Josh Pate Reacts To AP Poll Top 25 Release (Late Kick Cut)

Robert from Little Rock Arkansas what are your thoughts on the preseason AP pole top 25 now Robert what gives you the idea that I care about the a no I'm just kidding man yes the JP poll came out two weeks ago yes the AP is asleep at the wheel and yes we may have killed the buzz a little bit for the AP poles release but I've got no problem reacting to the AP poll so producer Jesse tells me because I didn't really check it myself producer Jesse tells me one through five hey what do you know very similar to the JP poll now that's Georgia Ohio State Oregon Texas and Alabama for those of you that aren't aware I saw a bunch of people including our good close personal acquaintance Brandon Walker shouting from the mountain tops about how Notre Dame's overrated and of course they're not they're exactly properly rated one of the age-old I don't want to call it a debate because it's not debatable but one of the age-old arguments little tiffs we have you and I on this show sometimes is some of you exercise your constitutional right to yell about Notre Dame just yell nonsense things about Notre Dame and then you think I grew up a Notre Dame fan because I say things like Notre Dame's not overrated they're properly rated well I grew up in Harris County Georgia it's not exactly a strong Irish Enclave down there or anything like that in fact we were taught to hate Notre Dame growing up however I was also taught logic Great Courses at Harris County High School taught me to think critically on this sort of thing Notre Dame at seven well I probably wouldn't favor him against Alabama I probably wouldn't favor him against Oregon but you know what I may favor him by a point or two against Florida State or Penn State or Missouri or Utah that's the point of a rating and in this case the fine folks at the AP thought that's the point of a ranking now Michigan's at nine yes that's really really low for what some would call a defending national champ to be ranked but you know we don't believe in that terminology here you're defending anything no one's allowed to come take the belt from Michigan they're playing for a new belt this year they're you could call them the reigning Champs I also don't think we're really used to seeing that much churn from a national champ and if you think that's bad Washington's not even ranked at all and they played for the national title last year so I thought it was interesting that there were a bunch of SEC teams uh there were surprisingly a good amount of Big 12 teams in fact the AP it seems like is a little bit higher on of these big 12 teams than maybe even the JP poll is but that makes sense because the JP poll is based more on neutral field favorability where as the AP poll I don't know what we would say it's based on feelings emotions rainbows unicorns but also I mean AP voters would be lying if they said they weren't doing a little projecting here like a lot of people are projecting case in point the University of Florida is not ranked as far as I can tell in the top 25 now I've got him power rated at 2 any Vegas odds maker out there is going to have Florida inside their top 25 but an AP voter is thinking to themselves Florida's got a really tough schedule and Florida's this and Florida's that well that shouldn't matter when you're ranking the team we're not ranking their schedule we're ranking the team so like Florida's not there they are there in a power rating model like mine um so that stood out to me but there you see it man Oklahoma state 17 Kansas State 18 Utah was in the top 15 how jam-packed how crowded is that big 12 race uh Kansas plays one team in the top 25 they themselves are ranked 21st or 22nd Arizona's 21st Noah fait out there t McMillan could be one of the deadliest QB to wide receiver combos in the country Miami is just floating there at 19 Miami could have the best quarterback pass rush duo in the entire ACCC that'll be really fun to watch and then one of our Sleepers for the playoff is actually Iowa and they're at 25 and I know that sounds weird because we're always over here talking about how inep they are offensively well of course they are they've talked about how inept they've been offensively so that the question every year and this year too is okay if Iowa just get a little bit offensively what will they be and for that matter NC States at 24 what if Grayson McCall's the answer for them what if they get a little bit more offensively you never know remember remember this is the expanded playoff age you don't have to be perfect you don't have to walk the tight RPP you can trip a couple of times you can go 10 and two not even play for your conference title and you could be on The Fringe on the bubble of the playoff at least that's a whole separate conversation by the way not just who will make the playoff who will be on the playoff bubble going into Thanksgiving let's just call it the last week rivalry week Thanksgiving weekend how many teams could we say by then have a shot at the playoff that's um that's something we talked about on a couple of couple of nights ago on the Sunday show I believe we talked about how playoff hysteria would be in full swing in year one and what the point I was making and apparently some of you misunderstood it which just means I didn't do a good job stating it the point I was making was I said a whole bunch of teams are going to think they have a shot at a national title and some of you thought I was saying that like it's a bad thing no it's a good thing it's a temporary thing is what I was saying so what I was suggesting is this is year one no one has any idea what a 12 team playoff is like cuz we've never seen one before so in year one if let's just say um Kansas was playing Oklahoma State they don't but let's say Kansas was playing Oklahoma State in in week 13 or week 14 whatever that is and both of them had two losses already but the winner knew they were going to have a shot at the Big 12 championship game or maybe an outside shot at backing in as the 11 seed in the playoff well current logic is going to convince those folks they're playing for an opportunity to compete for a national title CU it'll be when and you're in like if you're in the playoff you've got a shot at a national championship and that's how you'll think in 2024 I will too I'll be fooled into thinking that way maybe that's how you'll think in 2025 once we get a couple of versions of this playoff under our belt once we experience it what I was saying was you'll quickly come to realize the 12 seed has no shot the 11 seed normally has no shot and the 10 seed if they have a shot it's a two loss Georgia that ends up making the playoff and then making a run because they had really tough conference games on the road and they lost in overtime to Texas and they lost by four to Old Miss or Alabama and they're a 10- two team don't play in Atlanta make it in as the 10 seed and they go on a run because they're Georgia that's your Cinderella story and so my point there was four or five years from now those games at the end of the year with quote unquote playoff implications on them they won't all carry a ton of weight like you think they will but early on they will so this year that playoff bubble it'll be massive I think and in the last week you will have yourself convinced that there are like 10 teams still vying for a shot to compete for a National Championship it's just the way it goes [Music]