Josh Pate urges college football fans to push back on 24-team CFP: ‘These are not strong-willed people’

Credit: Josh Pate's College Football Show

Josh Pate wants all college football fans to know that there is still time to prevent a 24-team College Football Playoff.

The ball appears to be in the SEC’s (and ESPN’s) court as conferences, coaches, and even some commentators coalesce around a 24-team framework with an additional round, more on-campus games, and no automatic bids.

In the latest episode of his show, Pate, who recently called the proposed expansion to the CFP one of the “most unpopular proposals” in the sport’s history, urged his audience to keep pushing. As Pate revealed, he is optimistic that, faced with enough backlash, college football’s decision-makers will change course.

“I understand a lot of you do not exist in the weeds here, and so it can start to seem like one by one, a lot of these real big-name-brand entities and these powerful people speak out in favor of 24, it just seems inevitable that we’re headed toward 24,” he explained.

But Pate said that as crunch time nears for the new plan (a meeting among CFP execs is scheduled for next month in Denver), cracks could form in the resolve of the powers that be.

“There comes a time you eventually have to sell this to the broader public,” he said. “And it’s collectively like five minutes before this happens, there’s this awareness of, ‘Oh crap man, we’ve got to dress this up as a football issue, we’ve got to dress this up as if it’s in the best interest of the game.'”

Recently, forced to put their thoughts out in the open, conference commissioners and network executives have tripped over themselves trying to explain why a 24-team bracket is necessary. Many of the arguments center on aspects of college football that weren’t broken until the past few years of upheaval across the sport, such as when Fox Sports’ Eric Shanks recently argued that an expanded CFP would rejuvenate early-season, non-conference competition.