Josh Pate outlines Notre Dame's 'worst nightmare' for College Football Playoff

On Tuesday night, Notre Dame dropped a spot to now be at No. 10 in the CFP Rankings. That shift now sets up the possible worst-case scenario for the Fighting Irish.

Appearing live this morning on ‘Get Up,’ Josh Pate discussed the impact on the College Football Playoff of BYU winning over Texas Tech in the Big 12 Championship. He noted it as the “worst nightmare” for Notre Dame, as the Irish would almost certainly miss the field with the Cougars getting in as a conference champion and an at-large spot still going to the Red Raiders.

“It’s Notre Dame’s worst nightmare,” Pate said. “This game is huge in Provo, Utah and South Bend, Indiana. We saw the committee drop Notre Dame behind Alabama the other night, which sort of crystallized, in my opinion, what we just said. ‘Bama is not the one on the chopping block. Notre Dame potentially is if Brigham Young wins, because you’re looking at a situation, like you said. Texas Tech is not going to drop if they lose the Big 12. They’ve got unlimited equity built up because they earned it in the regular season. Brigham Young, as one of the highest five ranked conference champs, would have to be in. Therefore, someone has got to fall out. It’s going to be the team on that ten seed, and that is, as of Tuesday night, Notre Dame.”

For a while now, the No. 10 seed has been viewed as the cut line for the playoff, with the 11 and 12 seeds expected to go to the final two of the five auto-bids for conference champions. Notre Dame had been out of that spot the past three weeks, but dropped back down to it, with Alabama passing it, in the latest release from the selection committee on Tuesday. That, with no conference title game to play in this weekend to further add to their resumé, could have the Fighting Irish out with a win for BYU on Saturday in Arlington.

Either way, though, it could cost them. Even with a loss for Brigham Young, Miami would then be set to move up and, with the Hurricanes and the Fighting Irish likely right next to one another in the rankings at that point, Pate doesn’t know how head-to-head couldn’t be honored, and how it really hasn’t been honored already, with the final at-large instead going to The ‘U.

“Miami should already be above them. They should unequivocally get in if there is any further debate on this, especially if you remove the peanut butter and jelly from between them, and it’s just those two pieces of bread right next to each other,” Pate said. “There’s so much overthinking of the room because the game happened so long ago. If the resumés are remotely comparable? This could be Notre Dame-Miami. This is a generic point that I’m going to make. If resumés are remotely comparable? This is a merit-based, competitive sport that we’re talking about here. You don’t look at a head-to-head result and try to explain it away and put a bunch of graphics up on a screen. It’s the head-to-head result! We don’t have preseason, by the way, in college football. So, for everyone who keeps telling me, ‘Oh, that game was so long ago.’ Buddy, they count! That’s the beauty of college football. They count!

“One more thing that’s happening here. I firmly believe that the committee just decided, based on eyeball test, Notre Dame is the better team, which is okay if we’re chopping it up over breakfast. I don’t even care about my eyeball test. If you’re comparable resumé-wise, and you played already? I don’t care about my eyeball test, because I’ve gotten picks wrong before, so I’m not infallible, nor is anyone on the committee,” Pate added. “Get your eyeball test out of the way, and go off your criteria.”

With two losses, even with 10 straight wins since, Notre Dame has been on the bubble for the duration as far as the CFP. That might now finally catch up to them, as all they can do is wait to see how it all falls on Sunday.