Josh Pate rips 24-team CFP: ‘One of the most unpopular proposals…in the history of college football’

“What someone is capable of in the playoff if they get in has never been the point,” Pate said.

“The regular season in this sport is the most valuable commodity we have. The regular season in college football should make you feel something. Especially if you’ve already got one or especially two losses, you should feel like you’re walking a tightrope 100 floors off the ground. And if you fall off, you die.”

Pate argued that under a 24-team format, every powerhouse program would enter September knowing they would make the CFP unless they were in an absolute disaster. The games would hardly need to be played.

“College football games had meaning for many of us long before the letters ‘CFP’ ever meant anything,” he added. “I dismiss the idea that you’ve got to have Playoff implications on a college football game for it to mean something.”

Later, Pate addressed recent comments from Griffin (replete with a shot at Pate’s ill-fated Trump interview earlier this year), in which the Baylor great argued that CFP expansion is necessary to offset the expense of direct payments to athletes.

“When someone makes a stupid point, and then they take a shot at you, they don’t deserve much respect in the replies,” Pate said.

“It’s not an either-or scenario. You don’t have to expand the Playoff or watch everything go up in smoke. What you do have to do is spend your money in a fiscally responsible manner on the front end.”

As college football welcomes outside investment, broadens its revenue base at the expense of the competitive spirit of the season, and broadly moves toward a professionalized, capitalist setup, the media is putting up quite a fight.

Given Pate’s knack for cutting through to college football fans in the most passionate regions in the country, he appears to be a very willing opponent for the powers that be as they force through a change that nobody seems to want.

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