"Pressured to play your championship game on a Monday night" - College football insider blasts NFL for national championship game scheduling

The College Football Playoff national championship game between the Ohio State Buckeyes and Notre Dame Fighting Irish attracted 22.1 million viewers, a 12.5% decline from last year's 25.1 million.

On Friday's segment of "Josh Pate College Football Show," the host blasted the NFL for refusing to budge from the prime-time slot, forcing the national championship game to be played on Monday.

(0:00) "I have long believed the NFL benefits greatly from college football, and they do nothing in return," Pate said. ...

Pate added that the league benefits greatly from the marketing, development and promotion of players.

"They have an assembly line called CFB that has worked for years to promote players and raise awareness of who a player is and develop the player on the field to where they get to the NFL by draft time, a lot of people know their names and the NFL hasn't spent a dime to promote them. ... And in return, the NFL says, 'We're still gonna elbow you out of the way to the point you feel pressured to play your championship game on a Monday night in January.'"

Analyst suggests collaboration between college football & the NFL

In the same segment, Josh Pate proposed a novel collaboration between the NFL and college football to position its national championship game in the limelight.

(1:15) "The NFL doesn't need anything right now. They're not hurting for anything," Pate said. ... "It doesn't take a whole lot; what it takes is, I've seen some proposals that we should always play the national championship on New Year's Day, and I'd have no problem with that."

Pate added if that isn't feasible, a viable alternative could be scheduling the national championship during the last week of the NFL regular season in early January.

He proposed that if the CFP national championship game were held on that Saturday, it would only require an agreement with the NFL. Instead of occupying the prime-time slot, the NFL could take the early and mid-afternoon windows, leaving prime time available for the championship game.

The CFP announced that the 2027 national championship game will be played on Monday, Jan. 25, at Allegiant Stadium, meaning that the proposed collaboration with the NFL will have to wait a few more years.