Not only does analyst Josh Pate think he knows how the rest of the Notre Dame football season will go, but he thinks he knows the arguments that the Irish will make to get to the college football playoffs.
The talk since the Irish started 0-2 has been that their only chance they have to get to the postseason is to win out. The real arguments have been whether even going 10-2 will get them in, considering their schedule from here on out isn't very difficult.
Josh Pate lays out Notre Dame’s College Football Playoff path and argument for inclusion
Pate, who considers himself the de facto commissioner of college sports, believes he knows precisely how Notre Dame will get in. "I don't think there's much of any world where a 10-2 Notre Dame is left out," Pate told Greg McElroy during a recent episode of the Always College Football podcast. "I know what the counterarguments are."
"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 say legitimately there are no ranked wins. On Notre Dame's schedule come season's end. I'm telling you, as sure as the sun will rise on Selection Sunday, what the talking points will be, and they will work."
"They just rattled off 10 straight," Pate continued, talking as though it was just ahead of Selection Sunday. "So they're one of the hottest teams in America. 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— 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."
Pate then turned his attention entirely to McElroy, who could be among the panelists discussing who should get into the playoffs and who shouldn't.
"You can't prove a counterfactual, which is the brilliance in that strategy. Notre Dame is absolutely going to get in there. 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, 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 plant your flag already. Get ready for it."
While Josh Pate hasn't always been right about how good or how the Notre Dame football team will perform, he's got the arguments down. And he's right that they are good ones.