Josh Pate breaks down whether Notre Dame makes College Football Playoff at 10-2

College football analyst Josh Pate broke down the conversation of a potential 10-2 Notre Dame team making the College Football Playoff. After starting 0-2 with losses to Miami and Texas A&M, the Irish have rattled off three straight wins.

“I’m really interested in this Notre Dame conversation, because I’m telling you, I don’t think there’s much of any world where a 10-2 Notre Dame is left out,” Pate said on Always College Football. “And I know what the counter arguments are, so … no one has to waste their time telling me how inferior Notre Dame’s schedule could be.

“And I’ll even grant you, for argument’s sake, let’s just say USC falls off a cliff. Let’s say, legitimately, there are no ranked wins, whatever that means, on Notre Dame’s schedule come seasons end. If they’re 10-2, I’m telling you, as sure as the sun will rise on Selection Sunday, what the talking points will be and they will work.” 

USC fell from the AP Poll top 25, so Notre Dame hosts an unranked Trojans squad on October 18th, for now. Looking at the rest of the schedule, the Irish had NC State, USC, Boston College, a quality Navy team, Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Stanford. None are ranked.

“(The talking points) will be they just rattled off 10 straight, so they’re one of the hottest teams in America. It’s like the NL wild card race, that they’re a hot team,” Pate said. “They will also tell you that they’re playing their best ball now, so they’re one of the 12 best teams now. They may be right about this, by the way, but the hammer home talking point, and I already know it’s being focused grouped by the PR strategy, is if you were to invert their schedule. If we had played Miami later, you know, if we had played those teams later, where our new quarterback was more seasoned and in tune with the offense, then it would have been a different story.” 

Interestingly enough, Pate is probably right about these potential talking points a couple of months from now. Notre Dame could rattle off 10 straight wins, be one of the hottest teams in America and you can’t prove or disprove the hypotheticals.

“And you can’t prove a counterfactual, which is, the brilliance in that strategy, Notre Dame is absolutely going to get in there,” Pate said. “My question is going to be, if you’ve got 9-3 SEC teams or a Big Ten team against that 10-2 Notre Dame, if it really did come down to that for a 12 spot or whatever that is, can you imagine? 

“You’re going to be up there at that desk in Bristol, Connecticut, and it’s going to be very contentious. It’s going to be very uncomfortable. So you better go ahead and get those sleeves rolled up, my friend. So this conversation is coming, so you need to just plant your flag already, get ready for it.”