← Josh Pate's College Football Show
Josh Pate's College Football Show
Real National Title Contenders + Lincoln Riley Doubt & Hardest Schedules
01:05:22
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Josh Pate
This is an iHeart podcast.
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Guaranteed Human support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available@public.com.
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Jesse (Co-host)
Hey, this is US.
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Josh Pate
Olympic gold medalist Tara Davis Woodhull and.
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I'm US Paralympic gold medalist Hunter Woodhull.
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Josh Pate
As athletes, our lives are about having.
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A clear path and a team that you can absolutely trust.
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Josh Pate
So when it came to getting the best mortgage, we chose PennyMac. PennyMac is proud to be the official mortgage provider of Team USA and you.
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Jesse (Co-host)
Visit lowe's.com terms for details subject to change, visit your nearby Lowe's on Colorado street in Kennewick. Look, let's be real. Meemaw taught me everything I know. But one of the key things she taught me is in times like these, when you look around and you look on your favorite team site message board or you look at your social feeds, or you look at the headlines on on three.com or espn.com and you don't see chaos and you don't see crazy stuff happening in college football. Those are the most dangerous times because those times normally precede something coming out of nowhere. And I'll tell you what it was last year. Not that I'm trying to manifest this into being again, but you remember last year, Jesse, we had gotten out of spring ball and we were actually talking. Excuse me, Jesse was talking internally about taking a vacation. I was going to go get married and then get right back on the job. But nevertheless, the Nico I Amaliaba stuff just got dropped on us out of nowhere. We didn't even know that was possible. We didn't even know it was possible to leave after spring ball. We, well, we didn't know that a guy that high profile was going to do it. So I don't know where it's going to come from. But I am telling you, like Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania 12, there's someone getting wired up, up in the ceiling and they're about to slide down. What are those things called on one of those, you know, like the zip lines. Trouble's going to come via the zip line. College football zip line. We're jam packed. We're high atop a sunny downtown Nashville, Tennessee. Hey, weather all finally not an issue around here. Love it. Title contenders, who are they? How big is that bubble? In fact, what would you do if I told you I'm just going to introduce an entire new concept, an entire new game, an entire new way of life to the show tonight. We're going to do it in just two minutes or so. I don't know how it's going to turn out, but we're going to introduce it. I've also got some stuff to talk to you about with Lincoln Riley. The Texas Mood Tracker is tonight. There is a question from the Mailbag about a story that nobody's talking about. And I am happy that it got asked because it gives us an excuse to talk about it on the show tonight. So we're jam packed as we should be any time of year because it's college football year round. They're watching us in Tempe, Arizona, Ocala, Florida, Billings, Montana, Greensboro, North Carolina. Do me a favor. In Greensboro and Ocala and Billings and Tempe and anywhere above and beyond and in between, check and see if you're subscribed to the channel. And if you are, thank you so much. And if you think you are, go ahead and check. And if you're not, if you're in either of the final two categories, please subscribe because it's free for you and it helps us out. So it's like a win, win, win. It's the best of scenarios tonight. It's an important night on the show. Here we go. We've got an entirely new game that I would like to introduce for this year and years to come. Tentatively, we're going to call this college football Survivor bubble in lieu of a better name. And I'm open to a better name, but so far I'm just ready to give you the concept. And, and you can play this with your buddies. You probably need three or more. We're probably going to do it as a staff. You can do it anywhere. But you need to get people who are all in on college football. So some of you do betting pools, some of you do fantasy football. I would suggest that this would be something you should strongly consider. But you only need to find the folks who claim to know this sport. And you only need to find the folks in your social circle or in the office or wherever who really will pay up if they lose on a bet because of the conditions of the game as I'm about to explain them to you. So it's very, very simple on the surface what we are going to do and I'm about to start doing my version of it on the show tonight. What you want to do, choose your group. Let's say you got five buddies. So U plus five equals six. You got six buddies. You choose the group. Each of you build your college football national championship bubble. Very simple concept. All I'm asking you to do is create a bubble and put every team you think could win the national championship this year in that bubble. Your goal is to make your bubble as small as possible while making sure you don't exclude any team that could win the national championship. Because if you get to the finish line and the national champion is outside your bubble, Terrible, terrible things are going to happen to you. Terrible. You get to decide how terrible. So you build your bubble. Your entire goal is to finish with the smallest bubble possible. With the national champ in your bubble. You could have 11 teams in there, you could have 17 teams in there, if that's how big the bubble needs to be for you to be comfortable. So you define what the prize is. Ideally, we're just talking about a lot of money. And whoever finishes with the smallest bubble that has the national champ in their bubble, that's your winner. That's pretty straightforward. You win the cash. Could be $10, could be $10 million. I don't know how you guys roll any bubbles that are popped, meaning any bubble where the national champ is outside of your bubble, that equals a loser. And the loser, in our opinion, should suffer extremely dire consequences. Now, when I originally floated this concept to Jesse, it was death. That was our premise, that was our starting point. We deliberated, I would say a good hour or two and we decided probably people shouldn't have to die here, but you should have to get really, really up close. You should have to skirt it. My biggest fear is lightning, you know, so my bet would be stand outside during a thunderstorm. Jesse, somehow as a full grown adult male, is still scared of clowns. So like, I don't know what the punishment would be there, but it needs to be something you're going to feel. It needs to be something more so than just, oh, ha ha ha, look, he had to eat X amount of food in an hour. That stuff's, that's playhouse stuff. We need people suffering. At least emotionally. We need people suffering. So here's the deal, alright? Let's say you got six people in this group. Number one wins the prize and wins all the prize money. Number two. Number three, Number four. Like you don't win anything, but at least you don't die. Or the equivalent of that, whatever terms you guys agree upon. But you may ask yourself, oh, I think I found a loophole, didn't I? Why don't I just put 50 teams in my bubble? Yeah, I may not win the money, but at least I won't lose. At least I won't suffer the consequences. Well, here is the catch. If there are popped bubbles in the group, hey, doesn't matter if you finish last as long as your bubble's not popped. If nobody's bubble pops, then whoever's number six ends up being the one that suffers the predetermined consequence. So most likely you're going to have a year where like Georgia wins the national title or Ohio State wins the national title. Well, obviously everyone would have had them in their bubble. So no one's bubble will have popped. But someone's going to have a bubble full of 11 teams and someone's going to have 13 and 17. Someone's going to be in last place. They had 21 teams in their bubble. That dude right there suffers the consequences. So the question as we start the show tonight, you don't have to answer it until August, really, although I'm going to start the process tonight. How big would your bubble be? How many teams theoretically could win the national championship this year to the point where you put all of the ones in there that you think maybe like a 3% chance of winning it. So you got no brainers, as far as I could tell. I mean, if you pull up the odds right now at FanDuel to win the national championship, obviously you got some no brainers. So Notre Dame is going to be in everyone's bubble. And I want to remind everyone, please understand the logic here. This is not some prediction. This is not like I'm saying Notre Dame's gonna win it. And if they don't, I was wrong. This is. I need to put everybody in that bubble that it takes to make me feel safe about going to sleep tonight. So Notre Dame's in there, Ohio State's in there. Texas, Indiana, Oregon, Georgia, Texas Tech I think should be in there. Remember the parameters here. Miami's in there, LSU, A&M Bama, Oklahoma, those are teams really just based on roster talent alone. You cannot be excluding. So that's the no brainer list. Now I think after that there's another group of teams that are quickly going to go in. But I would call those at least your brief internal debate type qualifiers where, you know, you start to think, all right, now I can't just put everybody in here. Usc, you have the whole Lincoln Riley conundrum. Can he or can't he? Are they tough enough? Are they going to get over the hump? But the thing about it is USC this year will have their best roster they've had under Riley. It's usc, you can't leave them out of your bubble. So they'd go in, Michigan would go in. A team like Ole Miss, I don't know, because like Trinidad Chambliss to me is the divider. And I don't know what in the world's going to happen in the court system. But if he were playing, they'd have to be in. If he's not going to be on the roster as of now, he's not. Maybe they're not in this category. Maybe they're a little bit further down the ladder. But even a team like Florida, team that was bad record wise last year, you've got to be careful of the roster talent. Because if all the stars were to align with that kind of team, you got to be really, really weary of the kind of run they could make. I'll put it another way. Florida's going to have way worse odds to win a national title or, you know, maybe even to make the playoff than many of the G5 teams. But if Florida got in the playoff, they'd be an infinitely bigger threat to win it than a G5 team would. Your best G5 teams aren't winning the title. Like, I would have no G5 team in my bubble. And conversely, I'd have a team like Florida in my bubble and Florida may go 6 and 6 for all I know. But I got to be overly abundantly cautious with how big I make the bubble. So I would put those teams in there. All right, then you get to what I call the significant internal debate teams. Those are the teams that you don't think are going to win the title. Those are the teams we could simulate the season 20 times and they wouldn't win the title. However, there's a non zero chance that if everything lined up and maybe all the big boys had critical injuries and maybe they had a couple of playoff games where they were plus 3 or plus 4 in the turnover battle, it could theoretically happen. Those are your Missouri's of the world, Tennessee, Penn State. I would even throw Auburn in there. You guys know I'm a little bit higher on Auburn's opportunity in year one under Alex Goelish than most people. But again, with a lot of these SEC and Big ten teams, you're just talking about the talent roster. You're talking about teams that if they go 5, 7, it wouldn't shock you. But also, you know that 5 and 7 is them losing a bunch of one possession games that if they're on the other side of, they go 9, 3 or 10 and 2 and they get in the playoff. And if that kind of talent roster gets in the playoff, you got to be really careful. Miami did this last year. Miami, two losses in the regular season, they're left for dead. Okay, but they got in the playoff. What did they do once they got to the playoff? That's what talent does. Once you get it to the playoff and then I think you have your outside looking end teams now, to be fair to me, it's February right now and if I don't have to have this decided until August, I could afford to go through spring practice. I could afford to talk to all kinds of insiders and I could talk to coaches and we could wait to see what kind of injuries happen. So Washington right now wouldn't put him in my bubble. I could easily see adding them. I could say the same thing about Iowa or Brigham Young. What do we do with the ACC teams? Clemson, smu, Louisville? Do we put those teams in? Do I put those teams in? Houston, a G5 team, I'm really high on this year, but I said I wasn't going to have a G5 team. But they're not a G5 team anymore. Like that's what you hear about Houston all the time when I mention Houston. Jesse, we should start a counter on this. From now February until August. When we mention Houston, how many people in the comments will say G5 team's not going to do anything? Fully thinking Houston's still a G5 team? It's everywhere. It's all we see in our comment section. Like people are totally unaware. Houston joined the Big 12 and it didn't happen last year, guys. It happened a couple of years ago. So South Carolina, South Carolina, you got Dylan Stewart over there, you got Lenore Sellers over there. Theoretically it could happen. But those are my outside looking end teams right now. So as far as I can tell, 4, 8, 12, 16. I got 20 teams really preliminarily in my bubble. Ideally I would like to shave that down, but I don't know that I can remember. It's not about taking big risk here. We want to take calculated risk. Like it's a calculated risk to leave Iowa outside of your bubble. Yeah, they're probably not going to win the title. But here's the thing about probably. There's a reason that you say probably and not definitely, and I don't mean definitely with no consequences in this world, in this game, when you say they definitely can't win the title, they better be close to 0% chance or else you risk some very terrible things happening to you. This is a concept. This is a game we're going to work on. We're even working on the name and we'll start to fine tune it as the spring and summer goes on and then we'll be ready to roll this thing out for the fall. We just finished the fall. Don't Lie Tour. We just finished it. We just wrapped it up. It was a very successful tour. Some are saying our most successful tour to date. And I always say that because it was our latest tour. Quick Trip fueled us the entire way. I have to make a trip to Hot Springs, Arkansas later this week. Several quick trips between and that's the plural of quick trip. Several quick trip between Nashville and Hot Springs. So I assume I will see many of you guys out there on the road. But many of you have also been asking, hey, the Fall Don't Lie Tour fueled by Quick trip this past year. I got the T shirt when you came to Tuscaloosa or when you came to fill in the blank Columbus or State College. I got the T shirt when you came. But what about the T shirt that shows every single tour date? I thought you said you were going to do that. It's good that you called us on that so we put it in the store. It's actually featured right over my shoulder right now. If you're listening on podcast, you can go to paintstatematerial.com right now and the entire Fall Don't Lie Tour T shirt is available. Every stop we made is on that shirt. So there you go. That's not even possible. That shirt is not possible without Quik Trip. You think they just provide fuel and cold brew on tap and snacks. And in reality, they do so much more than that. We appreciate them. We hand over the heart. We appreciate our friends at Kwik Trip.
- [17:21]
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- [18:21]
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- [18:35]
Jesse (Co-host)
AI.
- [18:35]
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- [19:23]
Josh Pate
One to settle, stand down or stand still. You're a lifelong learner, energized by excellence. There's a fire inside you you can't ignore. You've got competition to outrun, momentum to build on, and your own high standards to stop now. Not a chance. At Capella University, we help you catch what you're chasing because you've always had the drive. Now go earn the degree. Capella University. What can't you do? Visit Capella. Edu to learn more.
- [19:52]
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This is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous Problem? Business software is expensive, and when you buy software from lots of different companies, it's not only expensive, it gets confusing. Slow to use, hard to integrate. Odoo solves that because all Odoo software is connected on a single, affordable platform. Save money without missing out on the features you need. Odoo has no hidden costs and no limit on features or data. Odoo has over 60 apps available for any needs your business might have, all at no additional charge. Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting. All linked and talking to each other. Check out Odoo at O D O o dot com. That's O D O o dot com.
- [20:39]
Jesse (Co-host)
I'm gonna do something I rarely rarely do on the show, but we had a question. Paul from Joe's Colorado said, do you have any thoughts on the NFL draft? I know it's not normally your lane, but I imagine There are a few people who have watched more college football than you or a few people who have. Well, Joe. Well, Paul from Joe's Colorado. In fact, Bradley, just keep rolling. But what I'm gonna do is, unless you're watching the show live, you'll never hear this. But Bradley's got to cut this after the show ends. And I cannot stumble my way through the question and then have people click out of the individual video. Someone's going to stumble upon this video and have never heard of us before. But because we put NFL Draft in the title, they clicked on it. I can't sound like I'm heavily medicated on air. So here's what we're going to do and just bear with me here. Nice little 3, 2, 1, snap of the fingers. So Bradley knows where to cut in and voila. Paul from Joe's Colorado asked if we have any thoughts on the NFL Draft. He said, I know it's not normally your lane, but I imagine there are few people who have watched more college football than you. I appreciate the compliment. Paul from Joe's Colorado. No, I don't normally talk NFL draft on the show because we don't do NFL on the show. I obviously pay attention to the NFL draft, but I pay attention to it more from this side of the fence. Like I'm on the college football side of the fence. Like pretty much everyone watching the show and I'm watching guys sort of walk away, they're sort of leaving, they're departing the college football kind of containment area and then they're going over to the NFL area. But I do have thoughts on several. Like, I pulled up a lot of mock drafts today because I wanted to get a little bit of a flavor of what the mock draft scouting community types feel about the players that you and I have watched for several years. So I think Jeremiah Love could very well be the best player in the draft. Now, I know we get into in the mock draft world positions and positional value and all that sort of thing. And I know that, you know, tailbacks not going number one overall in the draft, I get all that. But if we do that thing where we just go best available regardless of position, that even ties into some teams draft philosophy. But I digress. If we're just talking about pound for pound, regardless of position, best player, man. I think Jeremiah Love, who, for those of you who didn't watch much college football, was a dominant tailback at Notre Dame, I think he may be the best player in the draft. He's going to be a Game changer. He's going to be a franchise altering player when he gets into the league and I hate to see him go, but I look at people like him, I'll tell you another one I look at is Caleb Downs, who of course was a safety and once upon a time he was at Alabama and then he transferred to Ohio State, started one year at Bama, started two years at Ohio State. He's been viewed as a sure thing like slam dunk, can't miss first round guy since he was in high school and everything about him sort of verified itself on the college stage. And not only was he a slam dunk five star guy from the neck down, from the neck up, he was a borderline six star, if we even have that classification for a player. So sometimes what I have found when I'm watching guys in college that are so polished is ironically the high level of play and their refined pedigree ends up being a knock on them in the draft process. Not that it's a bad thing, but people will look at guys like Caleb Downs as opposed to other guys who are very, very high, upside down, raw, but all the tools in the world type guys and they'll say, well, Caleb Downs, the thing about him is he's so refined, his game is so advanced that we're probably seeing him way closer to his ceiling as a player than, you know, that of several other guys who admittedly maybe a little bit more project types, but if we hit on them, they'll be out of this world slam dunk guys. Well, I think Caleb Downs even now is an out of this world slam dunk guy. So I ask myself, what is he at his floor? Caleb Downs at his floor is an all pro caliber safety in the league for a decade. Like that's kind of how he strikes me as a player. So even if the worst were to happen, well, I guess the worst would be injury. So outside of that happening, next notch up, if the worst were to happen and he just ends up being more of what he's been, dude, you hit, it's well worth a top five pick to me. I don't want to run anyone's franchise for him, but I was looking at a lot of the mock drafts today. Jesse. I saw him in the 10 to 20 range. I don't think I saw him all the way down at 20, but I saw him like 10 to 15 range again. We could get into the positional value debate. I get all that. But I remember you remember when Brian Branch was coming out a couple of years ago and I remember some of the same kind of conversation that was happening around him. First off, he had played at Bama, so you had the whole is he maxed out in terms of potential. You had the positional value thing and then you had his specific skill set. Like he's not going to be a sideline to sideline range type guy. Jesse, you're Lions fan. How's Brian Branch doing? Done. Okay. Got two thumbs up from the control room. I think Caleb Downs is better than him. So Branch was what? Early second round? I think he fell to the second round. Caleb Downs has not fallen to the second round. I don't think he should fall out of the top 10. I think obviously it's an insanely loaded wide receiver draft class. I would be curious as we get closer to draft time what ends up being the over under for wide receivers taken in the first round? Because that list that we have right now, Casey Concepcion is on here. Makai, Lemon, Carnell, Tate, Denzel. Boston's a kid out of Washington that probably not a lot of people watched this year because Washington wasn't in a ton of high profile games. He's a really, really good player. Easily a first round potential type player. Jordan Tyson's in there, Cooper's in there. Jeremy Bernard's a guy from Alabama who I don't know if he projects as a first round guy. I just know he projects as probably like a second, third round type. Would you say so, Jesse, like second, third round type that I would be very surprised if I hit the fast forward button. Four years I didn't see him signing a pretty big second deal in the NFL. Antonio Williams, kid out of cleanse. Like there are a ton of first round potential types. We're pre combine right now, we're pre workouts, we're pre interview. So I know it's early there. And then the other thing at the quarterback position which will obviously get a lot of run, is all right, if I get past your Fernando Mendozas, if I get past your Ty Simpsons, if I go to that group of quarterbacks that at least as of now we figure to be non day one guys, day two, day three type guys, you've got to assume that a couple of these late round quarterback drafts are going to hit and you're going to hit fast forward a couple of years, most likely you're not asking a guy to come in and start obviously, but you're going to look down the road a couple of years. You're going to be looking in divisional playoff games. You're going to be looking at conference championship games, maybe even a Super Bowl. And you're saying, dude, Garrett Nussmeier is about to win a Super bowl before. Fill in the blank. Guys that went much higher than him. Cade Klubnick, Drew Ahler. Carson Beck's a guy, I think probably a little bit closer to his ceiling in terms of potential than those other guys. But like, take Carson Beck, all right, if, if I dropped him in a Seattle Seahawks type situation right now, there aren't many of those, I'll grant you that. But if I were to put him in that kind of environment, like Carson Beck could be a high level quarterback in the NFL because of what he's being asked to do and what he's not being asked to do. Luke Altmire, like, what could he be at the next level? Taylor Green in the right offensive system. What could he be at the next level? Baron Morton's on this list. Miller Moss is on this list. Sawyer Robertson is on this list. There. I don't know how they would classify this quarterback draft. I would even go as far as to say they probably don't look at it as a star studded quarterback class. Fair enough. But I do think that's more fun for people like me because that means there aren't as many headline names that you're going to hear on night one. That does mean that there are names that you and I are fluent in speaking the language of that are day two and in some cases day three, which ironically gets me more excited than, you know, talking about Fernando Mendoza to Las Vegas. Again, all due respect to Fernando Mendoza. So that's how I look at the draft. I don't really look at it as fit. Notice I didn't mention a single NFL team outside of the Seahawks and that wasn't even about their draft specifically. I look at it from a college perspective. Let's move on. Got a question from Gadsden. Alabama boy. They love Lincoln Riley and Gadsden, he said, do you believe Lincoln Riley is the right fit at usc? I find myself wondering if he runs a program that can win a national title. I still believe in Riley and his pivot on the defensive side of the ball is encouraging. But I'm just wondering your thoughts. USC feels like they're in that territory Miami was in up until recently. I grew up and when I was a kid, Miami was dominant. So you don't have to tell me about what Miami can be. When I was a kid, USC was dominant, so you don't have to tell me about what USC football can be. So when Lincoln Riley went to usc, you didn't have to tell me what could happen if he reignited that program. But when I make the comparison to Miami, what I mean is obviously we've got a ton of high schooling, like early college age folks who watch the show and listen to the show. So let's say you're 19 years old right now. Sometimes it dawns on me the way I look at a program's potential is not the way that you look at a program's potential. If you're 20 years old, you live in Joplin, Missouri. You haven't lived coherently in a world where USC was dominant. You haven't coherently lived in a world where Miami was dominant. You've never taken them seriously as national, perennially contending type programs. So it's crazy to you when you listen to me talk about a world where once upon a time, at any given point respectively, those two programs were the most feared in college football. But once upon a time, USC was the most feared program in college football. It wasn't just that, man, they're going to beat us, much like Miami in their heyday. It was they're going to embarrass us. And guys, they didn't just do it in out of conference early season games like they hung 55, 19 on Oklahoma in a national championship game one year. So it's hard to get back to that point, I'll grant you. But the question was just, do I think Lincoln Riley can win a national title? He could win it by 1 or 100. Can he win a national title? Well, I've shared my theory on Lincoln Riley here. I'll do it once more. There's a non small part of me that still believes in Lincoln Riley. Haven't sold my stock on Lincoln Riley. Haven't given up on it. I know some people have. Totally. Fine. I'm going to hit that in just a second. I'm going to address that in just a second because there, there may even be some people and maybe you're even a Southern Cal fan who, when you hired him from Oklahoma, oh, it was a huge story. It's one of the biggest stories in the history of this show is when Lincoln Riley left Oklahoma to go to usc. Just one of the bombshell stories of the decade. Okay. When he went there, maybe you bought in. But then maybe three years in, you looked and you said, man, this was fool's gold. It's just not going to happen. And then maybe especially last year, you looked and you said, nope, nope. And then the bowl game, which I don't particularly care about, but some people use it anecdotally, just serve to further validate your feeling that, nope, they're never going to win it. That's not where my head's at on Lincoln Riley, but I. I do get if your head is there. My theory on him is. Let me try and put this in the proper. The proper order. My theory on Lincoln Riley has always been he's capable of winning a national championship. He hasn't. Then my theory is also, he got to USC and basically committed a false start as a head coach. He did not start the program out on the right trajectory. They did not staff well, especially defensively, and therefore the DNA of the program was beneath that of being championship caliber. Then there's a critical moment a few years in where he acknowledges the mistakes, he admits the mistakes, and he tries to course correct. Now, it's my theory that he properly course corrected, but even proper course correction at that point was going to require a minimum of two years to really start to see results. Which brings us to the year 2026. This is the year where, if my theory is correct, Lincoln Riley's got to provide some affirmation for me. Therefore, their season this year has to provide some affirmation, or to state it more plainly, for me to continue to believe in Lincoln Riley. They got to be a playoff contender minimum this year. They got to be a Big Ten title contender minimum this year. And I know if you've been watching college football recently, that sounds really weird. Like, why would you be using that kind of language about a program that hasn't even made the playoff yet? Well, it's because this is kind of what they've built to. So if you're a doubter in that, it's a very weird spot for people like me, because people like me believe in Lincoln. But people like me also have to look at the doubters and acknowledge that you're totally valid in feeling the way you feel. Because while I maintain hope, I completely get where people are coming from who do not maintain hope. Because you're looking at it. You're looking at what Kurt Signetti just did at Indiana, and you're saying, if he can do that at Indiana in year two, why in the world would anyone need half a decade to do something similar at the University of Southern California? I have no pushback on that. It's a great point. I have no pushback on that. My only pushback was when he hit the. When we had the great reset of USC football last winter. I said people have to make up their minds right now. You have to make up your mind right now whether you're willing to go along with this. If you're not willing to go along with it, state your case now. And you're just out on Lincoln Riley and USC and he might as well be fired right now, which was not reasonable. But it was a reasonable stance to have if tens of millions of dollars worth of money wasn't involved. But what I said was, if you're like me and you do feel like he is sincere and you do feel like this reset is sincere, you've got to take the added step of admitting I'm willing to give him a couple of years. Because if you were just willing to give him six games, that's not how a reset works. So this is the kind of year where I got to see it from them. And there's no reason that they shouldn't be in the mix. They got a third year quarterback, they've got four of five returning on the offensive line. I kind of low key, love their secondary. If anything, the biggest questions on that team may be defensive line, but it may be wide receiver. And you know, I don't think anyone will blame me if I kind of just blindly trust Lincoln Riley's ability at wide receiver to get enough production there. So at the end, yes, I do still feel like Lincoln Riley can win a national championship. He would be in my bubble. He would be in my survivor bubble. Just because he hasn't doesn't mean he can't. And I also want to say like, yes, sometimes people say so and so can't do something just cause they hate that so and so. So Lincoln Riley has got a lot of detractors. Lincoln Riley's got a lot of people who cast permanent judgment on him because of the way he left Oklahoma. And right or wrong, there's a lot of belief out there that he ducked competing in the sec. The reason people say that is because he was rumored to be tied to lsu. And then all of a sudden you find out, oh, Lincoln Riley is leaving Oklahoma, but he's going to USC, which at the time was in the PAC 12. And so the perception, which of course he would push back on, but the perception exists nonetheless that he tried to duck competition. Then lo and behold, he's sucked into the Big Ten anyway. People feel like that. And anyone who feels like that's going to doubt Lincoln Riley no matter what. What I'm saying is you don't have to have an axe to grind against Lincoln Riley. There's a lot of valid, just legit criticism. There's a lot of legitimate logic based reason to doubt. I'm just not part of the doubter camp yet. That's all I'm saying. Let's roll on I think the best thing for everyone to do is just calm down and take a chance on love. To roll the dice on love. You know what? Make a note, Jesse probably don't have time for it this year seeing as our four days from Valentine's, but that would be a good T shirt idea next year. Listen to me. Every one of you has a heart. I know good and well you do. Therefore every one of you should at least give a cursory glance to the Valentine's Day collection over@patestatematerial.com these things are beautiful, especially the Huggin and Chuggin collection, which is not a collection, it's just, it's a hat and we got some shirts. But hugging and chugging is a great, great Valentine's motto for us here at Pate State. Also the Pate State logo with the heart and the arrow through it I think is very, very solid design work. So you can go there right now. Valentine's Day Collection patestatematerial.com As I said the other day and it takes a big man to endorse his own store, but I'm going to do it. As I said the other day I would wear this stuff after Valentine's Day. That's however green the spirit of these items not merch of these items are may even buy Bradley one.
- [38:22]
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- [41:28]
Jesse (Co-host)
All right, let's move on. So we played the game earlier in the show, which I think was a dangerous game. Not the most dangerous game, but a dangerous game nonetheless. Carlos from Hickory, North Carolina hit us up and he said Penn State and Clemson and lsu. Those were all preseason top tens last year and they completely had the bottom fallout. We all remember Carlos. We all remember brother. He continues. Who are the three teams this upcoming season that basically just have disaster thrust upon them? Well, if you're asking me for three top 10 teams that are going to finish unranked, Jesse, did all of those teams finish unranked? They all finished outside the top 25. That's tough to do. But I assume that the basis of the question is it's going to happen somewhere. So obviously we got to shave the list down a little bit. And for the sake of argument, like we could go over to on3.com we could look at the preseason top 10 that they compiled. We could look at the top 10 list that I compiled. They're basically similar. Like everyone's top 10 is roughly similar right now. So if we're asking, and I want to very, very, very clearly preface, this is no prediction from me, the whole nature of this stuff is it's impossible to see that coming. Hey, I'm sitting here in February of 2026. I still don't regret my preseason rankings from 2025. I had every reason to have Clemson top 10. There was every reason to have Penn State top 10. It's just stuff happened, things went off the rails. What if Penn State wins the Oregon game? It went to overtime. What if they win the Oregon game? I highly doubt the rest of their season goes the way it did. So anyway, like sometimes the parameters are in place and it just doesn't come to fruition. Sometimes the ingredients are in the kitchen and the meal still sucks is what it is. But when you're doing preseason rankings, all you have to go on is the ingredients. You don't know how the meal is going to turn out. It's just your best guess. So I have no regrets about last year. But this year, like Notre Dame's clearly going to be a top 10 team. If you're trying to find the high risk teams, man, I guess I could throw Notre Dame at you because I guess the premise of Notre Dame being my preseason number one, I mean I had him number one the other day. So no one's higher on Notre Dame than me. It's impossible. But if you told me there are going to be top 10 teams that finish unranked, I guess my premise for having Notre Dame number one is I believe they finished last year as a top 10 caliber team. They didn't make the playoff, but I would have power rated him way up there. I think I had him sixth or something like that. So if my premise is they finished that lofty and that they're kind of picking up where they left off and they're maybe even a little bit better because they're more experienced at quarterback, that's all well and good as long as I'm right. What if I'm wrong about the caliber of team they were when they finished the season? Theoretically, my entire premise could be built on a lie. What if they were only pretty good to end the year, but we didn't know it because they didn't face the caliber of opponent that it would take to expose them? I guess theoretically that could happen. But look at Notre Dame schedule. Even if that is the case, who's going to expose them? Now, I do know we went down this road with Penn State last year. Like we said. Oh, Penn State's the safest bet to make the playoff. How would they ever lose more than two games? Yeah, but Notre Dame schedule is easier than Penn State's was last year. There is no Oregon on this thing. The closest they get is they play Miami at home in November. Other than that, that's just. It would really, really, really have to go sideways for Notre Dame to lose. I guess they'd have to lose minimum of three, if not four games to finish unranked. I don't know how in the world they lose four games, but this is a tough game to play. Georgia would be another one that I would throw at you. That's a little easier with a team like Georgia. Not because I think they're going to be a bad team. I'll have them preseason top 10 too. But if you're telling me the bottom is going to fall out for someone, it could theoretically be that Georgia last year goes 11 and one and that's how we remember them. They win the SEC championship and they go to the playoffs, and that's how we remember that team. Therefore, where they left off last year. It's pretty conventional rankings wisdom to think, all right, well, I'll just start them kind of where they left off. So Georgia is going to be a preseason top 10. Yes. Technically there's a world where Georgia goes like 8 and 4 this year and it shocks everybody. But then in retrospect, when you're trying to figure out what happened, you look back on 20, 25 and you say, huh, I know they went 11 1, but, you know, maybe they weren't nearly as good as their record said they were. Maybe I should have paid closer attention to the fact that Auburn stoned them in the first half and they had to go to overtime to beat Tennessee and they beat Florida by four points. And Ole Miss led them by what, one or two possessions? I think an eight point game or something like that in the second half in Athens and they had to come from behind to beat them. So yeah, they were 11 and 1. They could have been 8 and 4 last year. Maybe it shouldn't shock me that they just went 8 and 4 this year. And the difference with Georgia is Georgia's got to play Bama and at Auburn and Ole Miss and Florida and Oklahoma, they got to play tough competition more frequently. They go to Ole Miss late in the year they go South Carolina, got Missouri in there. So yeah, I guess it could happen with Georgia. Again, not predicting it to happen. And I'd say the same thing about Texas. Texas will be everyone's preseason top three, I would assume. Minimum. I think I had them up there too. Texas could lose really early. They could lose week one or week two this year when they play Ohio State because that's kind of what happened with some of these teams last year. Clemson lost in week one, LSU ended up losing early. Penn State loses the Oregon game. So they have early losses and they can't rebound from them. Well, Texas could lose in week two and then they go to Tennessee in week four and then they got OU after the bye week in Dallas. But they've got Florida, they got Ole Miss, they go to Missouri and LSU back to back. They go to A and M. They got three of four on the road to end the year. And I know they upgraded at running back and I know they upgraded at wide receiver and it's a total title or bust mentality there. What if their offensive line can't protect any better than they did last year? What if I just say that could theoretically be a world where you got three losses and remember Penn State last year? Yes, it was title or bust. The trade off there is when they lost early, mentally the entire thing came unraveled. I don't expect that to happen at Texas, but if it was going to happen to someone, Texas would be one of like three teams that it could happen to. I mean most, most teams don't have title or bust expectations. So the potential pool of candidates for that's extremely small. Any given year. They're watching us in Charlottesville, Virginia, Lawton, Oklahoma, Jasper, Tennessee. Appreciate you guys so much. Speaking of Lawton, Oklahoma, kind of a semi close tie in to my answer to this question. We had a friend of the program from Cleveland, Ohio hit us in the mailbag. He said, what's the biggest story that no one's talking about going next season to keep our eye on? I think it has a lot to do with hiring. I thought about this. I could go on the field and we'll talk about that. We got six months until the season kicks off. I'll tell you what it really is. Right now, it's hiring University of Oklahoma, to be specific. I know most of you didn't follow the Oklahoma athletic director search. Joe Castiglion, longtime friend of the program, retired, and they had sort of a true nationwide search for his replacement, and they hired Roger Denny. Most of you are saying whomst. Roger Denny, he was the deputy AD at Illinois, and most of you are still saying whomst. There are a lot of Illinois fans who didn't know who Roger Denny was. That's okay. In a perfect world, your deputy athletics director probably isn't well known. It means he's doing his job at a high level. The reason I say that this is a big story no one's talking about is because I think even if you don't care about the hire of athletic director at Oklahoma, what you probably do care about is college football and the health of college football. And anytime that you have a problem with college football and you're talking to your buddies over lunch at a barbecue joint somewhere, it probably doesn't take you too long to say something like, man, leadership sucks in college football. Man, the people who are driving the bus in college football have no clue what they're doing. And you have good reason to say that, because case by case, there are a lot of cases you're right. It probably wouldn't shock you to know that a lot of people who have athletic director jobs in college football are ill equipped to be athletic directors in 2026. They may have been perfectly equipped in 2016 or 2006. But see, the skill set needed to be an athletic director in 2026 is different than it was 10 years ago, just like the skill set to be a head coach in 2026 is different than it was 10 years ago. Now you and I and everyone can watch and see how the game may have evolved or devolved and sort of moved itself out of the wheelhouse. I think about Dabo Swinney. Dabo Swinney was perfectly cut out to win championships 10 years ago. Dabo Swinney has struggled mightily to adapt to the new world. Hey, he's got good reason. The new world kind of sucks in a lot of ways, so I don't even blame him. But he's failed to adapt well when it comes to a coach, it's easy to see because you see it on the field every week. How is a fan in El Reno, Oklahoma really supposed to gauge the success rate of his athletic director or know when they've properly or improperly hired at ad? You probably don't. This is the beauty, horror of what has led to a lot of ineffective decision making and leadership in college football. Now, to be clear, I loved the guy that was in the AD's chair at Oklahoma, Joe Castiglion. Thought he was one of the best in the game. He retired, which was the reason the job was open. So I'm speaking very generally instead of specifically here. Most of the time you don't really have a good feel for the job an athletic director is doing. Much less do you have a feel for his roles and duties or her roles and duties. And the reason this is a big story right now is because there's this big sort of circular logic void in college athletics since it kind of sounds something like this. Since there's very little transparency, since the public at large has very little clue what we're doing behind the scenes, we can just afford to maintain the same incestuous failed practices that we always have. And you scratch my back and I'll scratch your back and neither one of us hit the itch. But that's okay because we'll just keep scratching each other's back. We're just not going to let anyone else in the room who has actual fingernails because then if they come in the room and they actually show, oh, I can scratch both of your backs, we may be out of a job. I've just described the majority of the college football rot that exists not just in college football, but all levels of collegiate athletics. Right now. There's not nearly as much transparency as there is in the pro game. And so as a result, you get a lot of glad handing and back slapping and good old boying and you got guys and girls who have jobs they have no business having. So why is this a big story at Oklahoma? Well, it's because I happen to think Oklahoma killed it on the hire. And I think that that was validated when I started to get feedback from a lot of people. Some of them are peers of Roger Denny. Some of them are sort of in the infrastructure that has maintain their legitimacy through making sure the chaos goes unchecked. There are a lot of beneficiaries of sort of that incestuous failed practice of hiring at all levels of college athletics. Because of those people hating on the hire of Roger Denny, my antenna went up. And that is why I started asking more questions about Roger Denny. Because you get one person who says, man, Oklahoma kind of just whiffed on the ad hire, that's fine. When you get about half a dozen people who say that and they're specifically seeking you out to say it, then you start to realize, oh, we got a table full of middle school girls over here, and they're all telling me the new girl in town is terrible. I might need to look into the new girl in town. She may be terrible or she may be a threat. Roger Denny I don't think is terrible. I think he's a threat to the very existence of a lot of these people. A lot of these folks, whether it be a search firm member or whether it be a sitting ad, but especially sitting ads, a lot of these people, they outsource their decision making. Your job's to make decisions. And in a lot of cases, I mean, when you're talking about licensing deals, when you're talking about revenue sharing, when you're talking about very, very nuanced, complex legal terminology and the legal landscape, the media rights landscape, this is not the wheelhouse of a former head coach or player who rose to the level of athletic director. God bless them. I probably loved them as a former coach or a former player. They're not of this world. Fifteen years ago, you didn't need to be. Now you do need to be Roger Denny. You go look at his background pre Illinois, and you can see he swam in these waters for a long time. I think Oklahoma was pretty forward thinking with how they hired him and that they hired him. And I think it threatens a lot of other people who know deep down when they lay their head on their pillow at night, I'm ill equipped to have the job I have. But that's okay. I won't be exposed as long as everyone else has no clue what they're doing. The worst thing to happen for someone who has no clue what they're doing and who is ill equipped to hold their current job is when one of the peer positions opens and someone who is equipped to have the job gets the job. It's a very scary thing. It's a very scary thing. This is something to pay attention to because this can happen in ad hires, this can happen in coaching hires. And I would just tell you, I don't know Roger Denny. I've never met him in my life. Maybe when we go out to Norman this spring, if we do I will. But in the meantime, I'm just telling you from a distance, I think I love the move Oklahoma just made. I'm pretty sure I love it. Now we got it. We got to do our own background check on Roger Denny. We got to go make sure he checks the boxes. So, you know, we need to look him in the eye ourselves. But I kind of think I like what Oklahoma did. We'll see. Because you know, the ultimate, the ultimate deal is is Oklahoma well positioned for the future? Does Oklahoma end up winning on and off the field long term? That's really what will decide that. I just think they better positioned themselves to do that. That's all I'm saying. Back to matters on the field, we had another question about scheduling that I thought we should dedicate a couple of minutes to here. Mike, from Enola Pennsy. Jesse, you ever been there? Enola, Beautiful part of the country.
- [56:49]
Ad Voice (Various Sponsors)
Wow.
- [56:50]
Jesse (Co-host)
Okay. Well, some kind of statesman Jesse is. He said what team or which team has the toughest schedule in your opinion? Now Mike, as you may or may not know, we do sort of like a forensic audit of this every spring, but we haven't done it yet. So right now I have to use the good old fashioned eyeball test to see who we think has the toughest schedule. It's probably going to come from the Big Ten or the sec. Just, just stating facts here. I guess I could say Florida State could be in this group if I were going to go maybe a non SEC or Big Ten, but it's all sec, Big Ten teams to me in the sec. I think Texas has a pretty tough schedule. Texas, Texas has got a pretty tough schedule here because they play Ohio State on top of an Sec 9 game league schedule. And their first four weeks they got Buckeyes and then at Tennessee. So they could go into that bye week, they could be 2 and 2, they could be 4, 0 or they could be 3 and 1 and bleeding. But then they got ou coming out of that bye week and by the way, there are no more buys after that. So Texas finishes with eight in a row and they got OU in Dallas and Florida and Ole Miss coming out of that bye week. And then they wrap up the season at Missouri, at lsu, back to back road games, Arkansas and then at A&M, three of four on the road in November to end things. And you remember how shaky Texas was on the road last year. So I think that's a tough schedule. But I think Oklahoma's got a tough schedule too. Oklahoma, just like Texas, plays a huge Big Ten out of conference opponent in the first couple of weeks. When they go to Michigan in week two, they go to Georgia in week four. So by the time OU gets to their bye week, they will have already played in Ann Arbor and Athens. And then they got to go to Dallas to play Texas coming out of the bye week. Look at their final five games because they got to play eight in a row to finish the year, too. Their final five, it's South Carolina and then at Florida, and those are two total wild card teams. Could be five win teams, could be nine win teams, and neither would really surprise me. But Ole Miss, A and M at Missouri, back to back to back. Really, those five games, back to back to back to back to back, it just makes it a really, really tough finish to the season. And then over in the Big Ten. Look, I. It's very hard for Ohio State to ever have the toughest schedule in the Big Ten because Ohio State's normally one of, if not the best teams in the Big Ten and it's impossible for them to play themselves. So it's very hard for Ohio State to have an overly tough schedule this year. Ohio State has an insanely tough schedule, and they're not even on their schedule. But I'll tell you who is. Texas. And they got to go there in week two. And then you add in the fact that they play at Indiana, at usc, at Nebraska, at Iowa, and they're throwing Oregon and Michigan into the mix coming to Columbus. This is a really, really difficult schedule. It's the most difficult Ohio State schedule that I remember in several years, to the point where I know it's early. That's the kind of team, that's the kind of schedule that makes you start saying, I could see a three loss Ohio State being in. You guys wanted to expand the playoff, not me. I'm just telling you because of the expanded playoff. That's the kind of conversation that could exist around them. Arkansas, just to swerve back over here. To swerve, bro, for just a second. To the sec. This is an annual tradition. Anybody who lives in Arkansas, anybody who's an Arkansas fan. Yes, yes, we all kind of suffer together here because you've got death, you've got taxes, and then you've got the SEC league office just putting a branding iron on Arkansas's face every year when it comes to scheduling. But here's the thing. How can I get mad at the league office when someone in Arkansas's own building said, hey, let's go to Salt Lake City this year? Let's play at Utah in week two. You're going to, you're going to tell me they're playing Utah and Georgia back to back. That's a real thing that's happening this year. Okay, so they go to Utah, then they got Georgia. They go to A and M a couple of weeks later. Utter brutality. They've got Tennessee, they've got at Vandy. So at A and M, Tennessee at Vandy is back to back to back. And their final five games are Missouri at Auburn, South Carolina at Texas, lsu. And I keep repeating this is a one by week year. So there aren't two reprieves. So there are several of these SEC and Big Ten schedules where someone's just got to rattle off like eight games in a row. And there's no, you'll also notice there's no FCS team in there. Like there's no cupcake. There's no break, there's no time to breathe. But none of it to me is as bad as Northwestern. This is the Northwestern Memorial show, even though they're still alive for now because they play South Dakota State in Week one. Then they get a buy much needed break in early September. And then the Big Ten has seen fit to make Northwestern death march their way to 11 consecutive games to close the season. They play at Indiana, they play at Oregon, they play at Ohio State, they play Penn State at home, they play Iowa at home, they play Illinois at home. They're going to mix Colorado in there and out of conference play. I didn't even mention just at Minnesota in late November. They've got Illinois at home to end the year. Like Illinois is a good team. You get half a dozen opponents deep on Northwestern schedule. You haven't even mentioned Illinois yet. And That'll be their 11th game in a row. God bless Northwestern. There's not much to say. We said all we needed to say on that the other day. Let's move on. Earl from Houston asked a question that I can answer pretty quickly. He said, would you ever consider doing play by play or color commentary on Saturday? No, I wouldn't because I don't think I'm qualified to do it and I don't think anybody should be offering me that job. And by the way, they haven't. The only thing I love doing, Earl, is I love watching games and then I love talking about them. And the only rub that I ever want on broadcast is doing what we did during the SEC championship game because that was awesome and huge thanks to ESPN and Pat McAfee and the crew there for Letting us do the Altcast, and that was great. Me, Will Compton, Taylor, Lewan, Harry Douglas, we're just standing on the field, basically having our own show during the game, and we're just talking through the game now. That's fun. But to be doing what Sean McDonough is doing. If there's ever a world where Sean McDonough and I are doing the same job we have, we've badly gone off the rails. If there's ever a world where Lewis Riddick and I are doing the same job on Saturday, we have completely lost the plot when it comes to college football broadcast coverage. So, you know, there are a lot of opportunities that we've had because of the partnership with ESPN and even before that at CBS where we've gotten to do sort of shoulder, I call it shoulder content in conjunction with game broadcasts. I love that and I love doing this show first and foremost. And I'm all for all that. And I'm all for doing the Altcast concept. I love that, too. That's wheelhouse stuff for us. I think we could. I think we could do better versions of that if we ever get the opportunity to. So I love that. But as far as the traditional stuff, no, there are plenty more way, way qualified people than me to do that. I'm not qualified to do that. And I would, let me put it this way, I wouldn't watch a game with me doing broadcast color commentary or play by play. So why would I ever expect you to watch it? The end. Next up, FanDuel exclusive odds provider of the show. Yes. I hope you guys had a very successful Super Bowl. Jesse won a couple of hundred dollars. Yep. We. None of us have seen a dime of it. None of us have seen a dime of it. I'm not even questioning that it happened. I don't doubt it happened. I just. I think Jesse's a little stingy with his earnings. That's all I'm saying. I, on the other hand, would like to tell you that I am bringing you the opportunity to make money. If you go to FanDuel right now, you're a new signup, you bet $5, you win 100 in bonus bets if your bet wins. So go find a solid moneyline favorite. You know, they're probably favored by like 18 against the spread College hoops, Iona on a Wednesday night, something like that, and just bet them on the money line. Bet $5 on the money line, you get 100. If, when that thing wins, the futures are up. Like, I know college football feels like it's a long way away and it is. But the futures market's up right now. You can bet the Heisman right now. You can bet certain games against the number right now. Some of the week one and week two games are already up. So you can bet those right now. And there'll be a lot more filling of the shelves, so to speak, in the coming months when it comes to FanDuel and college football. I know it's a tough time. It feels like a barren landscape that we're all walking right now. But it does not have to be that way, and it won't be that way for long.
- [66:03]
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- [66:47]
Jesse (Co-host)
All right, let's wrap up with this. It's a healthy exercise that we do. The mood tracker's back. Tonight I want to talk to you about Texas. The mood tracker is very simple. We take the most positive and negative minded portions of the fan base and we respectfully ask them to sit this one out and we're left with like the middle 80 or so percent of a fan base. In this case, it's Texas. And what we want to do is we want to identify the mood of that chunk of the fan base and then we want to talk about why they feel that way. What do you think the mood is amongst Texas fans right now? Because this one is simple. To me. It's a term that gets overused. It's a phrase that gets overused. But not here. It fits here. The Texas mood, very simply, is championship or bust. Many, many fan bases say that and they shouldn't. Texas fans can rightfully say that. This year, Steve Sarkeesian is entering his sixth year. So the entire program has long since become a reflection of him and him alone. Do you remember this time last spring? This time last spring, Sark himself was on the show and he said, this year, in the years to come, you know, those are kind of the periods we've been building for. Everything in the building is how we want it. Everything about the personnel, it's our way of doing things. All the systems are in place. Everything is Texas football. The way we want to define Texas football. Well, they missed the playoff last year. So if they were to atone for that with a title this year, no one cares about last year. That was just a step. That was just another rung on the ladder. But I think sometimes, really, most of the time when fan bases have a title or bus mentality, it's not fair. They're heaping disproportionate expectations on a situation thinking that they can just expect their way to a title. No, Texas should be in a position to compete for a title this year. And you got to give several hat tips. You got to hat tip Sark, you got a hat tip. Brandon Harris and his entire department over there in the player personnel world, in the nil world for putting together, I think pound for pound may be the best portal haul out of anyone. I know the On3 rankings would have them stacked maybe a little bit differently. But when you go pound for pound based on need, Texas just utterly killed it. And they always recruit very well. So you're stacking that on top of recruiting. And I. Look, we were browsing earlier today, just kind of trying to get a sense, kind of get a vibe check of Texas. RT Young over at Inside Texas had written a really good column about the expectations there, and he was talking about the season ticket renewals that have been sent out. And Texas kind of puts the slogan into the mailer, into the mailer that they send you to renew your season tickets. And that slogan for this year was nothing less than legendary. I guess that could have been the mood, as it turns out. I don't want to steal, though. So, yeah, legendary at Texas means you're winning a national championship. I don't think you bow out in the quarterfinals and they call that legendary. I just don't think that's how the mood would go down there. You don't have to be perfect. So Ohio State two years ago changed everything. Ohio State two years ago was this loaded team. It was this loaded program that freely admitted it's a championship or bust year for us. We were there in the spring, I was talking to Mark Pantonio. In the spring, I was talking to or Mark Pantoni, not Pantonio. I was talking to Ryan Day in the spring. And it was sort of an off the record moment at that point. But they were adamant. We are all in on this season. We are as all in as you could be. And they won a national title. That's how history remembers it. But history needs to also remember, yeah, they barely made the playoff. They lost their final game. That was their second loss. They were a flawed team. Only because the playoff expanded did they get in the playoff. And once they got in, they peaked. Well, the lesson there is you just got to make sure you're in good enough position. That's part one and part two is peak at the right time. That's what Texas has to be able to do. But in the event that this doesn't happen, like in the event that somehow maybe they underachieve or maybe their schedule just really is as tough as we think it'll be and they have a lot of close losses, maybe they're 14th this year, 15th this year. Think about how the Arch Manning era would be remembered. That would be one of the craziest, weirdest times in the history of college football. Because you'd be looking back on a guy unless he gets hurt, unless something happens that's unforeseen, you'll be looking at a guy sure fire first rounder in the draft. Therefore he lived up to his five star billing and he was never out for a significant period of time, we're assuming. And yet Texas never even made the playoff with him as their starting quarterback. That would be one of the bigger indictments in the history of like high level college football. You can't have that. You can't even be missing out on the four team playoff if you've got that kind of caliber quarterback, multiple years starting for you, much less missing out twice on the 12 teamer championship or bust title or bus mentality. That's the mood at Texas this year. My mood is I'm hungry so we need to wrap the show so we can go eat. And my mood is also to request humbly that you guys make sure you subscribe to the channel. It helps us out immensely, especially this time of year. It helps us out immensely. You're watching already, that's proven. Thank you. Or you're listening already. Make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel and a lot of you listen on podcasts exclusively, which is fine. Keep doing whatever you do. I just appreciate that you consume the show. Do me the added favor of following on the pod feed but also subscribing on the YouTube channel. Then you can log right back out appreciate you guys. I may drop a podcast, sort of one of those Pate State Extra episodes, which is podcast only. I may drop one of those later this week. The schedule is kind of weird. I got to go over to Arkansas. I get to go over to Arkansas for the Broyles Award. Look forward to that every year. And so I may drop you one on Thursday or Friday. Stay tuned for that. Otherwise we will be back Sunday. That's when our next full live show will be. So I appreciate you guys so much. Until next time. For director Bradley producer Jesse, I'm Josh Pate. Take care. Have a great rest of your week and God bless.
- [73:47]
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Josh Pate
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