily just going to Michigan State over Oregon? Unless it's a big time geographical proximity sort of thing, it doesn't happen. And as a result, the top of the Big Ten. The tallest trees in the Big Ten right now look to be taller than the tallest trees in the sec. I think the SEC forest is way thicker than the Big Tens. Very vivid right there. And what I mean by that, you can pull up the latest recruiting rankings, but you could really do this for the last several classes because this could be explained away as anecdotal. I'm telling you, I wouldn't give this example. If extrapolated out over the last several years, it didn't pretty much look the same. So USC these signing day was last Wednesday. By the way, for those who weren't paying attention, the On3 sports recruiting rankings are in my hand right now. In the Big Ten some of these teams had really good signing classes. USC number one overall, Oregon three, Ohio State six. And then it's Michigan at 12, Washington at 16th. So you had a few of them, you had three of them in the top six and then you got one at 12 and then the rest of them outside of the top 15 in the SEC, Bama was 4, Georgia was 5, Tennessee 7A&M 8, Texas 10, LSU 11, Florida 13, South Carolina 15, Oklahoma 17. And if you, if you want to start, you know, doing the Comparison Cross conferences, 1, 2, 3, 4. Washington was fifth in the Big Ten at number 16. That's about where Oklahoma was in the SEC. But the fifth highest recruiting class in the Big Ten would have been 2, 4, 6, 8, 9th in the SEC. So just the overall talent pool is deeper there, that's all. But you'll notice what the example I just gave about the on field product carries very similarly to the recruiting classes. Yeah, Bama's fourth and fifth, USC's first, Oregon's third, Ohio State's sixth. And you know, they're going to develop the, you know what out of anybody that they sign. So I don't know. I guess it all comes down to how you judge conferences. I will also say this when you see how top heavy the Big Ten still is. It may not always be that way, but it still is. Now it, it makes perfect sense why they're pushing for the AQ model. This, this playoff field right now is an example. SEC got five teams in, the Big Ten got three teams in. Well, if the Big Ten got their way, where it would have been 4, 42211, you know, the whole AQ model, the Big Ten would have gotten one more in, the SEC would have gotten one fewer in. And again that's very anecdotal. It's a one year sample size, but it Just goes to show you, the SEC is sort of banking on the fact that, hey, we're deeper than you. Now. We may not have the best top end teams, but we could litter the top 12 in a manner that your conference really can't. It's a roll of the dice and any given year could produce an anomaly of a result. But that's the way it stands right now. At least in my mind it does. Academy Sports and Outdoors has been a partner of ours for a long time. Now it's getting serious out there. It's getting cold, or it just straight up already is, depending on where you live. And you could need anything from winter clothing to winter sporting gear to a new grill to maybe a new canopy for outdoors. You know, I don't want to necessarily box you in because there's a lot that Academy Sports and Outdoors has even in the winter months that you may not know you need until you go in there and then you look to your left and right and as far as the eye can see, it's stuff you need. I speak from firsthand experience. So Academy Sports and Outdoors is available in person, which I highly suggest. But if you can't get there in person, Academy.com has your hookup and they are a close personal friend of the program. Again, they've been with us for a long time and we appreciate Academy for always kind of being like the mortar between the bricks of our shows. That's actually how the stack of papers looks.

[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Josh Pate]

And Doug, what a horrible call. Hey, ref.

[Doug]

Open your eyes, ref.

[Josh Pate]

You're really not gonna call that? Come on.

[Limu]

Hey, ref, why don't you customize your car insurance with Liberty Mutual and save money.

[Josh Pate]

I don't think you get what we're doing.

[Limu]

Sure I do. We're all just given a mission advice. You guys on sports, me on saving money.

[Doug]

Nope, that's not it.

[Limu]

Only pay for what you need@liberty mutual.com.

[Josh Pate]

Liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty.

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[Podcast Announcer]

Not everything is terrible. I repeat, not everything is terrible. The Ripple Effect with Jenna Kim Jones is proof that the Internet, it hasn't ruined humanity entirely.

[Josh Pate]

Let me start by saying it's a great day to be a gray shirt team Rubicon. You know, it truly is a team. Those folks, myself included, all had one desire which is helping folks in disaster. Trying to be a little bit of hope in a really, really bad situation.

[Podcast Announcer]

It's like magic you guys. So put down your doom scroller and pick up your faith in humanity and.

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It's a reminder that you can start.

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A ripple that changes everything.

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We give just that nugget of hope helping other people. For some of our gray shirts, it's during a time when they need help and by helping others it helps them.

[Podcast Announcer]

Listen to the Ripple Effect with Jenna Kim Jones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Josh Pate]

Jesse did someone ask about most disappointing teams or did we just. Yeah, someone asked Dorian from Yazoo City, Mississippi. A tornado hotbed Yazoo City, Mississippi. There is an age old adage in the storm chasing community in Dixie Alley. When in doubt head towards Yazoo City, Mississippi and you would not say that in any other walk of life. All due respect to Yazoo City, but I'm just telling you when it's spring and it's storm chasing season, catch me in Yazoo City. Anyway, Dorian said you said on a show a while back that a bunch of preseason top 25 teams finished unranked out of those teams. Who were your most disappointing teams this season? It's a depressing question. I'd be happy to answer it. Clemson was terrible. Clemson was the number four team in the country in the preseason. They finished seven and five. You remember or if you don't, let me. Let me jog your memory. Let me refresh ify your memory. Go back in time. Go back in time to the summer. What are we saying? We're saying, hey, Clemson's got the best shot they've had in a long time. Remember? They've replenished the wide receiver room. I'm guilty of this in many ways. I'm just repeating myself. They've replenished the wide receiver room. They got as good an athletic profile in that receiver room as they've had in a long time. What else do they have? Cade Klubnick, third year returning starter. Garrett Riley, third year returning play caller. They've got NFL capability on all three levels of the defense. Run game probably won't be electric, but it'll be good enough. It'll be serviceable enough. Offensive line looks better than it's been in a few years. And not everyone agreed with this, but I had the opinion that this was sort of a maybe a last dance situation because I viewed 2026 and beyond as the edge of a cliff from a roster certainty standpoint, I didn't have a lot of confidence. So I looked at this year, this 2025 year, as the year they had to get it done. And not only did they not get it done, they imploded. They lost to LSU and they squeaked by Troy, then lost to Georgia Tech, then lost to Syracuse. When they lost to Syracuse, that one was done. I mean, that was Steve Angeli, Syracuse. That was before the quarterback got injured and ended the season. Syracuse housed them at home, and so they started the season one and three and it was just a bad, bad time. So that had to be my most disappointing team, but not my only disappointing team because the Florida Gators do exist after all. Now, credit the AP they only had him number 15.

I regret to inform you I had him a little bit higher than that to my credit. Well, no, there's no credit to be had here. I'm not going to do that to my defense. No, there's no defending.

I don't know. In my, in my, in my honor, in my, in my very, very feeble attempt to explain this away. There we go. Whatever the acronym is. I think that if they were just being judged on their team Independent of their schedule. I think the AP would have voted them higher. I had them higher. Because I don't think you should predict with your preseason ranking. Cause that just means the teams with the easier schedules are going to be ranked higher than the teams with the toughest schedule is going to be ranked lower anyway. It didn't matter because they finished 4 and 8. This one hurts. This one hurts me bad. The worst part is, if you look at the schedule on your screen right now, notice there's the loss to usf and that started the downfall. Then they went to lsu and they were, I think five interceptions that night, minus four turnovers. Then they got smashed by Miami. And then what happened? Everyone. They just randomly mixed in a win against Texas. Which reminded you, or reminded me. Everything I thought Florida was capable of in the preseason, they were always capable of. It just so happens they were only going to give it to you in small sample sizes. It was like my mom taking me to Sam's club on a Saturday morning. They're not going to feed you breakfast, but they will give you the little sample platters. Now, I used to think that that was breakfast. Unbeknownst to me, they were trying to convince you to buy stuff. Florida convinced me to buy them. I got a little taste of Florida at the end of last year and they convinced me to buy them. And I didn't check the expiration date. I don't know what else to say. Very, very poor shopping on my part. And they end up 4 and 8. And the worst part is DJ Lagway just never even remotely came close to what I thought he was. One of the things that will live in infamy was me doing my SEC quarterback preseason power ratings, which we may never do again because I had Lagway number one. And he finished. I can't believe that's real. He finished with a 16 to 14 touchdown to Int ratio. I don't want to talk about it anymore. Let's move on. Penn State. Shame on you, Jesse. Penn State was a preseason number two.

This one was well documented. But let's revisit it once more, shall we? They went six and six. Now, it was a. It was a tale of like three seasons for Penn State because you had the start, which was, like, misleading. So they entered the season number two. They played Nevada, FIU and Villanova to begin the year. Didn't look particularly great in any of those games, but everyone sort of had. In the back of their mind, we didn't have to show anything. We were really vanilla, you know, Andy Coldenicky, man, he's been cooking up with Drew Aller and these transfer portal receivers all spring and all summer. You think we're going to show our offensive hand against fiu? More like fi who? Ha ha ha ha. Here comes Oregon. Oh, man, we're down 17 to 3. Oh man, we're having a fight back. Oh snap. We're taking him to overtime. And we lost. And we're dead. That was season number one. And then season number two was let's go and let's bounce back on the west coast against ucla. Wait a second. We just lost this again. Oh, it's crisis time. We're going home. Boy, if Northwestern gets out to a lead against us, it's going to be really toxic. Northwestern has the lead. Northwestern just won. James Franklin is fired. That was season two. And then Terry Smith is named the interim head coach. And they fought Iowa valiantly on the road and they lost. They hung with Ohio State for a little while and they lost. And then they come home and give Indiana the biggest fight Indiana's had all year, including, I would argue, the game they just played against Ohio State. And they were in the process of becoming one of the hottest teams in the country. And we knew because we were dumping money on them, the model never dropped them out of the top 20. I had to manually override the model. And then the model won. And so that was season three. And it was long. I don't know how many games it felt like to you. Those were 12 games. That felt like three seasons worth of games. But yeah, that was disappointing because Penn State was one of the safest commodities. Look at the schedule. Keep the schedule up. Bradley. So remember, in preseason terms, there was so little question about the team. Think about what they were last year. They were in the semifinal. They were one play or so away, going the other way of being in the national championship game. And most of those pieces return and you got a two headed thousand yard per tailback caliber, backfield caliber quarterbacks back again. We've got really good transfer portal talent infusion at wide receiver, which was one of the last remaining hurdles for this team.

And then defense, we just casually went and added Jim Knowles. All the signs were there to the point where everyone said, I don't know how Penn State doesn't make the playoff. Like remember, once upon a time, the worst case for Penn State was they lose the Oregon game and the Ohio State game. They're 10 and 2. That was worst case. Finished just a few games short of worst case. So give me Clemson and Florida and Penn State. This is my most disappointing teams. And then let's turn our frowns upside down because I have to remind you [e-mail] as we speak, there are all sorts of different odds and ends that you can purchase for what some call the holiday season. We just call it Christmas around here. But it is my duty to inform you that it's December 9th.

People are ordering a lot of stuff from us right now. And I have close personal sources in the FedEx and UPS communities that are informing me that shipping is pretty hectic this time of year. It turns out people are taking Christmas seriously this time of year. I say all that to say this. I know a lot of moms and dads listen to the show who have little ones who hopefully one day will grow up to listen to the show as well. But in the meantime, you want to buy some Pate State Lil Freights gear, you better do it now if you want to get it in time. You want to buy that chuggy Christmas sweater, Merry Christmas, you filthy casual Christmas sweater. Both of which I saw in abundance at our live show in Atlanta last week. Pacestatematerial.com or you know, it's not totally selfish if you just go get a T shirt for yourself. It is the season of giving and that includes the man or woman in the mirror. Next up, this was an important question. I'm glad someone asked this earlier today. Wesley from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He said, you know, you used to give fun behind the scenes stories from your trips. Can you do that again for the Penn State trip? I'm glad you asked. I never would have thought to include this in the show. Yes, I can. So yesterday was a very busy day. And it is. It occurs to me sometimes that you guys are really fascinated with the logistics of how we go on the road as often as we do. So yesterday we, well, I had a lot of commitments in Nashville in the morning, got done with those, swung over to Jesse's apartment and picked him up, went over to bna, which is the airport in Nashville, flew straight up to State College because Matt Campbell was being introduced and he's our boy. So we wanted to go up there and see that. And he was introduced at a press conference there at noon Eastern. And then a couple of hours later we were set up in his office. I was in his office before he was in his office. And that'll always be a fact that lives in Penn State program lore. And we did a really good extended sit down with him. Probably spent another 30 minutes or so with him off camera, just talking through the last month, man, Matt is the kind of guy who really, really foxholes himself during the season. And very few people are talking to him now. I don't try. But even if you tried, you're probably not talking to him during the season. And so when he comes up for air after the season, there's a lot to catch up on, especially because he had just taken a new job. So I got to tell you, man, I've been in that Penn State press conference room many times in post game situations and I have never seen it that full, which is understandable. The Penn State president, who I had never been around before, is one of the most impressive women that you will ever be around. And I think she took a very, very key role in this coaching search. And I think because of that it yielded the best result possible. Now, the coaching search took 54 days, but they ended up getting the best candidate for the job. Which is very, very weird because most of the time if you take 54 days, it means you're taking option number 19. I don't care what the list looked like because I didn't respect much of the process. The process ended with the guy that I would have put number one on the list. So as far as I'm concerned, Penn State landed their number one candidate. They just pissed away a recruiting class in the process. But that's in the past. Future is now. Spoke to them a great deal about the recruiting class evaporating, about what they'll do. You know, you're in a situation now where like you come from a program. Do some of those players follow you because they're free to. Do you want that? Do they match what you need on your roster? Like all that stuff's going on, staffing situations.

But it was a really, really good time. It was a really eye opening time. There's still just a lot of sensitivity up there about the nature of the search. I mean this is if you're like a Texas Tech fan, I know you just watched this from a distance, these people lived it. This is a better part of two months. Your job was one of the first to come open and one of the last to get filled. And it is a shot to the pride because you feel a certain way about the status of your job. And when that's not reflected in the marketplace, it hurts. And you don't know, is it just cause our program secretly sucks or it's not desirable? Is it because there's been a little dereliction of duty in the way the job's been presented and shopped, you don't know, it's. You have no recourse, you have no way to know other than going and checking what Sean Fitz is saying over on the Penn State on three message boards. And we all know how hit and miss that can be. That's a joke. Friend of the program, Sean Fitz. And hey, the other bit of good news was Gelby came with us. You know, I called Gelby, who lives in Los Angeles on Saturday, I said, gelby, can you be in State College by tomorrow? And he loaded up his 500 pounds of gear and he headed up there and he was set up there by the time we got there. 23 degrees I think when we landed, felt a little colder. Savannah State came along. Savannah State had a good amount of face time with Matt Campbell, maybe even more than we had Jesse. So I was a little curious. I still don't know what they talked about, but it was really good to see him. It was really good to see his family up there. I think they will kill it point blank. Think they'll kill it. Oh, by the way, the one on one we did with him has received huge traffic on the channel. But if you're unaware, we did a full 30 minute sit down with him. Getting 30 minutes on press conference day on the first day you're in the building is pretty big deal. So that's all on the channel right now. You can go find it. I didn't have Bradley make a thumbnail. It's just a screenshot of me and him sitting there. So yeah, that was, that was really fun. And then, so let's see, woke up, did Sports center at 6:45, did get up at 7:15 and 7:30, went and picked up Jesse, took off at 8:00', clock, got up there at 10, which is 11 Eastern Time, went over to the facility, went over to the stadium where the press conference was. Press conference is at 12. It lasts till after 1. We go back over to the lash building which is where all the offices are. We set up, we do the one on one. We get out of there about 3:30, we upload it, we get it edited and processed and fonted and graphic and put on the channel by 4:15. We go back to the airport, get on the plane. Someone had put crumbl cookies on the plane.

And that's I think all I want to say about that. But they were good but still unnecessary. And then we fly home and we eat on the plane. Not cookies but real food. And then we eat time it up to where when you land, you can take your pre workout and you can go straight to the gym and you can get there by 7:15 because it closes at 9 and then you get done at the gym at 9 and. And then you go home and that's a work day. So there's the logistics part that someone asked about. I'm not even phased by. Like I used to get so worn out for some reason flying and now I. It's like a car ride. I couldn't care less. Could not care less. We can just. We don't really sleep during the season. Don't really sleep because we actually have fun doing what we're doing while we're awake. We move on.

See, do we think that's Stefan? Jesse? I would guess Stefan. Yeah, it's got to be okay. Stefan from Goodyear, Arizona, SMU, Tennessee and Indiana got smoked in round one last year. Why are we hating on the G5 when there's honestly only four teams that could truly win it all? I love the question so much. It is asked question. Perfectly all right. This is so stupid the way people make this argument. There are some people out there. There are many people out there who don't believe the G5 should be included in the playoff.

I happen to be one of them.

But that's the complete wrong way to make the argument. There are many people. Let me, let me pause the second time I've had to do this in the show. When I say I don't believe the G5 should be in the playoff, I mean I don't believe they should automatically be in the playoff. I got no problem with a great G5 team being in the playoff. Like Boise last year. No problem with it. I don't think they should automatically be in. So a lot of people do agree with what I just said, but then they'll follow it up with the dumbest logic and they'll say, oh, James Madison's going to get blown out by Oregon. They don't deserve to be in. It doesn't matter what the score is going to be. Oh, man, Tulane's got no shot against Ole Miss. They're going to get blown out. You're just backing yourself voluntarily into a corner. If you were on a debate stage making this point. I've mentioned this two times. Tonight you're on a debate stage. You take a point of view and then it's like you voluntarily back yourself into a corner by using the following logic. Oh, these games are going to be blowouts. That proves those teams shouldn't be in the playoff. Well, bud, by that logic, Tennessee shouldn't have been in the playoff last year because they got blown out. SMU got blown out in the first round. Should they have been in the playoff? Yes. The answer is yes, they should. So this sounds a little hypocritical, right? Because I just sat there and told you I don't think James Madison should be in the playoff this year if the structure was proper, let me put it that way. Well, Josh, how can you say that? Well, because my ammunition for my argument has nothing to do with what the margin of defeat is going to be if when they go lose to Oregon. My fundamental belief is I've never cared what you're capable or incapable of in a one game scenario. James Madison could go beat Oregon for all I care and I wouldn't think they deserve to be in so they could go win 49 to 46 or lose 49 0. And I have the same point of view because the reasoning, the logic behind my viewpoint is I don't care about what you're capable of. I care about what you earned. And to even warrant consideration for a playoff spot requires a minimum struggle requirement that a G5 schedule does not give you the ability to clear from a hurdle standpoint like there is a minimum baseline pushback that I think you have to have gotten from your strength of schedule that the James Madison's of the world are incapable of getting. What I'm telling you, in other words, is there's no way that James Madison could earn a playoff spot in my mind because there is no minimum baseline pushback that this schedule could give them. And you could apply this to anyone. It's not just G5. You could randomly have Wake Forest one year that just so happens to play a cookie dough soft schedule. Virginia was very close to this this year. And I could have largely made the same points. But.

I just want to illustrate this because people think you hate the G5 when you say this or you're like anti Cinderella when you say this. It's none of that, just pro common sense. JMU's 2025 schedule. We just looked at our power ratings. You can look at whatever you want to. They're loosely going to be the same. I just happen to have my own internal set of power ratings. They're pretty good. So let's go by those. JMU played no top 30 opposition this year. They played only one top 50 team and that was Louisville and they lost by 14 points. Okay, they have no wins versus top 50 teams. Their best Win is against Old Dominion, who we have power rated number 52 in the country, no top 50 wins. Oklahoma faced eight teams tougher than James Madison's toughest opponent. Eight of the 12 teams Oklahoma played this year were infinitely tougher than the toughest opponent that JMU played. And if you want to talk about the toughest opponent JMU beat, it would be worse than that. They're not playing the same sport. They're not playing the same caliber of football. So I saw this argument being made earlier today, and someone said, oh, man, you hate the G5 if you make that argument. Because the bottom line is they are all playing the same Sport because the NCAA says that 136 teams play in the FBS. That's because it's structured incorrectly. That's why that is. That's like when Michael Scott, you remember when he went over to Prince Family Paper and the little girl was over there doing her homework and he just completely bastardized some math equation and the mom came in behind and said, oh, don't write that it wasn't right just because he wrote it. It's not right. It doesn't make sense. Just because we say there's 136 teams competing for the same championship, even though there's this bubble at the top that have vast disparities in resource and therefore vast disparities in talent relative to these other guys over here. And. And any sane society would look and say, why don't we have those guys compete against each other and chase their own championship, and then these guys over here can chase the championship that already exists. But the minute you talk about that, people just fly into hysterics and nonsensical counterpoints that have nothing to do with really, like, the spirit of pure competition. It has to do with money, which I understand, and I'm not being critical of the fact that James Madison and Tulane and any of the G5 programs need money. That's why I wish two things. I wish, number one, we had a G5 playoff, and number two, it was fully subsidized. And if it has to be subsidized by the big boys, then so be it, because I would then get the best version of that playoff and I would get an entire new separate playoff where Tulane has a shot to win a national title. I do know what one of the replies here is going to be, because I've already gotten it several times. There are fans of G5 programs who look you dead in the eye and they say, I'd rather lose by 50 against Ole Miss in an opening round playoff game than chase some secondary championship. And if you think that way, that's fine. I don't understand it, but we can differ in opinion. That's fine. I will get group of five guys over here. They will explain it to me. I will disagree with them. We will exchange very, very hurtful, witty banter back and forth and then we'll all go church and get an ice cream cone afterwards like we always do. FanDuel is the exclusive, it's the exclusive odds provider of our show, but they also have right now on any playoff wagers, 30% profit boost. That's a really big headline. So I need to say it again. College football playoff odds are over on FanDuel right now. 30% profit boost token. You need to go take advantage of that. Now. If you are not a customer, you can go sign up fanduel.com Josh Pate we always recommend it, but if you're not the betting type, that's totally cool. You just go over there and look at the odds. And if you have any doubt about whether you should or shouldn't be betting, my advice is you probably shouldn't be betting right now. And if you have any doubt about whether you can or can't afford to be betting, the answer is you can't. So no one's trying to encourage that. If you have the means and you can afford to have fun and do it, go do it. But if you're not doing it, I just want to let you know if you're just curious about these odds and what they look like, what does the Heisman board look like between now and Saturday night? You can see it at FanDuel right now.

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[Josh Pate]

All right, last but certainly not least on the show tonight, I'M so excited about this. I've waited for months.

[FanDuel Advertiser]

Okay.

[Josh Pate]

Throughout the spring and summer we do a segment on the show called Bold Predictions. It's a very basic concept, but it's not my predictions. I take hundreds of your predictions about the season and the only rule we have to work on the honor system is you have to legitimately believe what you're saying is going to come true. You submit them and I put a 1 to 10 rating on the prediction. It's just like a boldness scale. The higher the number, the bolder I think the prediction is. And the rule around here is anyone who submits a prediction that rates nine and a half or higher on the boldness scale and hits wins a chalice of supremacy. The fun part is in December we get to just dump the garbage can out and look through this wasteland of bold predictions. And buddy, if y' all are going to make fun of me about rating D.J. lagway number one overall quarterback, if you're going to make fun of me for having my playoff predictions go off the rails, then you better believe I'm waving this in your face ten times out of ten. First up, Mike thought Jackson Arnold would lead the SEC in touchdown passes. Half of you have deleted your accounts. That's how ashamed you are of these predictions. Well, I have some news to break to you, Mike. Michael. I'm going to call you Michael. Jackson Arnold did not lead the SEC in touchdown passes. Diego Pavia did. He had 27. Jackson Arnold had four and a half times less than that. Jackson Arnold finished 16th in the SEC in touchdown passes behind the likes of Cutter Bowley, Blake Shapen. Auburn for the Record finished number 120 in overall passing touchdowns. That was the lowest in the sec. That is a terrible bold prediction. Next up.

We go to Austin in Salt Lake City. Austin thought that Deion Sanders in Colorado would have another nine plus win season establishing Deion's credibility as a college football head coach. And Kaden Salter and has a bounce back season and is a Heisman finalist.

I put a 9.75 on this one. If it had come true, a chalice of supremacy would be shipped out. Colorado finished 3 and 9. Their wins were against Delaware, Wyoming and Iowa State. And that Iowa State team was without like every starter. Still pretty inexplicable though. Colorado did not win nine games. They finished with the second worst record in the Big 12. Caden Salter did not become a Heisman finalist. He instead rotated with two other guys. He did not finish top 100 in passing yards he was 15 total touchdowns, seven interceptions.

So this one crashed and burned into the mountainside. No, no. Chalice of supremacy. And lastly.

Had a little concerned about this one after week one, R. Wilmer from Clifton Forge, Virginia, he said, FSU goes 10 and two, they make the ACC championship game, and they also make the final four of the college Football Playoff. And then what happened? Well, I put a 9.75 on this, so I'm on the hook for a chalice of supremacy. And then they open the season and they beat Alabama and I'm like, oh, I mean, this is the acc. They got it. If they can beat Alabama this soundly, they got a really good shot to make it. So they started hot. Yes, they did. Then.

They lost to Virginia and they lost to Miami and they lost to Pitt and they lost to Stanford and Clemson and NC State and Florida. And it was a 57 season. So they started three and oh, then they went 0 4. They lost seven of their final nine. The season that began with an upset win over Alabama ends with the athletic director having to make a statement that we're not firing Mike Norvell. And what wasn't included in that statement, but ended up being true is they tried to go hire Lane Kiffin, and if he said yes, they were going to fire Norvell, but they couldn't get Kiffin in. Otherwise they didn't want to pay the kind of money that it was going to take to buy Mike out. So he's still there. But no one really believes that it's going to work, even though the statement said they fully stand behind him. But they really don't because they tried to get rid of him. They just couldn't get the guy. They wanted to replace him. So it turns out this did not come true. Florida State not going to be in the playoff Final Four. That was fun and very cathartic for me, even if it wasn't for you. But I need that this time of year. Because if I'm going down, the one thing you need to know is I'm not going down. Thank you guys so much for tuning in to the show. Make sure you are subscribed and 10 of your friends are as well. We'll be back Thursday night. I don't know what time yet. Maybe the normal time. We'll see. Kubelik, I'm told, is going to join us maybe from a special location. We'll just see. For director Bradley, producer Jesse, I'm Josh Pate. Take care. Have a great rest of your evening and God bless.

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There the last one.

Enjoy a Coca Cola for a pause that refreshes.

[Doug]

Amazon Five Star Theater presents Real customer reviews performed by Ed Helms. Tonight's review Tactical Jacket I was living a simple life. Didn't get out much. Then I bought this jacket and everything changed. Women came flocking to me from lands domestic and foreign. On the 245 day sailboat voyage home, I was attacked by a shark. I knew it was the jacket. He was after giving up the jacket in exchange for my life. 5 stars. Amazon Customer 69 Shop the perfect gift this holiday on Amazon.

[Limu]

And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means playing in a football game.

[Josh Pate]

Boom.

[Doug]

42. You're going down, Doug.

[Limu]

Oh yeah, Your price on car insurance when you customize and save is going down.

[Josh Pate]

Hey.

Limu. What are you doing on their team?

[Limu]

Only pay for what you [e-mail].

[Josh Pate]

Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.

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Guaranteed Human.