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Josh Pate
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Josh Pate
Your bill, ladies.
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Josh Pate
Seriously, I insist.
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Josh Pate
Mixed emotions really mixed emotions because it's our last show until, well, for a few weeks. I don't want to get specific. Who knows? Could pop up around here any little time. But we're jam packed. We're high atop a scorching downtown Nashville, Tennessee on this Tuesday, June 30, the year of our Lord 2026. We're heavy into predictions come August, but since it's the end of June and someone asked in the mailbag, which we have a lot of tonight, I think it's time for us to try and figure out what our friends at the Associated Press, the esteemed AP preseason poll, what are they going to pump out to us? When are they going to pump it out? And what is the preseason top 25 going to look like? I got my guess. But I also have several questions in the mailbag tonight about trap games. Oh, there was a great one about which old games do you rewatch the most? Now, as you guys know and girls know, anyone who has watched or listened to the show for any length of time, that could be the show. We could do the entire show on that. I'm going to try and compact that into like five minutes. We'll see how we do. I've got what Jesse, we landed on six futures bets, right? I got four totals, got a couple of Heisman bets. So I guess those in a way are predictions. So we're a little, a little prediction heavy on the show tonight, but it's a loaded mailbag. We're kind of going out with a bang. These are the best fireworks we can do. We are, after all, still indoors. And so we're happy to have you with us. They're watching us in Tacoma, Washington, home of the Tacoma Dome. They're watching us in Birmingham, I guess that would be home of the Birmingham Jefferson Civic center, now the Legacy Arena. Let's see if I can finish this. Tampa used to be the Ice palace, but I don't know what the official name of the arena is. Ashburn, Virginia has a good rail cam. I don't know that they have an arena in Ashburn, Virginia, but nevertheless, that's where the viewers are checking in from. Please, wherever you're checking in from, whether you have an arena in your town or not, please subscribe to the channel. And that's it. That's all. That's what we ask for. Otherwise, keep it civil in the live chat and let's go to work. Got a loaded mailbag. I think it's time for us to look ahead to the preseason AP poll and before they drop it on us, Ronald from Carbondale, Illinois, hit us and said, do you care to take a stab at predicting the preseason AP poll rankings before it comes out? You notice those last few words there before it comes out because everyone's a genius after the fact. Ronald knows this, I know this. So no, Ronald, I don't typically like to take stabs at this. I just like to wait and then react. But since you're asking me to, and we got some time here at the end of June, why not? Because there's this is consequence free content here. Because if I get it right or if I get it wrong, if you're mad at it, whatever. I'm just predicting what the AP is going to do. This is their yard over there. We're just looking at it. There's no harm in looking in someone's yard. There is a lot of harm in trespassing in someone's yard. So who do you think the number one team in the country is going to be? I think it's going to be Texas. Jesse, was Texas number one last year? Preseason? Yeah. I think they're going to go a repeat of the number one team they had last year, which ended up not making the playoff, by the way. So this is my best guess. This is my best approximation. You can see AP poll prediction on the graphic there. I think Texas is going to be number one. I'd have Notre Dame number one for the record right now, but I think Texas is going to be number one. I think they'll have Notre Dame number two. I think last year's national champion Indiana lands at number three. But I could see Indiana as high as number one because I could see a lot of voters saying Indiana proved us wrong at every turn. Well, actually they proved me wrong at every turn. Last year. A lot of people were on board with Indiana, but nevertheless, if they didn't lose a game last year, and they are, this is a phrase I don't believe in the defending national champ, then someone's got to knock them off, right? And then they start number one. I could see people thinking that. I don't know if enough voters are going to think that to have them number one, but they may. But I got Indiana, I think, as number three. And then in some order it would be Ohio State, Oregon 4 and 5. I guessed Oregon at number four. I got Ohio State number five. But I'm pretty confident that they'll probably be back to back there in some order. Now this is where I think it's a little interesting. So I'M guessing Miami at 6 and I'm guessing Georgia at 7. I'm pretty sure, much like with Oregon and Ohio State, I think those two are going to be close together. Whatever order they would be in is anyone's guess. I'm guessing Miami because we just saw that team playing the national title. But if you wanted to sell me on Carson Beck's gone, Ruben Bane's gone, Mazador is gone. And even though you may have confidence in, let's say Darion Mensah and let's say Damon Wilson and just the overall ability to backfill, maybe you're confident in that, but you think the AP voters won't know to be confident in that. If you feel like that, well, maybe Miami's lower. I think they're going to be knowledgeable enough about Miami and have enough respect for them to have them as high as number six. Georgia is just a mainstay. The floor is number seven for Georgia. They could be anywhere from four to seven. I put them at seven because that's my best guess is where the AP is going to have them. Then I think there is a period at the end of that sentence. Then I think your next sentence is like the 8 to 12 range I'm putting or I'm guessing they're going to put Texas A and M, Ole Miss, lsu. I think there's going to be this log jam of SEC teams in like the 7 to 10 range and maybe beyond that. So my best guess is A&M8, Ole Miss 9, LSU 10. Interesting to get people's feedback on that. How high do you think LSU is going to start? This is rankings, by the way. How high do you think they're going to start? My best guess is 10. I've got next up Alabama. I have guest outside the top 10 and I got them at 11. And then this is where I think the mystery starts as to what the AP will do with Texas Tech. Because remember this, this is not a poll that got decided months ago. This poll will be a Brendan Sorsby list Texas Tech ranking. And my guess is they're still going to have them pretty high. But with Sourcebee, Texas Tech would have been easily inside the top 10. So I think I'll put them at 12 and I think then they'll have like Oklahoma 13, Brigham Young at 14, Penn State 15. I don't want to just skim past that. So this is my guess at Brigham Young 14. That's kind of a wild card, wouldn't you say? I think they could be 12th I think they could be 18th. Brigham Young doesn't have like that Alabama or like Penn State name recognition. They don't have the SEC and the Big Ten brand credibility in the minds of voters. So, you know, they don't get benefit of doubt is what I'm trying to say. I'm high on Brigham Young this year. I think the voters to a certain degree have to be high on him because the only team that beat him last year is there at number 12 ahead of them. So I put Brigham Young at 14 and I think they'll have Penn State 15. Okay, 16 through 20. Again, total crapshoot here. Michigan and USC, I had it 16 and 17. I think maybe Iowa at 18, Utah 19, SMU 20. So we have this, it's one, two. I got four Big Ten teams there 15 through 18. I believe Penn State will be ahead of Michigan and SC and Iowa. And the reason I think that it's maybe because the voters think they're going to legitimately be a better team. But I also am a firm believer that AP poll voters sort of forecast with their vote. So if a lot of voters have spent their time skimming through the preseason magazines and they've noticed Penn State's schedule and they think Penn State's going to be, you know, like a 10 win team because of their schedule, then they're going to put them up there. They're going to put them right in line with how they expect them to finish. Because I think that's just how the voter's mind works. So Penn State, Michigan, USC, Iowa 15 through 18. Give me Utah at 19. It was kind of between maybe SMU and Louisville as the next ACC team here. And I think SMU maybe edges out Louisville, but I got, I got him put in Louisville at 21. So there's not a whole lot of difference. There is Tennessee going to be ranked, Is Missouri going to be ranked, and is Florida going to be ranked? I think at least two of the three will be ranked. I think all three of them will be ranked. That's why I put them 22, 23 and 24. That's kind of that third layer of SEC teams. And you'll notice kind of the way this works is you've got a layer of Big Ten at the very top and you got a layer of SEC right beneath it. And then you got this next layer of sort of Big Ten and then you got another layer of SEC beneath it. And that's kind of the hierarchy of the sport right now. And I think that's what the AP poll is going to look like. So 21 through 25. I went Louisville, Tennessee, Missouri, Florida, and I think Boise will be 25th because I think whatever the preseason expected G5 playoff participant is, we'll just get the 25th place vote. That's how I see it shaken out. This is what, June 30th, Jesse, we don't know when this comes out, right. Isn't it usually late July, early August, somewhere around there? Yeah. So we're probably about a month away from this. We could have made a call so easily, but instead, let's just baselessly speculate on air. But that is how I expect the AP poll to fall. Talk about some games, man, we had a great mailbag here. Spencer from Arlington, Virginia, asked what are your biggest upset alert games of the season weeks where teams can be caught looking ahead and fumble a season away? Great question. I wrote down 5, but you could go 20 deep or so on this. I'm going to start with week three and I'm going to start with USC at Rutgers. This is the first east coast trip for Lincoln, Riley and USC in a season where they have to make three of them so they travel thrice to the East Coast. This is the first one. Rutgers has an extra day of rest here which should not be overlooked because anytime you're traveling across three time zones and the dude who's waiting for you has an extra day to cook, you got to be prepared. Remember last year usc, because they're a Big Ten team now, they got to make these, these cross country trips occasionally. We were at the game where they lost at Illinois, they beat Nebraska, but that one easily could have gone the other way if Raiola doesn't get hurt. They beat Purdue, I think like 33 to 17, but that was a closer sort of game than the final score indicated. So like they weren't dominant on the road last year. And this, this looks like a game that you overlook if you're trying to forecast USC season. In fact, Bradley, welcome back. Bradley, by the way, put up the USC schedule here. If you're looking at their schedule, what stands out? Oregon stands out, Penn State stands out. Ohio State, Indiana, Those are the four that stand out. No one's looking at Rutgers. This is not an easy task because of the travel piece. But also they're at Rutgers right before they play Oregon, Washington, Penn State, back to back to back. And there's no buy mixed in there. Right, Jesse? Yeah. So that's, that's a game I think that will be overlooked even the week of the game, I think it'll be overlooked. Next up. Talked about this game the other night. We talked about this one Sunday night. It's off the radar in the sec, but I think Mississippi State at LSU in week seven, Bears close watching. It's a schedule dynamic thing for me. So this is LSU's seventh straight game to start the year. Mississippi State's off a buy and Mississippi State is a team that's coming off a down year. But when you look back at the results last year, they led Texas big and lost by one possession. They lost by one possession to Tennessee. They lost by one possession to Florida. So they're losses. Losses are losses. But if you just, if you just picture that team, you're like, man, they were sub 500. Just a bunch of blowouts last year. It really wasn't that. Really wasn't that. This is not one of the four or five games that someone would circle on LSU's schedule. And so because of those dynamics and because you could have a really, really dynamic, tough out at quarterback to deal with here at Mississippi State, that's one I'd look at. I'd look at week eight in the Big 12. I think Brigham Young is a, is a team I'm really high on. I'm going to talk about him in the show later. I'm really high on Brigham Young. Everybody's focused on that game. They play against Notre Dame on October 17, and then a couple of weeks later they got Arizona State in there and then they go to Utah and that's kind of looked at as well. That's their season. Yeah, but they've got another conference game in between those and it's at UCF on October 24th. So here's the deal. UCF's off a buy. Brigham Young is making a 3,600 mile round trip to Orlando to play a rested team after they just played Notre Dame and they got Arizona State and Utah coming up the next two weeks. And does anyone recall, and I know you all do, the last time Scott Frost entered year two at ucf, what happened? I'll tell you what happened. Well, actually, I would tell you they went 13 and oh, and won the Peach Bowl. Some people would go as far as to tell you they won the national championship. And there are certain stadium banners that indicate they won a national championship. All we know for sure, all we can prove is they went undefeated that season. It happened before, Jesse. Could it happen again?
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Josh Pate
Big Ten, week six, Indiana at Nebraska, the Will Compton Special. I do want to warn Everyone, this could also be a 50 to 10 blowout. This could be a splattering. So with that warning in mind, let's tiptoe ahead. Back to back road games for Indiana. They go to Rutgers the week before, they go to Nebraska here. And this is right before they play Ohio State and Michigan back to back. It's also before they've really been tested because to this point in the season, Indiana's played North Texas, Howard, Western Kentucky, Northwestern, at Rutgers. That's what they've played. So you could have a pretty, pretty solid team that's close to last year and they could be smoking everyone. And that just is what it is. And prayers for Nebraska if that's true. There is another scenario that crops up every now and then in college football where you got a team with some flaws, but their early schedule is not built to expose those flaws, but you get a sense they're there. Then time and time again that team goes on the road usually in mid October, which is where this game is featured. It's placed and they get exposed and half the country's shocked and the other half of the country is like, no, we could have seen this coming even when they were winning games earlier in the year. Now look, we very much trust Kurt Signetti to put together a very formidable group this year. But in the event that there are some holes in the dam, maybe this is the first time that theoretically they could spring big leaks. Maybe again, warning, it could be a splattering. And the last one I'm circling, we saved it for last because it's kind of unlikely, but we do want to be on record as having said it in June in case it happens. It's Arkansas at Texas. It's week 12. Think about the spot here for Texas. Texas has been through a gauntlet of a schedule. They've already played Ohio State, they've gone to Neyland, they've gone to Dallas to play Oklahoma, and a rejuvenated John Mattier, they've played Florida. Revenge spot. Pete and Ole Miss have come in there. They've gone to Missouri and they've gone to LSU the last couple of weeks before Arkansas comes in, right before they go play Texas A and M. Now you may think I just listed Texas toughest games over the next five years. Actually, I just listed their schedule for this upcoming fall. Think about where the mind is at, the Texas mind. They could be a two loss team at this point, knowing they got to make sure, you know, make sure we just don't get hurt against Arkansas, make sure we take care of business against Arkansas and then we're going to College Station on short rest. By the way, that game at A and M to end the season is going to be their third road game in four weeks and it's on a Friday. Just think about where the mind is at and then think about Arkansas. They probably haven't had a good year. They're probably not a bowl team and they, they create this as their bowl game. This is their super bowl. And then they get to end the season against lsu. Just a fun time to be a Razorback fan. Great. Welcome to the sec. Arkansas is going to be searching for something. Maybe they don't find it. Maybe it's a door slammed in their face here. I just wouldn't look past that. We move on. Good start to the show. I welcome college football questions. I question or I welcome questions of all different varieties here. Cliff hit me and said, what's more exhilarating, chasing an EF4 or 5 tornado or experiencing a 5 Chalice of Supremacy game in person. Can you imagine what a fever dream of a question this is to a new listener or a new viewer? Why are we talking about tornadoes? Why did Cliff not get the enhanced Fujita scale right? Why is he even saying the word chalai? Why is it spelled incorrectly? Or why is it spelled the way it is? What does a chalice have to do with football games? All I can do to our new viewers and listeners out there is say welcome to the family. These sorts of things will make sense in time for a crash course as to what the next two minutes of this show will be about. I like to storm chase on top of covering college football for a living. The last couple of years, when we've gone to games or we've watched games on tv, which we all do, I have tried to put a rating system on games around here. If you'll notice on the top of this fridge here where the cans have been turned sideways because a certain brand abandoned us, but we still want stuff in the fridge. You'll notice on the top of the fridge there are little glass containers. We call those a chalice of supremacy. But the plural, regardless of what Webster's Dictionary tells you of chalice is chalai. And not even a normal I, a little accented I. It's beyond me to know what the word is to describe what that I is. I just recently learned what ampersands is, so I have no idea what that accented I. What is it, Jesse? You're the expert in there. You got a real life degree from Penn State. What am I supposed to call that? Anyway, that is how we rate games. The best rating a football game can get is a five Chow Lai Classic. And sometimes we only have like two or three of them per season. So the question here is, after that three minute context was provided, what would you. What's more exhilarating? EF4 EF5 Tornado or a 5 Chowai Classic? Well, I gotta tell you, there is a right answer to this, but it depends on how you define exhilarating. Because there's a much different form of adrenaline that kind of football game gives you than that kind of experience in nature gives you. I'm all about both of them. I get to experience both of them. However, I think I choose from a pure exhilaration standpoint the experience with the EF4 EF5 tornado only because I think the 5 Challai game translates on TV way better than an EF4 EF5 tornado translates. Even in the best of footage. I mean, you could have Reed Timmer parked in the middle of one. You could have Brad Arnold zero metering that thing. And the footage, while it may be great, pales in comparison to what being there in person feels like. Whereas the five Chowai Classic. True enough, there's no substitute for standing on the sidelines or being in the stadium for a big game. You could at least somewhat get the feel. And if it's broadcast properly, that comes through the screen a whole lot more effectively than. I don't even know how to explain what it's like being in close proximity of a violent tornado. And I've done it and I certainly don't recommend it. But like, if you're a psychopath who craves that sort of thing, Chase with someone who has experience, like Prez, who wasn't necessarily craving and he just got thrown in the back seat and experienced one, you would kind of see what I'm talking about once you experience that, because it's way different than what you have watched on YouTube. It's called a what? You said it twice. I still can't understand what you're saying. A tater. T R what? T I L D E. That's what the accented I is. A tilde. Not tilde, not tilde. The E is not silent. Do you know that? Had you ever said that word before?
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Josh Pate
we are about educating, entertaining, enlightening and informing. And I really feel like over the past five minutes we did all of those things for the audience. Now half of them tuned out in the process. But I really feel like we accomplished something with that segment that we'll never see the light of day on the YouTube channel that will strictly live in the long form show. So if you're not listening to the long form show and judging by the fact that you're here, you are. But the rest of our friends out there who just consumed the eight minute clips, they just missed out on all that. You don't have to miss out on clothes though. You could wear clothes. All you gotta do is go to patestatematerial.com contrary to popular belief, you can't get clothes anywhere else this time of year. That is pretty much the only place that has your back and it's especially the only place where you can get the now, at least according to me, World Famous America runs on Saturday. Red, White and Chew America 250th birthday fill in the Blanks T shirt which has been our number one seller by a mile over the past month. Jesse's football is coming T shirt is lagging right now. It's a distant second in overall sales over the last few weeks. Still good. The world needs silver medalists too, Jesse. I tell you that every day when you walk in here, but paint stamp material.com is there for all of your clothing needs.
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Josh Pate
Your bill ladies.
Erin Andrews
I got it. No, I got it.
Josh Pate
Seriously, I insist.
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Josh Pate
You don't be silly.
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Josh Pate
let's move on. This is a great question we got. I spent an inordinate amount of time on this today. Cam Dyer, possibly related to Michael Dyer, who some say was down in the national championship game in 2010. Not me, but some people. He's from Orlando and he checks in and he says this is the time of year where I go back and watch some of my favorite games of all time on YouTube. My go to is 2014 Baylor versus TCU. Since I grew up a Baylor fan and was at the game that night, are there any games you regularly go back and watch? Here's what's interesting. I'm going to get to it in a little while. Cam is a Baylor fan. I've got a Baylor game on my list. That's not the 2014 game against TCU. Teaser my go to my number one go to rewatch game of all time is USC at Notre Dame 2005. We just did a breakdown of this game less than a month ago. Everything I could ever love about college football was present in this game. It's played on natural grass. First off, very high natural grass. It's rumored, and I'm starting the rumor now that Charlie Weiss just barred the grounds crew from even entering the facilities during the week so they couldn't cut the grass. Again. I just started that rumor, but I like to believe it. But it starts, I think it was a 3:30 game. So it starts in the daylight, it ends in nighttime. It's two of the iconic brands in college football. Also, this is the BCS era. So I'm not saying there weren't post season implications on the game, but the game was about the rivalry the game was centered on. Forget about the implications of postseason. This is USC and Pete Carroll and Reggie Bush and Matt Leinert and whatnot going into South Bend to face off against Brady Quinn and Charlie Weiss and Notre Dame. That's all you need. You don't need postseason implications. And you know what, kids? For a long time we didn't. For a long time, that was what made it the main event. And also, I was just talking to Casey Cosgrove, friend of the program who hails from Southern California. He covered USC for a long time. He was in the office earlier today. He walked in. I said, casey, what's your number one game? You go back and watch because that's mine right there. And he said, oh, I was at that game. And I tried to explain to him my theory on celebrity status. 99% of you who are normal view a celebrity as a person. Like a famous person is a celebrity. And I acknowledge that too. Taylor Swift is clearly a celebrity. But the way my mind works and did work for a long time growing up is I actually revered moments in history, even over people. So, like, if the people were a part of the big moments, that really vaulted them into celebrity status in my mind. So big time football games, actually celebrity of celebrity status in my mind. I don't know if anyone else out there is like that, and if not, that's okay. It just makes me unique. I think of USC at Notre Dame the same way you would think of a big celebrity. To the point that if you walk up to me and you say what Cosgrove did, which is, oh, I was at. I was in South Bend. I was at Notre Dame Stadium for that usc, Notre Dame game. I look at you a little bit different. I'm not saying Casey Cosgrove became a celebrity the moment he said that. I'm just saying there was like a little extra glow about him that he didn't have when he walked into the office today. And he's one to glow anyway. But yeah, so I would say that one, I would go a few years later and these are games that I was at 2008, 2009 SEC championship games. Both of them were number one versus number two. Both of them were Alabama versus Florida. Here's how iconic these games were and how rent free they live in my mind. I went up to Indiana a month and a half ago, sat down with Kurt Signetti, and out of all the things that we could have been talking about, within two minutes we were talking about that right there. So one of the best sources we could have on this is a guy who was a participant, who was a coach in both of those games. Kurt Signetti was on those Alabama staffs. I asked him about those games. This is one of my favorite parts of our sit down. You got to be part of, to me, two of the greatest settings I've ever seen. That 0809 SEC Championship setting.
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Josh Pate
I don't ever remember anything as charged as that. What was that like to be a part of?
Pedigree Dog Food Ad Voice
Yeah, you're exactly right. Playing in the national championship the next game, the second time, the second year. I'm not going to say it was a letdown, but it wasn't like the SEC game. It was one verse two two years in a row in the dom. Florida, Alabama, two great teams. It was unbelievable. It was incredible and words can't really describe it. A lot of great players, great teams, great coaches.
Josh Pate
That was the vibe in the South. I was obviously living in Georgia at the time. I was just a year, a couple of years out of high school at the time. And like this is Nick Saban is new at Alabama.
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Still.
Josh Pate
It's this first couple of years at Alabama. Urban Meyer's got Florida rolling. Tim Tebow, it's a star studded team at Florida and in 08 they come from behind to beat Bama. They go on to win the national title. The next year, Bama gets back to Atlanta, they beat Florida, they go on to win the national title. And I remember both years the feeling, at least in the south was that was the national title game. That was revered. More so than the national title game was. It was looked forward to more than the national title game. So that was like the center of the world was the Georgia Dome, which I would argue should have always been the center of the world and should still be there today, rest in peace. But that was the center of the world first. Saturday in December, 4pm Eastern kickoff, SEC title game. So those two games were awesome. I go back and watch those all the time. Okay, the Baylor game I was talking about was not the 2014 game. I'm going to throw 20, 21 Big 12 championship game, Baylor versus Oklahoma State at you. I go back and watch this ending at least three or four times a year. You remember Oklahoma State's down, I think 2116. It's like under a minute to go on the clock. They get inside the 10, it's first in goal. In fact, they're inside the five. And Oklahoma State has four shots. And this is fourth down right here. I get chills even talking about this. So Big 12 championships on the line. And you just think about everything that goes into preparing an athlete and a team for a season. And all the reps in the weight room. Winter conditioning, spring practice, summer conditioning, the thousands of reps you take. And you never know when it's going to show up in a game. And so, like, I think it's Jaron McVay, I think is the Baylor defender making the. The tackle here.
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Josh Pate
It's a game of inches, an inch or two separated which team was going to win the Big 12 championship game. And he's got to beat that guy to the pylon or at least get over there enough to force him down or out before he gets to the pylon. And I was at the SEC title game, which was about to kick off, and I refused to go on the field because we were down there under the tunnel. We were watching the ending. And I just remember being around a group of, I don't know, a couple of dozen people. Nobody had rooting interest in the game. You're just watching it cause you love college football. And that whole tunnel just exploded. And it was like, these a bunch of Baylor fans? No, it's just people who just know they saw an insane ending. And then they pan to Dave Aranda, and Dave Aranda's like barely above 80 beats per minute. Just complete even keel. And I go back and watch that all the time. It was a Sean McDonough special, too. So Sean McDonough on the call you got. I think we probably got a voice pop in there, which is mandatory in all the Sean McDonough, like, quintessential greatest hits. I would buy that today, man. Sean McDonough Greatest Hits. It would be that and Rumors. Those would be my two favorite albums. What about 2022? This is more recent. This is a game that I was at. Tennessee finally beating Alabama in Neyland 52 to 49 final. And this is the one where it had been 15 years. And we went there and it was our. It was our tour stop. Can't even remember which tour that was, but it was our tour stop. And we got to be there when they finally took Alabama down. And the field storming that incurred after this game ended is unlike anything I think that has ever occurred in the history of college football before or after. And we got I josh footage of it. You're seeing it right now. If you're watching on TV or you're watching or you're listening on podcasts, you're seeing it right now. This was. I don't know how to explain it. It's an outdoor venue. But the thing that I remember the most is people that had to be taken care of medically because they had smoke inhalation. But it's outdoors, but that's how thick the cigar smoke was. And then this one dude, we've never identified who it is. He's just working traffic cop up there surfing on the goal post as they take it out of the stadium and toss it eventually into the river where I think it should have lived forever and served as a natural reef. That's what I think should have happened to the goal post. What about Notre Dame? Michigan 2011? How many people remember this? This was the first night game, as I recall, in Ann Arbor. I remember a few things about this. Number one, Michigan got down big and had a 17 point comeback. It was like I said, the first night game in the big house. Notre Dame wore the helmets. Oh, that's right there. Notre Dame wore the helmets with the clover on the helmet. The referees in the game wore old school gear, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't know what the thing was, what the gimmick was, what the theme was for this. I just think we should do it more frequently because the officials were dressed like it was 1911 instead of 2011, which I fully advocate for. And it was a big comeback. The home team won. It was like the first night game at Wrigley when that was played. This was the first night game in the big house. You may think, oh, this game must have been from the 70s and 80s. No, it was from 2011. Really incredible. And there were some honorable mentions here. I didn't even say Texas, USC, national title game in 05. I kind of think that's just grandfathered in for everyone. I did not say like there's some like Bama, Georgia 2015, the rain game up There it was like the first time Saban and them were an underdog in a long time and that was a blowout. The Boise, Oklahoma Fiesta Bowl. Like, you could certainly put that on here, Mitch. Arizona State over Brigham Young a couple of years ago. Like, of course, any of a number of games in the Rolodex of greatness you could put on here. Penn State, Ohio State, 2016, the Kick Six. You could put a bunch of these games on there. Those are just the ones that my mind went to. Next up, good question here. Topical relevant EJ said, how, if possible, can bowl season ever become meaningful again? Specifically meaningful to the players and the teams in There's a lot of pain in that question. You'll notice the comma and then the ellipses. There's a lot of pain. And I felt it. And I feel it. I loved bowl season. Bowl season was never meaningless to me. In fact, that phrase meaningless bowl game, it's pretty new. So how do we make it feel like we used to? I don't think you can. How do you insert maximum meaning into bowl games again? I think you only have two options, and I'm not sure college football is ready to do either of these things. But I'm just answering the question that was asked. You either got to make the bowl games part of the regular season somehow, or you've got to make the bowl games part of the playoff somehow. Like I said, I don't know that people are ready to do that. I don't know if people want that. Your third option is bowl games just aren't meaningful anymore. So if you were to move them, let's just play this game. It is June after all, so we can take our time here. Let's say you were to go down one of those two routes. You were to say, all right, I want bowl season to mean something again. And if it means we got to suck it up and make significant changes, okay, I'm on board. What are my options? Well, if you moved it to the beginning of the season, first off, do you take the matchups that would have been to end the last season and just play them to start the next year, but the games count like they're regular season games, do you play those games at the neutral site that they would have been played? Like, if Virginia and Missouri were going to play in Jacksonville in the Gator bowl, would you instead have Virginia and Missouri go to Jacksonville and play in week one or week two, which is an idea I'll talk about in a second to start the next year I know that's a radical idea. A lot of, a lot of you who are only casually listening to or watching the show, you may be hearing this for the first time and you're asking, well, wait, those aren't even the teams from the previous year. In some cases the players aren't even the same. In some cases, the coaches aren't even the same. We know all that. That's why we said it's radical. So first question is, what's the location of the games? Secondly, would you really have it in week one? Because you could also do the whole Labor Day idea that's been floated around where if college football's week zero is going to become week one in the future, which it is, therefore week one actually happens in late August, would you want your bowl game spectacle to actually be week two? Because week two in the future is going to be the Labor Day weekend. So if you were to have TCU and usc, if you were to have Iowa and Vanderbilt, if you had Texas, Michigan, if you were going to have all those games, do you want them as this massive, like Labor Day weekend, multi day spectacular, I would wonder also, is that still strictly college football territory or has the NFL moved their season up a week by that point? So, you know, a lot of questions to parse out there. And then the second one is, well, how, how would you make the regular season games be bowl games? We just answered that. But then the other route I said was, well, how, how theoretically could you make bowl games part of the playoff? Well, I think that's just pulling bowl games into being part of like a play in weekend would be the idea that I would have. This is not only my idea. Several people have floated this out there, but I think it would look something like a format that we floated on the show a little while ago. And that was taken, you know, the Citrus Bowl. I forget the names of the sponsors now, but the Citrus bowl, the Outback bowl, the Pop Tart Bowl. I think I just named one of those bowl games twice. The Alamo bowl, whatever. Take the six or seven biggest ones that you want to work into the rotation and you move them up to conference championship Weekend, what is currently Conference Championship Weekend. And it kind of serves as a 13th game, but it's a game that counts towards the playoff standings. So I'm not going to go all the way down that road. But I think theoretically, if you were to do that, that's how you would make those games mean something. But, you know, this was one of the big pushbacks I had One of the many pushbacks I had about expanding the playoff and the way the playoff was marketed at its outset was it removed all the meaning from anything else. It was like this zero sum formula at the time that ESPN had in their marketing campaign. And I was very critical of ESPN at the time. Now I will say to their credit, they don't run this marketing campaign anymore, but the damage has been done. The marketing campaign was the who's in marketing campaign where in like 2014, 2015, 2016, you could not watch 30 seconds of programming without having some form of the who's in playoff marketing campaign tied into whatever you were watching. You could have been watching number one versus number four. You could have been watching a Friday night FCS game. And if it's being broadcast by the rights holder, they're going to be talking about who's in at the expense of everything else. Well, so the public and the players got their mind reconditioned to think that that's where the value is. That's where the meaning in the sport is. It's on the playoff at the expense of everything else. Sure enough, Starting with that first 14 playoff field, you started to see some opt outs. And then the next year you started to see several more bowl opt outs. And then bowl opt outs became a mainstay. And the phrase meaningless bowl game was really born because up until that point, people can say whatever they want to. I lived through all of this. This is not that long ago. No one was talking about meaningless bowl games before this. No one. Believe it or not, if you're 17 years old and you can't remember this world, I'll explain the world for you. We had a BCS title game where number one played number two and everyone wanted to be in it. And then if you didn't make it in that, what you reverted your attitude to was remembering what your preseason expectation was for your team. Let's say you expected seven and five and in reality you went nine and three. You defined it as a successful season. And the fact that you were going to go play in Tampa on New Year's Day instead of being in Shreveport on December 28th at 5:45 in the afternoon was a huge reward. And your team was fully motivated. A lot of your fans traveled down there. You sold the stadium out. And especially for the Big Ten folks, you got to get a sunburn on New Year's Day. And believe it or not, everyone was just kind of okay with it. In fact, it was celebrated and it was unique. There was nothing else like it, it was one of one. And it was bowl season. And winning a bowl game and not just making a bowl game, but making a certain level, a certain tier of bowl game, that was a reward. And I loved that. And it got stripped away. Got stripped away because we had to make room for the playoff to take all the oxygen out of the room. And to me that was not additive. Now, some of you disagree with that, I know that. But I'm a little more romantic about what college football used to be. But bowls, you know, the other detractor that comes in the room and I can't stand this, they'll say, well, hey, bowls were ruined when we made 40 of them first off. No, they weren't. No, they weren't. But if you want to make that point that the concept of making a bowl got watered down because they created so many bowl games, I'd be okay with stripping away some of the bowl games. I don't think what you're saying is intellectually honest because sure enough, draw the two circles there. Got the old Venn diagram broken out. Some of the same people that say too many bowl games watered down and ruined bowl games are the same people who were pro playoff expansion not understanding how those concepts conflict. So I think you're being intellectually dishonest when you say that you're just looking for an escape hatch to explain away why you sold bowl games down the river. And I'm not buying it.
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Your bill ladies. I got it.
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You don't be silly.
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Josh Pate
You're watching us in West Monroe, Louisiana. Presque Isle, Maine. We don't get many Maine check ins because we don't talk about the Black Bears enough. Home of d' Lo Brown and they're watching us in San Francisco. Thank you guys so so much. We move on. The mailbag is still full so we still continue to go, Sam said. What are some of your best bets for potential first time playoff teams for this season? This gets more difficult every year. I would have said it gets harder every year, but that would require an immunity. So it gets more difficult every year because if you look at the odds to win the national title this year, which are on the screen right now, the top 14 teams have all made the playoff before. So if we're looking for first timers here, we got to dig a little bit but that's okay. I still came up with four. The first one is Brigham Young. Told you earlier I would talk about him later. So I am betting that Brigham Young, with this schedule in that roster, is a legitimate playoff threat. And I imagine the vibe out there too. Just, Just picture them. Regardless of what happened with Texas Tech, picture them in isolation and the only team they couldn't beat last year was Texas Tech. And otherwise they ran the table. And then they kept most of their players, including their quarterback. And then Penn State tried to come and grab their head coach and he was kind of on the way out the door. Then he said, no, never mind, crumble cookie, I'm staying. And now they look down the road and they say, oh, wait. And Texas Tech lost their quarterback game on. Oh, and this is our schedule and we got our toughest opponent at home. And even if we lose that game, it's not a conference game. Yeah, I would, I would think the vibes are pretty high at Brigham Young, so I would circle them as a potential candidate. I'd look at USC because I think it's really pretty cut and dry at USC this year. Either they make the playoff or they're probably looking for a new head coach. We've gone over that dynamic, so we don't need to rehash this. But I do think that's a fair proposition. This many years in for Lincoln Riley, and I think that this is probably the first time they've got the team that could reasonably be expected to do that. I'm not saying they're elite on the lines of scrimmage, but I would say if you look at what it takes to make the playoff or flirt with the playoff, be in contention in November, I think USC's talent profile could fit that description, especially if Jaden Mava gives them B plus or into the A level in terms of quarterback play, could see that Louisville is a team that you should not sleep on. Louisville is a team that comes in and if you've got Miami up here, the rest of the ACC is pretty wide open. So you got to ask the question, do you think the ACC in any world could be a two bid league? And if the answer is yes, Louisville could be right there. They don't face Miami in the regular season, and if they beat Ole Miss in week one, I think instantly Louisville becomes a favorite to make a playoff, to have a playoff berth. And it's Lincoln Kind holds a quarterback. It's trusting Jeff Braum with any court. I would trust Jeff Braum with Bradley at quarterback. But Then especially also their propensity to get the absolute most out of the portal class they bring him. There's a lot sneakily to like about Louisville and could I throw Florida at you because I'm contractually obligated to do this. Apparently number one quarterback in the sec, DJ Lagway, is no longer there. However, if we're choosing from a list of teams that haven't made it, first off, it's hard to believe Florida hasn't made the playoff. Secondly, no, it's not when you think about recent history there. But if you look at just overall talent roster, if you're trying to get me to bet on a long shot, they technically will have the players to where if they go four and two in one possession games or something like that, you know, and that quarterback offensive coordinator import strategy works out for Florida. Kind of like it worked out for Vandy and whatnot. So I could see Florida too. Those are the teams I would circle. Moving on merrily along, might I add a lot of really good submissions here. Luke hit us up from Oxford, Mississippi. He said, what advice would you give to a sports journalism student entering their final year of college? I'll try and skim through this. You need to be getting reps now because I think the tendency for some is to think of college as like a conveyor belt and then you're on the conveyor belt and you're on the conveyor belt and you're on the conveyor belt. Here I go through my senior year and then I'll get pumped off the conveyor belt and then I go into the real world. Well, that's one way to do it. There's another way to do it, and that is start getting your reps now at Ole Miss or at Missouri or Syracuse or wherever you are. You may not even be in college. I can relate to that because I wasn't for a long time around that time of life. Get reps somewhere. And like if you're at a school that has any kind of broadcast track, any kind of radio station, any kind of TV station, dude, you're either you or someone you know is paying a buttload of money for you to go to college. Get your money's worth. However, figure out a way be getting reps. That's the first thing. Another thing is you can never network enough. It doesn't matter how many people ignore you. You will get people who want to help you. Relationships pay so many dividends down the road, you will hear people say, it's not what you know, it's who you know. It's actually both. But early on in your career, it's a whole lot about who you know. I would say ask a ton of questions. I get it. My DMs are filled with them and I answer as many as I can. But just ask questions and listen. Shut up and listen when someone is asking and then answering a question that you ask. I would say respect what journalism is and understand what that entails. So if you call yourself entering the world of sports journalism to be a journalist, well, you need to understand there are ethics, there are guidelines, there are codes. It's a discipline that you should adhere to. And it doesn't even matter if you look to your left and right and a lot of people are calling themselves journalists. But pissing all over, that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because the cream eventually rises, okay? Professionals eventually get the proper light shined on them. And if you're not a journalist, don't call yourself one. That's why I never call myself one because, like, respectfully, with immense amounts of respect to the profession, I don't think what we do is journalism. So people will introduce me as that sometimes and they're trying to be nice so I don't have a rebuttal for them. But I never label myself a journalist because I've got immense respect for the people who are journalists and the process and the practice, when it's implemented properly, that's done there. It is tedious work and it is sometimes very, very unenviable work. And what I can't stand a lot of times is like, I'll watch, I'll watch guys or girls who I know have a scoop, who I know have a story because I'm in a position to know. And then they'll get beat on breaking it. I don't think that's a world I could live in if I lived in the competitive news breaking world. And then I was getting beat on breaking news. I'm way, way too competitive to deal with that and have to be disciplined enough to adhere to principles and values. And, and that is why you'll notice a lot of times on the show. I don't want to go too far down this road. We do not fashion ourselves as a news breaking show. We could be one. But I do not go down that road. I got my reasons for not going down that road. Some of them have to do with what we're talking about here and having respect for people who do this. Your passion and your talent overlap somewhere. So you've got God given ability in some area and yours may be writing, yours may be speaking, yours may be producing. Whatever it is, make sure you're passionate about it. Because if you're not, then those overlaps don't really work. But if you're passionate about it and you happen to be talented in the same area, that is where you want to spend the next 30 years building a career. Lastly, before we move on, don't worry about whether you're going to get taken advantage of. I'll save you the time. You're going to get taken advantage of 1000%. I don't know anyone who's made it in this business who cannot look back and retrace their steps and say, at some point in time, man, they were taking advantage of me. You're going to get taken advantage of. Here's the trick. Make sure you're taking advantage of the moment as well. So it wasn't too long ago it was, I'm looking at my phone like I need to know what year it is. It was within the last eight years or so. I was making under $30,000 a year and could not make ends meet. But I was in a position where I could also take advantage of where I was and I could get my reps in, I could build a brand, I could use resources that were available to me there. So I was getting taken advantage of. Make no mistake about it. The trick is, if you're going to get taken advantage of, you either quit or you grind your way through it. But in the process of grinding your way through it, you make sure you're taking advantage of the situation as well. You're going to get some differing philosophies on that. Some people will tell you, no, you should never allow yourself to be in a position where someone's taking advantage of you. Legally, they're right. Yes, speaking in legal terms, that's not what I'm advocating for. But if you don't think that there are several instances of doing a whole lot of work for not a lot of money because they know they can stick it to you because you're 23 years old on the road to where you get, you don't think you're going to come across those points. You're fooling yourself. You'll learn. If you adhere to it and stick to it, the beauty is once it's in your rear view mirror, you're glad it happened because it filtered out most of the competition. Most people quit because most people are not really about this and therefore most People will tap out long before they make it through that. And trust me, when you go through it, you'll understand why. But, man, if you come out on the other side, great things can happen. Move on. Future bets. Irvin from Ohio, hit us up. Said before you go on break, are there any college football futures you have your eye on? I've more than got my eye on these, Irvin. We've just flat out put some money on these. At FanDuel, of course, we start on a down note. A program near and dear to my heart in northwest Arkansas. I regrettably am having to take the under on Arkansas. Four and a half wins, and I'm going to tell you why. It's called schedule. And they've got a really, really nightmarish one. So they've got a we got to find five wins on this schedule, and I simply cannot rely on them to find five. North Alabama and Tulsa. If I'm granting you that they win those games, there is nothing else on here that's a gimme. And they still need three more wins. And one of their road games, I kid you not, is in Salt Lake City. They're playing nine league games, plus they're going to go play at Utah. Utah is a better team than Arkansas. They're getting them at home, they're getting them early in the year. That is in all likelihood, not a win for Arkansas. So you find me the three games at Utah, Georgia at A and M, Tennessee at Vandy, Missouri at Auburn, South Carolina, at Texas, lsu. I didn't ask, could you win one or two of those? I said, will you win three more of them? My answer is no. So I'm going under. Four and a half wins. The over that I love, the over that I cannot believe is still available is Brigham Young. I am sky high on this over. Eight and a half. Like, I have Max bet this already. And yet it's still sitting there. As of an hour ago, it's still available. I'm not predicting them to go undefeated, but if you were to come from January with the headline, you already saw the spoilers, and you say, hey, guess what, dude? Brigham Young's going to go undefeated in the regular season, my mouth wouldn't be on the ground, my jaw wouldn't be on the floor. I'd be surprised they beat Notre Dame, I would not be utterly shocked at that. And even if they do lose to Notre Dame and they lose another game here or two, I still hit my over at eight and a half. So I just went over all the dynamics they have there. They got a ton of returning experience. Love the quarterback situation, love that the head coach is still there. Kalanis Hitake was flirted with by Penn State. He stayed there. It's a revenge minded program. It is an unfinished business kind of vibe in Provo. And you're saying eight and a half. Cannot believe that FanDuel knows what they're doing. Except right here they don't know what they're doing on this one. Next up, Penn State. Same number, same bet. Give me the over at eight and a half with Penn State it is a schedule play but also a roster play because you can't just be doing the oh look, a soft schedule. I'm going to blindly bet the over. You've got to know something about the team. And that's why with Brigham Young and Penn State I feel comfortable with this because I feel like I got a good enough grip on what the team is that I can then look at that schedule and say wait, so let's just say they lose their biggest three games, USC comes in there and beats them. They go to Michigan and lose. What would you say, Jesse at Washington is that the third toughest game? They lose those three games. I'm still hitting my over if they win the rest of them and God help people if they pull an upset or two. So I love the position here, but I like that maybe the offensive line situation is not the question mark that people think it is as the season comes around. And I also love the veteran laden nature of the roster overall. This is not picking them to win the Big Ten. It's not even picking them to make the playoff. It's picking them to go over eight and a half wins. If we want to go back to under territory we need to go to Florida State. Florida State under six and a half is a bet. I'll be on slash, am on not a ton of faith in Ashton Daniels at the quarterback position. And then if you look at the schedule, it is not backloaded. So they got SMU in Alabama in the first three weeks of the season, first three games of the season. And I worry that that along with play in Virginia, at Louisville, at Miami, Clemson, they've played all those teams by the sun setting on Halloween so there are multiple losable games before they even get to November. And my worry is that if it goes off the rails early, it's just off the rails and we're more talking about a coaching search than we're talking about wow, Florida State pulled the nose up and went seven or eight and Five and four. So I see under six and a half for Florida State. Still got August to change my mind, but I don't think that's going to happen. And then a couple of player bets here. I already bet Darian Mensah to win the Heisman. He's third best odds right now. And so he's up there. Like people know about Darian Mensah, but that's not the guy I wanted to conclude by talking about here for just a second. Remember this time last year, I rolled the dice bravely and I rolled them on John Mattier, who at the time was going to be the new starting quarterback for Oklahoma by way of Washington State. And you'll remember that I was proud of that ticket. And then he started out hot. And John Matier wound up briefly being the favorite in the odds market to win the Heisman early in the year. And then disaster struck or struck his hand and he was out for an extended period of time. Then he came back, but it was never the same. Now, you remember at the time the headlines were, no, no, no, it's not that. The injury still has lingering effects. He just came back to earth. Well, I refuse to believe it. And even when they lied about it at Oklahoma and said, no, this is not due to injury, his hand is not hampering his play, I refuse to buy it. That was propaganda. Sooner propaganda. And lo and behold, since the season has concluded as recently as this last week at the man in passing academy, John Mateer said, and I quote, it was like throwing a baseball without your two fingers. I had to hold the ball, flatter, be under it. I couldn't really get over the top of it as much. And I just had to adapt to make it work. It was okay, you know, I mean, we all saw what it ended up being, but it's better now. What it ended up being is my Heisman ticket going up in flames through no fault of my own. So as I remember, history, we won last year when we bet on John Matier. We just didn't make any money off of it because fate dealt us a cruel, cruel hand. And I say all that to ask, did you see this guy at the Manning passing Academy the other day? Did you see the vibes emanating off of him? I did. And so I would like to announce here and now, June 30, 2026. I'm not exploring a John Mateer Heisman ticket again. I'm not dabbling with the thought. I am all in on John Mattier. And therefore I must be all in on Oklahoma this year, which must come as a shock to people who have labeled me a Sooner hater as of late. That's not true. A tough love occasionally dealt out. Yes, I did have an egregious misranking of the programs a couple of months ago. Water under the bridge, I hope. But I'm taking John Mateer. He's got the 15th best odds to win the Heisman right now. I take him, by the way. Remember back in March, I think it was March. I came on the show just to show you're not wasting your time watching this show nor are you wasting your money watching this show. I came on the air a few months ago and I said I have a Heisman bet. Fanduel had come out with the odds. I placed a bet on someone to win the Heisman and it was a value bet and it was Keelan Russell in Alabama who had not been named the starting quarterback. He still hasn't been named the starting quarterback. He was plus 8,000 odds to win the Heisman at that point. We max bet it. He is now plus 2200 odds to win the Heisman. And if you know anything about FanDuel's cash out structure and you place that bet along with us, you can go in your account right now and you could look at that bet right now and look at the cash out option right now and realize, wow, I 2.5x my money already and I could just leave here today with it. Yes you could. Because again you're not wasting your time on this show. Speaking of FanDuel, they are the exclusive odds provider of the show. We always appreciate them. Fanduel Mike sent me a lovely text today which I just remembered I have not opened yet and so I need to get to that. That's what we're going to do over July. Also in the more immediate future, I don't know if you've heard the World cup is going on. Your boys here in Team USA are still alive and in the interest of money this week new customers who ideally would sign up at Fanduel Joshpate and If you bet $1 there's on Team USA and they win, you get $250 in bonus bets. So that's all that has to happen. You have to have $1 and you need Team USA to win. And if you bet that $1 on Team USA to win and they win, wave the flags and wave some extra cash in people's face because it will be right there in your account. We wrap up our final show before
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Josh Pate
Bold prediction Time what do you believe? Last show we did, it was the boldest batch of predictions we've had that lasted 48 hours. This now becomes the boldest batch of predictions that we've had so far this year. The rule is you make a prediction if it rates 9.5 or bolder as determined by me on the boldness scale and it hits, you win a chalice of supremacy. First up, paper poppers all over the place. Tanner from New Albany, Mississippi. Ole Miss wins the SEC championship. Trinidad Chambliss wins the Heisman. Ole Miss wins the national title because we don't say Natty on this show because it's disrespectful to the national championship. This is a 9.75. Let's go in order. Actually, let's not. Let's start with Trinidad Chambliss. He's got the third best Heisman odds. Question how does the league adjust to him this year? I don't know. I think he's still going to be really good, but I don't know. Second question. The new head coach, new offensive coordinator dynamic there. Losing Lane Kiffin as your coordinator. I know the limited sample size of playoff games indicated Trinidad Champlain's kind of played his best after Lane left, but I don't expect that to just blindly continue. John David Baker comes in there, had a brief stint up at ecu, comes back home. How does that look? They've got the fifth best odds in the SEC. They got the 10th best odds to win it all. Not like just insane predictions. But it's tough. They were 62 in one possession games last year, so you got to have that kind of luck slash skill again this year. And I have to turn the paper sideways because I have been reliably informed they play seven teams in league play alone that are in the top 25 of the playoff odds. Not an easy schedule. 9.75 on the boldness scale. Next up, paper shaker here. Utah and Michigan face off in the college football playoffs. That comes from dad. Question mark. Dad in Lehigh. Utah. Well, this is a 9.75 for me. This would be the Kyle Whittingham Bowl. This would be Morgan Scally vs Kyle Whittingham. Both are outside the top 12 to make the playoff in the FanDuel odds right now doesn't mean they can't make it. They're just outside the top 12 right now. So both of them have to make it. That means also both of them have to line up perfectly in the bracket to where they would face each other. And because of that, I got to make this a 9.75. Now, if this were to happen, the big question in my mind is what did it happen at the expense of did Michigan make it as some fringe Big Ten team or did they go scorched earth? Did Kyle Whittingham just catch lightning in a bottle his first year and they go win the Big Ten? Did they do it at the expense of Indiana or Ohio State or Oregon or whoever? And then with Utah, does this mean Utah won the Big 12? Was the Big 12 A2 bid league? So a lot of questions unanswered and this prediction, I'm putting in a 9.75. Next up. Oh, it sounds so innocent. Coach Hot Rod from North Carolina. Duke repeats as ACC champs behind an improved defense and a fantastic sophomore season from Nate Shepard. This is a 9.75. I do not have Duke repeating as the ACC champion. Notice he said wins. They can't just make it. They've got to win it. Now you say, josh, they made it last year and they won it. Yes, they made it last year, but they didn't play Miami. They played Virginia. Now, the rumor on the street for months has been that the ACC is going to fix their tiebreaker structure. And if they did, I must have missed the headline because I still haven't seen it. But we got time. Why would you make decisions early in the year when you can wait until the last minute? As Memaw said. So if they fix the tiebreaker, you got to assume they're going to have to go through Miami, which again, they didn't last year. So they lost their quarterback to Miami. They lost their best wide receiver to Miami. They only returned 42 receiving yards. If the tiebreakers fixed. It makes the path harder and their 77th in returning production this year. No, Duke is not winning the ACC again. This is a rebuilding year for Manny Diaz. That's a 9.75. And lastly, we head to Frisco, Texas, where Brock Miller says Oklahoma will beat Texas twice this year. They play once in the regular season. Obviously, we got to assume that's one of them. Otherwise, they got to play three times and Oklahoma has to win two and three. So let's just say Oklahoma wins in in the Red River Shootout, known by no other name on this show. That game is Texas minus six and a half right now at FanDuel. You could go bet that right now if you want to. You can take Oklahoma plus six and a half right now. So OU pulls the mild upset there, they win the first one. Then where else do they play? Do they play in Atlanta? Do we have a Red River SEC championship game? Do they play in the College Football Playoff? Which means Oklahoma and Texas both have to be either in Atlanta or in the playoff and then Oklahoma has to win there. Texas is loaded this year. It's Sark's best shot. And you're telling me John Matier and company are going to just completely wreck that? I got to make that a 9.5 because of how perfectly everything has to come together. Great mailbag, though. Good, solid mailbag. Look at that footage. I can't get enough of it. Jesse. That's the new and improved John Matier, some are saying. John Matier 2.0. I don't know about all that. And that's a guy that I have a Heisman ticket for, though, again. And yeah, look, Jesse, what would it take for you to look like that physically? You got a new gym membership. How many Delt raises for your shoulders to pop like that? He looked like he had body butter on, too. It kind of looked like a mixture of the Manning Passing Academy and then Predator. Because if you watch Jesse Ventura and you watch Bill Duke and those guys run around the jungle with all the body butter all over him, that's what John Mateer looked like at the Manning Passing Academy. He looked like less than a God but more than a man over there. And I'm not saying it's going to matter on third and two against Texas, but it's going to matter on third and two against Texas. So, man, I think I talked myself into a lot of Oklahoma stock on the show tonight, but not at the expense of Texas stock, because I couldn't be higher on Texas. I just want everyone to like me. That's really all we're looking for as we go into July. Look, we won't have a show for a few weeks, so we've got to recharge. We've got to regroup. There are rumors of vacation, but make no mistake, ladies and gentlemen, we will be back. And when we're back, that means we're diving headfirst. The season has started. Three shows per week. The Ramen Noodle Express is back. We'll have a tour name by them. We will have game previews coming up. We'll have the JP poll back. It'll all be back. And so you guys rest up, get yourselves ready, get your minds right in July and then we'll see you just on the other side of it with probably a ton of big announcements and complete and utter pedal down to the floor until the season ends. So for director Bradley, for producer Jesse, for Mitch, did you come up with a title yet? July Activities Prez is somewhere in there. I'm Josh Pate. Take care. We'll see you in about a month. Until then, God bless.
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Josh Pate
It's called football.
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Josh Pate
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.
Date: July 1, 2026
Host: Josh Pate (iHeartPodcasts)
Josh Pate takes listeners through a jam-packed final show before a mid-summer hiatus. The episode digs deep into his projected preseason AP poll rankings, analyzes trap games that could shake up the season, reminisces about classic rewatchable college football games, debates the fate of bowl season, answers advice-seeking mailbag questions, and dives into his top early futures and Heisman bets. The show wraps with predictions so bold, they’re rated on the “Chalice of Supremacy” scale. As always, Josh’s unique blend of data, storytelling, and off-script humor infuse the entire episode.
[03:00 – 15:15]
Josh responds to a listener question (Ronald from Carbondale, IL) by predicting the likely Associated Press preseason Top 25. He emphasizes that this isn’t his personal ranking but his estimation of what the AP voters will do.
Top 10 Predicted:
Key Insights:
Biggest Surprises:
Memorable quote:
"There is a lot of harm in trespassing in someone's yard. But we're just looking at it."
—Josh, explaining why it's okay to speculate on AP rankings (05:08)
[15:20 – 24:30]
Josh answers Spencer from Arlington, VA about trap games—those easy-to-overlook weeks that can derail a contender’s season.
[24:37 – 41:16]
“There is a right answer...the 5 Chalai game translates on TV way better than an EF4 or EF5 tornado translates.” (24:37)
“I think of USC–Notre Dame the same way you would think of a big celebrity. If you were at that game, in my mind, you have an aura.” (32:30)
[41:16 – 51:36]
Josh’s Take:
[51:36 – 54:40]
Josh hunts for potential first-time College Football Playoff teams, despite recent parity at the top.
[54:40 – 71:59]
[72:45 – End]
Josh reads the boldest mailbag predictions, rating them for “boldness” (must be ≥9.5 to win a Chalice).
Hilarious moment:
Josh, on the physical transformation of Oklahoma QB John Mateer:
“He looked like less than a God but more than a man over there. And I’m not saying it’s going to matter on third and two against Texas, but it’s going to matter on third and two against Texas.” (76:50)
Josh wraps, promising a return in a few weeks with an all-out season push, more bold predictions, and a refreshed outlook heading into 2026.
“Rest up, get your minds right in July, and we’ll see you on the other side of it with big announcements and complete and utter pedal down to the floor until the season ends.” (79:25)
For more, subscribe to Josh Pate’s College Football Show and stay tuned for the full 2026 kickoff in August.