After Ohio State went on to win the 2024 national championship following a fourth consecutive loss to Michigan, a vocal contingent of Buckeye fans claimed the result of ‘The Game’ — widely considered the greatest rivalry in college football, if not all of sports — no longer mattered.

CBS Sports’ college football podcaster Josh Pate is calling B.S. on that notion, however, and says any Ohio State fan who claims not to care about the loss to Michigan is a liar.

“Any Ohio State fan that’s telling you, ‘I don’t care we lost the Michigan game, because we won the title’ is lying to you,” Pate said on a recent episode of Josh Pate’s College Football Show. “The appropriate way for them to say it would be, ‘I do care that we lost to Michigan, it was just made less gutting because we won the national championship.'”

Debates have raged between the fanbases of Ohio State and Michigan over the past three weeks regarding the Buckeyes’ march to the title, which fans of the Scarlet and Gray arguing it’s the greatest run in the sports history, while fans of the Maize and Blue suggest, tongue-in-cheek, that the title should come with an asterisk.

That debate has led to some wild takes from the Ohio State faithful, like ‘Big Ev’ from Barstool Sports, to claim ‘The Game’ no longer matters.

Pate pushed back strongly on the sentiment that ‘Big Ev’ and other Ohio State fans have displayed since the Buckeyes won the title.

“There is a thought out there that because that happened, the impact of this game’s outcome is devalued. Ohio State fans, in some cases, have tried to make that argument. They don’t really believe it,” Pate said.

“They do believe that winning the national championship softened the blow. They don’t believe that the outcome of ‘The Game’ doesn’t matter anymore. No serious Ohio State fan believes that, and certainly no serious Michigan fan believes that even if the shoe was on the other foot.”

In Pate’s mind, the biggest threat to college football is allowing how the sport’s postseason and national champion are determined to undermine what has, in his mind, always been the best part of the sport — the rivalry games.

“There is a theory out there,” Pate said, “that we’re headed towards a world that — since you’ve got this big safety net under you and you can afford to lose that game like Ohio State did but then go on to win the whole thing — maybe the result of the Ohio State-Michigan game is not quite as impactful, it’s not quite as noteworthy, it’s not quite as important, there’s not as much urgency on the game.

“Time will tell on this. If we get to a point where that’s happened, it’s one example of the College Football Playoff ruining the best parts of college football. Because, the best part of college football is not the playoff, to me. The best part of college football is Saturday’s in the fall, and more specifically, the best part of college football is rivalry Saturday’s in the fall.”

While that would be a worst-case scenario for college football according to Pate, he doesn’t believe the Ohio State-Michigan game will ever get to the point where it’s overlooked in favor of the College Football Playoff.

“I don’t think that’s where this rivalry will ever get,” Pate said. “I do think the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry is sort of immune to this. Because, I think the real ones on both sides of this rivalry understand how important the rivalry is.”

“I know you’ve got some Ohio State fans right now, I’ve had some in my own social circle, who want to be kind of smart about the whole thing and say, ‘Well, we lost the Michigan game, but when that confetti was raining down I wasn’t thinking about the Michigan loss.’ Well, of course you weren’t. You shouldn’t be. What kind of psycho would be winning the national championship game and focused on the games they lost.

“But, five years from now, when you look back on the season, there ought to be a little hole inside you. You ought to feel great about the season, what this team just did was awesome, but if you’re an Ohio State Buckeye and you want to reach the top rung of the ladder, there is no world, there’s no season, where you accomplish the ultimate without beating ‘That Team Up North’. There’s no world if you’re a Michigan fan where you can accomplish the ultimate without beating that team in Columbus, Ohio. There shouldn’t be. Rivalries should be that important.”

The full segment of “Josh Pate’s College Football Show” referenced in this article can be viewed in its entirety below:

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