Josh Pate reacts to Miami jumping Notre Dame, criticizes committee protocol for College Football Playoff

Notre Dame ended up as the first team out of the College Football Playoff, as they came in at No. 11 in the final rankings from the CFP Selection Committee. That, being as controversial as everyone knew it would end up being, was a screwup by the selection committee in how it was handled, says Josh Pate.

Pate reacted to the snub of the Irish during his show after the reveal of the rankings on Sunday afternoon. His first thought was that this is one of the first times that their program’s independence, which he respects, was actually held against them as far as the CFP.

“Notre Dame gets left out of the playoff at the eleventh hour, and I have a post-it stuck to my index finger and it says this is the first time I think Notre Dame’s really been punished for not being in a conference,” said Pate. “When the playoff got set up the way it was, people kept yelling what they’ve been yelling at Notre Dame for a long time, and that is, ‘You need to join a conference!’. I’ve never yelled that at Notre Dame. I never will yell that at Notre Dame. I fully respect their independence. I’ve always said, if I were a major university, I’d want to do what Notre Dame does. That would be an ideal situation. You call your own shots. Your seat at the table carries as much weight as other conferences collectively carry at the table. Who wouldn’t want to be in Notre Dame’s position?”

“But, I did say, if you guys want to hold out this small sliver of hope that they’ll ever become more motivated to join a conference, not that I think they will. But, if you ever want to hold out hope that they’ll become more motivated, you need to hope that they have to pay a price in the form of losing a playoff spot for not being in a conference,” said Pate. “That (first-round bye) parameter got removed and it looked for all the world like the stars were aligning for Notre Dame to just exist in this new world and pay no price. I think they paid a price for not being in a conference here.”

Notre Dame set their resumé a week ago at the end of the regular season, as they finished on a ten-game win streak to have a record of 10-2. That would then have them at No. 10, the final at-large spot, in the penultimate rankings for the CFP back on Tuesday. However, with what happened in the Big 12 Championship with a loss by BYU, that allowed Miami, one of only two teams to beat them this season, to move up and, in turn, then move past them, as the Hurricanes took the final spot at No. 10 while the Fighting Irish fell to No. 11.

In the end, Pate didn’t disagree with that, as the three-point, head-to-head outcome from their opener on August 31st mattered to him in having the Hurricanes in over the Irish. That said, he also understands why there’s even more frustration, from Coral Gables at first before being from South Bend now, as, all things considered, it should have mattered to the committee within the last few weeks of rankings rather than suddenly giving or taking a playoff spot because of it at the last minute.

“So, Notre Dame gets left out, Miami vaults Notre Dame at the eleventh hour. I actually agree with the rankings the committee put out. I actually agree that that should’ve been the way it panned out. Said that last week, and I’ve said that for a couple of weeks now. However, if I’m a Notre Dame fan, I probably disagree with what I just said on the surface. But, even if we get past our initial disagreement? Like, of course you guys think Notre Dame should have been in. But, even if you get past that, where we’ll be aligned is the messaging here was so pathetic,” Pate said. “The protocol and the lack of follow-through on the way the protocol is supposed to be applied was so pathetic, to the point where we’re sitting here on Selection Sunday and we’re really listening to a guy tell us we were incapable of fully appreciating head-to-head results until Brigham Young lost the Big 12 Championship so bad that we had to drop them and put Notre Dame and Miami next to each other and then, all of a sudden, it just dawns on us, holy crap, they played each other…and then they claimed they watched the game. Guys, they grinded tape last night, did the committee, into the wee hours of 8 p.m.! And then it dawned on them that, guys, head-to-head? I mean, these resumés are comparable, so head-to-head has got to rule the day – which is sound logic…that could have been applied two weeks ago, could have been applied last week.”

“The problem is, if there’s one thing, of the many, that the committee is guilty of, it is of knee-jerk reaction. They knee-jerked early on when they dropped Alabama as far as they did after the Oklahoma loss. They dropped Miami way too far in their initial rankings because it came on the heels of the loss to SMU. Notre Dame was probably already too high. And then they were forced to course correct…So, this should have been this way going into the weekend, but it wasn’t, so then you create this mess,” said Pate. “Every one of us are looking and saying, ‘You know it didn’t have to be this way?’. It went how I thought it should have from a pure rankings standpoint. It went horrifically wrong from a messaging and presentation standpoint.”

Notre Dame, like several teams that missed as possible at-larges, has a legitimate gripe for not being in the CFP. However, that doesn’t mean anything more than that, as Pate says they’ll have to try again next year to better settle it on the field than allowing the committee the chance to do so in the boardroom.

“Teams being mad, though, is not automatically evidence that something is broken,” said Pate. “I keep going back to this. There’s always going to be a lot of argument on Selection Sunday, and, contrary to popular belief, there will be no matter how far you expand this playoff. There will always be disagreement…It just means you’ve got a finite amount of a very valuable commodity, in this case, playoff spots, and not everyone can get one.”

“Even if it’s twelve teams, that doesn’t mean the answer is to expand to sixteen. The answer is look the teams in the eyes who are upset, and just say do better next time. What are they going to do, stop playing? They’re not going to stop playing. They’re going to get motivated to take it out of the committee’s hands,” Pate said. “Just because you’re mad doesn’t mean something is broken. Do better next time. That’s the answer. It’d be the answer no matter who was the first left out today.”