College football analyst Josh Pate outlined several potential chaos scenarios that could unfold during the upcoming season, with one of the most notable involving the ongoing Texas Tech controversy, on Saturday on his podcast.
Pate said that he reached out to sources connected to the College Football Playoff committee shortly after a judge granted Sorsby an injunction that would have allowed him to play in 2026.
“One of the first things I did was hit up our well-placed sources inside the College Football Playoff Committee,” Pate said. “I asked, ‘Are you guys going to look at them any differently?’”
Pate added that the response he received suggested the committee had no desire to be involved in the controversy.
“I do not expect that at all,” Pate said. “I don’t think the playoff committee wants anything to do with being the moral arbiter here. Plus, they’re probably terrified of lawsuits, as I would be if I were them.”
While that may be the official stance, Pate noted that public perception could still create interesting scenarios if Texas Tech finds itself on the playoff bubble later this season.
He pointed out that committee members may have personal opinions about the controversy, even if those views are never publicly acknowledged.
Texas Tech Could Face Questions If Playoff Debate Gets Tight
Pate outlined a hypothetical scenario in which Texas Tech finishes the regular season 11-1 but loses the Big 12 championship game.
In that situation, he suggested the committee could leave the Red Raiders out of the playoff.
“Let’s say Texas Tech loses one regular season game and they’re 11-1, and they’re sitting there like No. 7 or No. 8 in the playoff committee rankings going into conference championship Saturday, kind of like Alabama was last year, and then they lose the Big 12 championship game, and the committee drops them out entirely,” he said.
“They could cite Texas Tech’s strength of schedule, and they could say, ‘You guys didn’t play a strong enough schedule. Now, we were going to put you in if you won your conference, but you guys lost it, and you had a regular season loss.’”
Whether that would have anything to do with lingering feelings from the Sorsby controversy won’t be possible to prove. Still, Pate believes it would create significant debate throughout college football.
For now, Texas Tech’s focus remains on building a stronger team for the upcoming season, and whether they can make it to the playoff without Sorsby, only time will tell.
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