The 24-team College Football Playoff proposal is creating significant fissures between leadership and fans, and popular podcaster Josh Pate is the latest to shred college football decision-makers over it.
As the expanded bracket, which would be twice the size of the current format, reportedly gains momentum among conference leaders and CFP executives, Pate called it out as “one of the most unpopular proposals” in the history of the sport in the latest episode of his podcast, being pushed through only by people who will financially benefit from it.
“The growth in support for the 24-team Playoff is not amongst you, it’s not me,” he said.
“No one’s asked the players, they piss on the players, who cares about the players? It’s not players or fans, these people have long since stopped caring about what players or fans want, who cares about them? No, in fact, this is one of the most unpopular proposals of any magnitude in the history of college football among the consumer base. It’s growing in support from the very, very small group of people whose pockets may be a little fattened by this.”
Pate argued that, like many consumer-facing businesses, college football is best when it sacrifices some revenue. And he believes that the broadening of the CFP into an NFL or NBA-like postseason would ruin the sport for the benefit of those who already make the most.
The host and ESPN contributor also claimed that fans are split 90 percent against the proposal, and even called out Fox’s Robert Griffin III for carrying water for college football elites.
“It kneecaps the regular season, it’s a bailout mechanism for inept leadership, it is wildly unpopular,” Pate said.
Like Paul Finebaum, Kevin Clark, and an increasingly vocal contingent of college football diehards in media, Pate accused decision-makers of destroying the spirit of the college football season in favor of including as many supposed championship contenders as possible.
“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.
The post Josh Pate rips 24-team CFP: ‘One of the most unpopular proposals…in the history of college football’ appeared first on Awful Announcing.
