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Josh Pate
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- [01:19]
Josh Pate
When people look back on June 3rd in the history books, Jesse, they're going to see two things. They're going to see the rest of the free world plunged into chaos, arguing about super leagues and Senate bills and the SEC and the Big Ten and playoffs. And then they're going to see G5 Josh cruising across the New Mexico desert, window down, shades on like Andy Dufresne post Shawshank, headed to talk to Jason Ek at the University of New Mexico. That's how radicalized this entire process has made me. I've gone full on hood up, I've gone shades on, and I want nothing to do with it except that we're going to lead the show tonight with it. But other than that, I want nothing to do with all of this. It's Thursday, June 4th now, the year of our Lord 2026. We are jam packed. We're high atop a glowing downtown Nashville, Tennessee lot going on tonight. So if you're watching live especially thank you guys, you're not wasting your time watching the show. I do have just a little bit about this Senate bill and a lot of the talk out there. Nick Saban was a witness yesterday. Pete Bavacqua from Notre Dame said some things that got a lot of people up in arms and there are harsh accusations being thrown my way that I've been wrong on all this, Jesse, and certainly I must have heard enough to change my mind about the legitimacy or the likelihood of this bill passing. Well, we'll talk about it in just a second. I also want to celebrate on the show tonight. And it doesn't really matter what the reasons behind the thing we're going to celebrate were. We're gonna celebrate because one of our home campus games that we thought was lost is coming back home. Rarely do we get to celebrate a campus game that's been ripped away from college football coming back to a campus. But we will do that tonight. I got a question from you about SEC quarterback rankings, specifically the new guys, the guys that have not been the starters yet. We'll discuss that. We've got bold predictions on the show tonight. There's an internal challenge to get the show in in under an hour and we have 58 minutes left. So let's just see what we can do. A lot of throat slashes, which would be a 15 yarder, Mitch, if we were playing on Saturdays. But it's just disrespect since it's Thursday night. They're watching us in Fort Collins, Colorado, Athens, Georgia, Salinas, Salinas, California and Clovis, New Mexico, because we were there yesterday. Why not subscribe to the channel, please, if you have not already. That speaker series, man, what a spring it's been. I'm going to talk about that and some behind the scenes stuff later in the show. Here we go. I didn't want to talk about the Senate bill on the show tonight at all. It was my instinct not to bring it up on the show. But a lot of you asked about it, so I'm going to get this out of the way. Troy from Plano, Texas, hit me and said, you keep saying the Senate bill will easily pass, but everything I'm reading says that everyone is against it, including the Big Ten in the sec. Do you want to double down? No, I don't want to double down at all. I want to maintain exactly what I've said. I think the bill is going to pass the Senate. I think it's going to pass the House and I think it's going to be signed into law. That's what I think. Nothing about yesterday or anything that's been said this week changed my mind on that. Oh, everyone's not against this bill. A lot of the loudest voices are against the bill, Troy. But then again, that's the nature of a bill. Now, fortunately, I get to live my life 99% out of the political sphere. So I don't have to talk about this stuff a lot. But I have a bunch of friends who do and I know this is the life they live. Okay? So here's what I'll say. I am very, very confident in how read in I am on this process. But I'm not boring you with all that. I do want to address some of the stuff that was said yesterday that Troy was referencing there. But I encourage you guys, again, this is the Best approach you can have. Block out the noise and just think for yourself on this stuff. I said this a week ago, and some of you are starting to pick up what I was putting down. Because if you go into this a little unsure of what you love about college football, therefore, what you want to see in terms of actions and rules or maybe even laws, you're going to allow other people to shape your opinion for you. And here's the thing. There are a lot of actors out there. I'm not even going to call them bad actors. There are just a lot of people out there who have hidden agendas when it comes to this sort of thing. And they know that you. You don't know. They know you live a normal life. They know that you love college football. Cause Saturday's awesome. You love college football because you've rooted for that same jersey and that same logo since you were a child. But you don't want to get into the weeds of all this stuff. And therefore, you don't even know what half this stuff means. Not because you're too stupid to. Because you're too busy to. You don't keep up with it. And they know that. And that's why they understand a really, really bad faith quote or sound bite, if presented to you properly, you can sway opinion. So don't let the lake get muddy. Just block it all out. Twitter is a very toxic place when it comes to trying to learn about this sort of thing. Just block it out. Decide for yourself what you value, what you care about, and then take a look at what's in the body of this bill and then ask yourself, would this give me more of what I like or less of what I like? There is no one right now talking with any kind of megaphone, at least, without some kind of hidden agenda. Some of their agendas are out in the open. I at least respect that. And the others, they may be hidden, but there. There are agendas everywhere. And here's how I know that. I have not noticed anyone take a stance on this Senate bill to date that would cost them money. Everyone's taking stances that would end up making them better off financially. That doesn't make you evil. It doesn't make you a bad person. In fact, it makes you a normal person. But just call it for what it is. There are a lot of people on this side of the fence yelling about the ulterior motives about the people on that side of the fence. And anyone who pays attention to this, knowing full well both of you stand to gain financially off of the direction this goes. So as a bystander, you know, as someone who's just over here a fan of college football, I look at it and I say, well, okay, if both of you got agendas, and then I'm going to cancel you out and I'm just going to root for what I want. I'm going to be selfish, since everyone else is. I'm going to be selfish. Nick Saban was a witness there for the Commerce Committee yesterday, and he was talking about all sorts of different things. He was sharing his viewpoint, and I'm not. I was on the road when it was happening, but I knew it was happening. Obviously it was scheduled. It's not like Saban's music hit and all of a sudden here he comes out of nowhere and everyone knew he was going to be there. He was scheduled to be there. There were a lot of questions about whether he was going to fly in the face of what the SEC has been preaching, maybe even fly in the face of what ESPN wants at the end of the day. And he did both of those things to his credit. He endorsed this bill, presumably because he believes in the language of the bill. That's kind of my stance on it. And then everyone that spoke up seemed to have a big problem with what Nick Saban said. And since nuance is totally absent in these sorts of conversations, I ignored most of it because here's. Here's the bottom line. As best I could tell from what Nick Saban said, he made a lot of good points. And then a lot of people came at it from like 37 different angles. And I don't care what you think about Nick Saban. I don't care what you think he did at Alabama. I don't care about any of it. I don't. I grew up learning about, like, the mafia in school. And I remember when they taught us once upon a time about how John Gotti finally got taken down and about Sammy the Bull Gravano, like turning state's evidence. And I remember as a child, Jesse, thinking, hold up a second, you're telling me that they let a real life mobster in his own right take the stand and they valued his testimony and yeah, that's basically the way it worked. And it turns out, hey, if you're telling the truth, you're telling the truth. Doesn't really matter who the source is. And a lot of people didn't seem to. They didn't seem to get on board with that yesterday. So there was a lack of nuance. There was a Lack of context. I didn't even traffic in it. I thought Sabin made a lot of good points. I understand how some people think it may be hypocritical. There are a lot of things people think they know that they could never prove about what Nick Saban or anyone else did in his time at Alabama or other coaches times elsewhere. But it's just accepted as universal facts. So why should I push back on it? Here is the pushback that I care about because this is what I've seen a majority of in my inbox so far. Okay. The status of this thing right now is it is in commerce and it was getting marked up. It's still getting marked up. And eventually I do believe that this will go before the Senate. I still believe they're going to have plenty enough votes, I'm unchanged on that. To pass the Senate. It will head to the House. I think it's going to pass the House. I am in the minority on this, Jesse. A lot of people think this thing's dead in the water. It's not. I don't think it is. But hey, my track records, flawless. I have never predicted a bill to be signed into law that didn't get signed into law. So I'm perfect on this show when it comes to bills. Picking Indiana football games, not so much bills. I'm fine so far. So sterling reputation on the line here. Stop me if you've heard any of this. I wrote down some of the problems that people have had with this bill. It doesn't cap coaches salaries, it doesn't cap administrative salaries. You know, why are you targeting what players can earn but you're not targeting, you know, the adults and the out of control spending elsewhere. I covered this the other day. I'm going to tell you again, as much as I support this bill, I am on board with that line of thinking. So if you want to argue it should be added in, be my guest. It's not a perfect bill. It's bipartisan in nature. The very nature of bipartisanship is no one gets everything they want. So you guys aren't bringing that as some gotcha moment for me because I just turn around and agree with you. That's the first part. The second thing, this bill caps how much players can earn. That's not true. That is not true. Dive into it a little bit more. It does, it absolutely does advocate for salary caps. It does not define what the caps gotta be. That gets decided by decision makers at the college level. That gets decided in court. But that's not really what this is about. What it's about basically is a piece of paper saying, all right, you guys decide whatever you want the cap to be. Get 20 million, 40 million, 60 million. But there's got to be something, okay, we got to have bookends that we're working with and that needs to be signed into law. So it's not limiting that, at least in the nature that people are suggesting, it's limiting it. And that either comes from people who haven't read the bill or they just count on you having not read the bill so that they can lie about it. The third part. Well, a lot of this is just going to get challenged in court. That's interesting because it sounds very familiar. It sounds like the life that everyone who follows college football on a day to day level has been living for a long time. Anyway, you're telling me one of your biggest fears is that stuff continues to happen that's already been happening. That's the worst case. Because if there's a best case that even partially absolves us or rids us of some of that or puts in some rules that can be enforced, pardon me if I'm more than willing to, to roll the dice there, but I'm trying to take a very measured approach here because what I don't want to do is I don't want to talk about people like they're bad people. This could be any of a number of people who have had problems with this bill. Okay, there's, there's one possibility that someone just sees things differently than I do. That's possibility number one. Possibility number two could be Tony Petiti runs the Big Ten and therefore his motivations are different than mine. That could be a possibility as well. The point is, pretty much everyone has an angle here. Pretty much everyone has a self interest that they're trying to serve. People with angles aren't necessarily bad people. They're just people coming at it from a different viewpoint. So, I mean, for instance, I have had dislike, up to maybe even disdain for how the SEC and the Big Ten have handled themselves and the viewpoints, the stances that they've chosen to take, I mean, I think negatively about Greg Sink year, Tony Petiti. I understand it's a very, very complex and nuanced position they're in. I just happen to see it a different way. I know that a lot of players advocacy groups have come out against this bill. Well, look, let's not pretend that there aren't players advocacy groups that greatly stand to financially benefit if this Thing crashes and burns and collective bargaining comes into play instead. I've got no problem with that. Okay? I'm friends with a lot of you guys. Actually, I'm not even talking to you. I'm just talking to people outside who don't really understand the name of the game here. We don't have a players union, for example, in college football right now. You don't think there are organizations that have been built specifically to serve as the players union one day if slash. When collective bargaining is plugged into the wall socket of college football? Of course there are. Of course there's major investment. Of course there's big money to be made on that side. And so if I was sitting there, I'd probably want to torpedo this bill as well. So we all get it. A lot of people have differing viewpoints, different angles. But yesterday, Jesse, it seems to me, as I was on the road, that the word I got texted the most and the word I saw trafficking the most was super league. Is that one word? Super league's one word. I write it as one word. Boy, a lot of people got really worried about a super league yesterday. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, man, a super league. So here's what triggered this. As best I can tell, Pete Bavacqua, whose name has been butchered nine ways from Sunday lately, and I've been a victim of it in the past. But while I still cannot pronounce the S in Clemson the right way, I have nailed down Pete Bavaqua's name, so I deserve a little bit of credit. He's the AD at Notre Dame. He's the guy who gets yelled at constantly to join a conference from people jealous that their situation is not as privileged as Notre Dame's. So I've never been a Notre Dame niece to join a conference guy, so period on the end of that sentence. But Pete Bavacqua was before the Senate Commerce Committee yesterday, and I'm going to pick up the sound bite kind of in the middle of his testimony. Do we even call it testimony? We'll call it a testimony. It sounds really fancy. But they were talking about revenue. They were talking about, among other things, this bill providing a mechanism, in this case, amending the Sports Broadcasting act and pooling college football media rights together to be negotiated as a block like the NFL does, a concept I happen to be fully on board with. And Pete Bavacqua was offering a different viewpoint on it. And I'm going to let him talk, and then I'll react on the other side.
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Pete Bavacqua
My second concern is if you want to truly maximize the media value around the largest sport in terms of eyeballs, which is college football, I do think the best way to do that is a super league. And I don't. I certainly don't want a super league. I'm not sure anybody necessarily wants a super league. Flooding the market, aggregating the market, bringing it to an aggregate form to major media companies. I'm not sure that's going to drive the value. Some say it will. If you wanted to maximize media value around college football, I think you would take 24 to 30 teams, create unbelievably competitive scheduling where a team like Notre Dame would play Alabama, Georgia, Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, and start to get a number that more closely resembles an NFL number. I could be right, I could be wrong. But that's why I was encouraged that it's a voluntary application and that a lot more work could be done over the course of the next series of years to see if the value could prove itself out.
- [18:05]
Josh Pate
And Buddy, when he mentioned the word super league, everyone stopped listening. That's about as far as they got in that sound bite. I played the whole thing well. I played a lengthy part of it for a reason. So don't. Don't devolve into hysterics there. Let's break down what he said. First off, Pete Bavak was a very, very sharp guy. You don't normally rise to the level of AD at Notre Dame if you're not. And he has worked in multiple sectors that sort of overlap with this situation. So he said he himself is not really interested in a super league. Good. He and I have that in common. Part two. He said he thinks the best way to accumulate the value that you're looking for here is not necessarily pooling all the media rights. It would be forming a super league. He's speaking hypothetically. You know, he's kind of saying, now, this isn't what I would do, but if you really wanted to accomplish it, this is what you do. He said, it's the way I view it a little bit differently. I view it as a way that. Meaning there are other options that would accomplish the same end goal. But the entire point of the revenue mechanism in this whole equation is to fund college athletics. See, this is where you got to zoom out sometimes. I'm not talking about Pete Bavaca. I'm talking about anybody listening to this or anybody thinking about this. Like, you get. You get so far down the rabbit hole, you forget what it's about. To begin with, this is not about what's best for the University of Alabama. It's not about what's best for Ohio State, presumably it's about what's best for college athletics. The entire concept of pooling college football media rights into one block and negotiating those and bidding those out in the market is because it brings a several fold increase per year of money, of revenue. Some would say it wouldn't. I think they're wrong. I think it would. And that waterfall helps to fund a whole lot of things that are cash strapped right now, Football and beyond. I'm a supporter of that concept. I think it's one of the most insane things in the world that a swimmer at Cal Poly could end up without a scholarship because football wasn't handled the right way. But that's the way I look at it. I also think that it's really unnecessary for Arkansas State football to get left out in the cold when they don't have to be. Then that brings in this whole political debate and it brings in this whole worldview and like, ideological clash of, well, do you believe in free market capitalism or don't you? I do. I don't in sports. I don't at all in sports. It's the same thing that allows me to watch the National Football League and watch the Buffalo Bills have no problem whatsoever competing with the Los Angeles Rams. Does that occur in a free market? Like, is that really if everything operates on true free market principle, does that ever happen? Does the NFL happen? No, it does not. And it's because a long time ago, people looked at professional football and said, might we need to create special conditions so that this entertainment product can exist in its own bubble. I always use the national park corollary because I love national parks, I love nature preserves. We've got them in Nashville. Chances are if you live in a city of any size, you've got them. There's. What if we took Radnor State park just down the road here on I65, and we said, you know what? We're going to govern that patch of land just like we do every other patch of land in Davidson county and Williamson county very, very quickly. You see development signs there, for sale signs, and then you see bulldozers and dump trucks, and you see yet another condominium go up and the units are already sold before they even break ground. But we don't do that. Why? Well, because the citizens of Nashville have decided we kind of like that, so we want to treat it differently. And I've always viewed sports the same way I view College football similarly, probably college athletics requires an even more special bubble than the NFL does. But I think it serves a greater societal good to have it. So you don't have the whack a mole moment with me when you think I'm a free market capitalist. Well, if you're a free market capitalist, don't you support free market principles in college athletics? No, I don't. Because they can exist as they should if we exercise that to its logical conclusion. So, no, no, I don't believe in that. I also keep looking at this Super League conversation and people who are taken aback by it, and I'm like, why is anyone surprised by this? But then it dawns on me, not everyone follows this stuff day to day. So Pete Bavaqua was speaking up there, and then a lot of people got attached to that. And they got so attached to it, Jesse, that as we were probably in the air coming home last night, Big Ten Commissioner Tony Patiti released a statement. Tony Petiti does not talk a lot, but he released a statement, and it said, and I quote, any statement that suggests the Big Ten is pursuing or wants a super league is a fabrication. At no point in time have we discussed such a concept with the SEC or anyone else. Any suggestion otherwise comes from people outside of our respective conferences. Well, let me assure you, he's right. I am outside the Big Ten Conference. I have no affiliation with the Big Ten, and I am 100% telling you the Big Ten is very interested in the idea of a Super League. Now, what it may not be is the SEC in the Big Ten locking arms symbolically out in a parking lot and slapping the name Super League on the store. It may not be that. But if you don't think the SEC and the Big Ten have lobbied hard behind the scenes to crash this bill because they think they can do better and out on their own by themselves. You either don't know the space very well or you haven't been following it very well. And if it's the latter, that's cool. You live your life. You're probably a lot happier than people following this right now. But if it's the former, you're blind. You're blind. They 1000% have explored, continue to explore and prefer that model. Not everyone. It's not a total consensus, but trust me on at least that facet of this. And I don't know anyone who I view as reputable or informed on this matter that disagrees with that. And I talk to a lot of them. I always want to cross reference because Sometimes I like to remove myself from this and when I check back in, I want to make sure I'm not missing anything. Everybody believes that that's the goal behind the scenes for those Big Two. That's why I'm not on board with it. That's why I'm not an anti SEC or anti Big 10 guy. I'm just anti the idea of that the only path for them to flourish requires choking off the rest of the sport. That's why I was against conference expansion. That's why I hated the idea of Washington and Oregon and USC and UCLA joining the Big Ten. I didn't like it when Texas and OU joined the sec, not because it wasn't great for those leagues, but because those leagues are fine. Regardless. I actually love the territorial nature and the regionality of college football. I love for there to be more than just two big names dominating the sport and choking every bit of oxygen out of the room. And likewise, when it comes to the concept of a super league, could they do it? Probably. Although I would say probably some unforeseen consequences of that that they wouldn't love. But yeah, they could accomplish it. It's not necessary. There's several paths for the SEC and the Big Ten to flourish. And congrats to them for it. I grew up in the SEC footprint. I grew up on SEC football. I grew up watching the Big Ten from a distance. I revere those institutions, those programs, the names, the tradition, the pageantry. Nobody needs to sell me on that. Nor do you need to educate me on who swings the biggest hammer in the sport and which programs and which teams produce the most revenue and which brands get watched the most. I know that it doesn't convince me that Wake Forest football has to fall off into the ocean in the process. There are several ways for them to flourish. I simply. I simply prefer one that lets other programs survive as well. Don't think we need to torch the barn and kill the rats here for the SEC and the Big Ten to get everything they want. One of the key takeaways that I noticed today, or talking points, I guess, was, well, you can't get a bill passed, you can't get a college football bill passed without the SEC and the Big Ten being on board.
- [27:25]
Bradley
Yeah, you can.
- [27:26]
Josh Pate
Yeah, yeah, you absolutely can. You may not be able to negotiate playoff structure without the SEC in the Big Ten. But see, when you leave Grapevine Texas and you go to Washington, D.C. yeah, you inherit a whole lot of mess, but you're walking different hallways there. There's a Reason, they've spent a ton of money lobbying against this thing behind the scenes, and it's because they have to take it seriously. So you absolutely can get a bill passed without the SEC and the Big Ten's consent. Some would argue that the fact the SEC and the Big Ten are so opposed to it is probably one of the biggest green light indicators that this bill is on the right path. Some would say that, Jesse, not me, but some would say that. So to answer the question that was posed to me 26 minutes ago, no, I don't. I haven't changed my mind at all. Yes, I do think the bill is going to pass. Yes, I do think it's an imperfect bill. Yes, I do think there are still hurdles to clear. And yes, I revert back to statement number one. It still means I think the thing's going to pass. I'm unhappy only because I told someone, it's not important who, but I told someone less than an hour ago that I was going to do that segment in less than 10 minutes and it was 25 minutes long. We move on. It's June. I've got work to do before. Before the season starts. We can't do this. We cannot do this. This would be a three and a half hour show if it were Sunday night. Okay, let's move on. So the College Football Playoff schedule was released the other day to no fanfare whatsoever. Got a lot of reaction, though. And in case you missed it, you may not even want me to share this information with you, but it's not exactly new. It was just a reminder. And that is that the playoff will start on December 18th and the playoff will conclude well over a month later on January 25. Yes, friends, with February on the horizon, we will crown a national champion. Now, is that insane? Of course it is. And I don't know how you feel in January, so I'll just share how I feel. That has led to January and the playoff feeling really weird to me over the last number of years. Now I'm a regular season guy, so, like, that's not my North Star, but I still, I would. If we're going to have a playoff in college football, I'd love for it to feel like this huge climax, like reaching the summit of the season. And instead there are these massive, massive gaps between round to round that just make you look around and say, what's happening? Like, where's the juice? The playoff has not felt like it had a lot of juice to me. So for the visual learners, of which I am one, I Had stats and info run some quick numbers, which just means I pulled out the I Josh calculator and I asked myself self, when does the season start? Well, the season, this year, week one of the season is like September 4th, I think it is. And if the national championship game is on January 25th, I wanted to know what the mathematical midpoint of the season is. And you probably saw me tweet this out the other day, but if you didn't let me slap you with some reality. Saturday, November 14th is week 11 this year that marks the mathematical halfway point between week one and the national championship game. Now leave that up. Bradley, When I say November 14, what do you think? Two things. You think that's my sister's birthday, which it is. And number two, you think, well that's like at the very end of the season. And you would be right because up until five minutes ago, mid November was right towards the end of the season. I mean we got rivalry week coming up, we got conference championship Saturday just around the Corner and now November 14th equals we're halfway way to the national championship game. So those are the problems. Now this is not a show that prides itself on just throwing a bunch of problems out there without a solution. But to this point, my solution has not been realized. People have crapped all over it, people have thrown water balloons at me or worse. And people have told me, stop wishing. Your wish cannot come true. And if you're new to the program, you might be asking, well, what is this crazy person's wish? Here's my wish. My wish is that college football had a scheduling agreement with the NFL because that's really all this is about. It's not about having a set number of days between games. The only reason the college Football playoff calendar looks the way it does is because college football is terrified to go head to head with the National Football League because the NFL is king and it swallows anything that overlaps it or competes against it. And I simply wish that's all it is. I am simply wishing. Not without logic though. I wish that for once someone in the decision making chair of college football actually had the gravitas, the respect in the industry, the stones, whatever you want to call it, to pick up the phone and maybe if you need the three way call, get the networks on one line and get the NFL League office on the other line and just say, guys, we need help. We do everything for you, we develop the players for you. That's why you don't have a minor league. And we've never complained. We Market the players. Okay. You know full well who Fernando Mendoza is before he ever plays a down for Las Vegas. You're welcome. We never complain. We never ask for anything. We just need help. We're not even asking you not to play on Saturdays in December. We'd just like you to take those early and mid afternoon windows so that we can have the primetime window for college football playoff games. That's what we love. So that we don't have to have 10 days between rounds and we don't have to be playing on random Thursdays at noon. Calls it stupid and just see what they say. Just the worst you can get told is no. Now stupid me. I thought for a long time, Jesse, that if it's that obvious, certainly the conversation was had a long time ago. And then Roger Goodell is having his pre super bowl press conference just, just this past year, just earlier this year. And he was asked about something unrelated to scheduling. I think it was about like quarterback development, suffering. And someone asked him, have you ever considered working with college football or helping college football? He basically said, well, yeah, but our phone hasn't rung. Which is the least shocking thing in the world. Just the least shocking thing in the world. This is also my issue with what they're calling the Kiffin rule in the Senate bill. You know, for the support I'm giving that Senate bill. One of the dumb parts of the Senate bill, to me at least is, is the Kiffin Rule. The good faith but poorly aimed effort to curtail coaches moving around before the season's over. But see, that's not a problem. That has to do with lack of ethics in coaches or athletic directors or the way job searches are being conducted. The job searches are being conducted as a byproduct of the calendar because the calendar is out of whack. So if you've got national signing day, what, the week of conference championship games right now? If you've got the transfer portal window happening during the playoffs, then of course you have no alternative. If we had a job opening at Pate State, I wouldn't wait until after the season was over. There are no coaches left. So if you want to take that high powered laser of the Senate or of Congress overall and point it at something, don't point it at Lane Kiffin. Enough, folks point their anger at Lane Kiffin. Maybe just direct it 30 degrees over here and take a look at solving the college football calendar. You want bipartisan support? Claim you're about to fix the college football calendar. That'll get you bipartisan support. As will a t shirt from patestatematerial.com and right now football is coming. And I promise you it won't be too long before we don't have to lead the show with Senate debates about the college football bill and about what's best for the sport. What's best for the sport are games on Saturday and that's what that T shirt right there is all about. Football is coming. You can get it with sleeves. You can get it without sleeves. You can get the hat if you don't really wear shirts. A lot of items, A lot of new items over there. Depth over dopamine. It's over there as well. The new life philosophy of most of the staff, not all. We have some holdouts, but most of the staff is now about depth over dopamine because that's how AI described what our show is like. So we put it on a T shirt in there. Patestatematerial.com why pay when you can/TikTok/and free lets you cut prices all the way to zero. Download TikTok, search, slash free and share the link to get free items. Start slashing now. Let's move on. Wow. This has to do with actual football players. Are we sure we want to put this in the show? James from Norfolk, VA There are a good amount of first year SEC quarterbacks via recruiting in the portal. Can you rank them in terms of the impact you expect from them this season? Hey, as someone who's never suffered the consequences of ranking SEC quarterbacks in the summer, why not? What could possibly go wrong with this? So yeah, what he's asking is take the new quarterbacks or quarterback situations and rank them. So we got eight of them, right? Jesse, it's going to sound weird, but I think the Alabama quarterback situation, I'm actually ranking number one because I'm pretty high on whoever comes out of this quarterback battle. So it could be Austin Mack, it could be Killen Russell. Whoever it is, I expect Alabama to be plus at the quarterback position this year. And which is why not all quarterback battles are created equally. As memaw used to tell me a whole lot. I have tentatively picked Keelan Russell, but either one of them are going to greatly enhance Alabama's RPO game. And Alabama's RPO game missing last year pretty much threw a crowbar into the entire functionality of that offense. They weren't terrible, but not great. And when you can't run the ball, you can't be anything other than marginally good offensively. And so I think no matter who it is starting there. Alabama's situation at quarterback is going to be a plus situation. Now this is where it gets difficult. In fact, this whole thing is difficult to me. But the next one I'm going with is Byron Brown at Auburn. There's a lot of release point. There's a lot of arm angle propaganda out there about Byron Brown right now and I have not bought into it mainly because it's not an unknown commodity. Byron Brown has played like 9,000 games. So we know Byron Brown and he knows his supporting cast because Alex Goelish, who had him at USF brought him with him to Auburn and brought a lot of his supporting cast. A lot of the receivers that were down there, there are a lot of guys he looks to his left and right and has familiarity with. So he's not having to learn a whole lot new. He is playing at a higher level. But they played multiple high level opponents when he was at usf. So I don't think it's going to be cold water to the face necessarily. So I think he's going to be good. I think the, the experience level also matters here because most of the time when we're talking about a new quarterback, a lot of the times we're talking about a guy with not a lot of experience. Byron Brown at Auburn's got like more experience than probably everyone else on this list combined, if I had to say. So, yeah, I think they'll be okay at quarterback there. Now what do we go to next? I flipped a coin. It landed on Aaron Filo. Imagine that. So down at Florida, Florida tried the whole import, the quarterback and offensive coordinator in a combo package type situation. It worked for Vanderbilt, so it worked for Utah. Why not take a stab at it? So Aaron Filo came there. He was at Georgia Tech. Buster Faulkner was his offensive coordinator. He also came to Florida. The surrounding and supporting cast here matters a whole lot. So he's walking in there and he gets just one of the best wide receiver rooms in the country dropped in his lap. He's got Jaden bought tailback. They've got, they've got issues that got Billy fired. But personnel was not atop the list, let me just put it that way. And so Aaron Filo is not having to learn a new system either. In fact, the other guys are having to learn a new system in terms of range of outcome. His high, like his best in the range of outcome would equal them being a surprise playoff contender. Now I didn't say that's likely or that's my prediction, but they do have that upside if you get the best out of the range of outcomes there I this is where I put Austin Simmons. I put him right behind Florida slash Aaron Filo. Austin Simmons, remember last year Lane picked him to start for him at Ole Miss and then he goes down and then Trinidad Chambliss happened and that's the last you heard about Austin Simmons? Well, he transferred to Missouri and he's, you know, theoretically still the player that Lane chose to start for him at Ole Miss last year. Arm talent, got some experience at least so I like that. I'm just betting on him realizing his talent this year. He's got a somewhat of an underrated pass catcher group I would say Follow up question, what are they rated? I don't know what the public would rate Missouri's pass catchers but I think they're good enough. Not a question at tailback obviously with the off the field stuff that's happened there with Ahmaud Hardy, but I'd put Austin Simmons there. I'd put Kenny Minchie next. So Kenny Minchie, if you believe the reports, he pushed C.J. carr to the limit in that battle for the Notre Dame starting quarterback job last year and then CJ Carr won it and after the season Kenny Minshew transferred to Nebraska. Wait a minute. No he didn't. He just briefly said the name Nebraska and then he said never mind going to Kentucky. Will Stein took the job at Kentucky. He got his quarterback, Kenny Minchi. Will Stein has handled portal quarterbacks in the past couple of years ago I think 20, 23, Jesse, that offense of Will Stein's number one passing offense in the country. And look again, if we accept as fact that Kenny Minchee was good enough to push CJ Carr to the limit, it's kind of like that Lincoln Kyneholz theory. Like if he was really good enough to push Julian Sayan to the limit, well, maybe he's not half bad. So we're thinking the same thing with Kenny Minchie here. And look, I also just. You keep getting these vibes about Kentucky, that's all they are is vibes. Vibes never won anyone a game but vibes can get you excited and there are vibes at least emanating out of Kentucky right now. Now this is where we talk Tennessee, the Tennessee quarterback situation very uncertain here. There are two big battles going on right now in the sec. We talked about Alabama. Well, there's a quarterback battle at Tennessee as well. George McIntyre and Faison Brandon. Faison. Brandon is widely regarded as the future of the program, but he's a true freshman this year. Is he going to lock down the job this year? Either way, the reason I put Tennessee's quarterback situation all the way down at sixth out of all the, you know, new situations at quarterback is I don't think the Tennessee quarterback position is going to be a high impact position for them this year. And if I'm wrong, I'm happy to be wrong. It should be a very, very run heavy approach. And you just cross your fingers that that Jim Knowles defense takes root in year one instead of the usual take two or three years to fully get implemented. And so that doesn't mean that they're going to be a weakness there. It just means I think a net amount of the workload is taken off the quarterback shoulders and they just try and run the ball even more than they already do. I mean, Tennessee's pretty run heavy already. What about Jarrett Curtis? That's the true freshman. He was committed to Georgia, decommitted because he pretty much realized I could start at Vanderbilt right away. And while this has not technically been decided, I am announcing it for Clark and this is unofficial, but I am announcing that I think Jared Curtis is going to be the starter there. They lost three of their four top pass catchers. They lost four or five starting offensive linemen. However, far be it for me to sit here and question Uncle Barton and the boys over there with their evaluations and their ability to backfill because they've done it. And so I'm not going as far as to say, boy, he's going to be without guys to throw the ball to. Boy, he's not going to have any time. But what he is going to be is a true freshman starting at quarterback in the SEC or just a true freshman starting at quarterback in major college football. And that means I can't possibly know anything. So that's why I put him there. And then K.J. jackson at Arkansas. It's just a restart at Arkansas and I put K.J. jackson. It could be A.J. hill. We're guessing K.J. jackson, but this the year. One churn of Silverfield coming in. Top three pass catchers gone, a ton of churn defensively. So they're going to have to score a lot. And it's, it's just kind of a. Not a total, total rebuild, but really close to that at Arkansas. They're watching us in Hinesville, Georgia, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, Miami, Florida. Thank you guys so much. If you're watching live, knowing all the options there are out there, I really, really Appreciate it. Make sure you are subscribed to the channel. Hey, by the way, you know what? I'll talk about it later. Nevermind. I was gonna plug the speaker series that we did with Joey McGuire and Jason Eck, but we'll get to that later. We have to celebrate. No, it's not my birthday. Truth be told, I don't even believe in celebrating my birthday. But I do believe in celebrating something far more important than my birthday, and that is college football games being played on campus. What? Yes, we still do that. But not only do we do that, did you know that it's possible for us to lose a college football game on campus to one of these stupid international games and then get it back? Yes, it is breaking news yesterday from NC State football. The season opener versus Virginia will be relocated to Charlottesville. Now, you may be thinking to yourself, well, what's happening? Is NC State stadium under construction? No, this thing was happening in Brazil. If you need me to say it again, I'll say it again. Yeah, it's that dumb. They were going to play this game in Brazil. Was it a conference game, Jesse? Because just because they're conference teams does not mean it's a conference game, because we do that kind of stuff as well. So here's the story. Somebody had the bright idea, somebody to play Virginia and NC State in Brazil. And then people looked around and said, can we guarantee this is going to happen with everybody getting out safe? And apparently the answer was no. Shocker. And so as the ACC had looked and did the whole, hey, look, some of you may suffer, but it's a risk I'm willing to take. I cleaned up the language. It seems that that's not the way this is going to go. So we have to celebrate. We have to celebrate because we were going to lose a college football game that should be played on a campus on a Saturday to Brazil. This sounds very antiquated. I know this sounds like I'm against progress. You know what it sounds like I'm against? It sounds like I am against growing the game. And I'm not. This is not how you grow college football. I'm all for growing college football. This is not how you grow college football. Now, I figured to myself told Jesse, we got one of two options here. I could just yell in the microphone for six and a half minutes tonight, hopefully get it to eight minutes. I could just talk about how I feel. But you know what I realized? I realized I've already done that in the past two weeks and I thought I did a fairly Good job of articulating my points. And we haven't even plugged this show, this podcast that I appeared on, on this show. So this is a good time to do both. So John Crist, friend of the program, invites me onto his podcast a couple of weeks ago, which is just down the road from where I live. And so I go in there and we're talking about all sorts of different things, but we got on this point about people who don't get what makes college football great. Handling scheduling and thinking they're growing the game when they send a game to Ireland or Brazil or whatever. And they're not. That's not how you grow college football. So I hop on the Net Positive podcast with John Crist, which can be found on his YouTube channel right now. I encourage you to watch this entire sit down. It's like an hour and a half long. And this is what I had to say. This is where it's so backwards to me to play college football games overseas. What makes college football great extends well beyond the field. This is where it's different to me. If you take an NFL game to Germany, cool. An NFL game is an NFL game anywhere. It's the best football players on the planet playing on a field. That's what it is. It doesn't matter where you play. It's essentially being played in a TV studio. Lambeau Field's an exception. The Chief stadium. Like, there are a few places where that dynamic adds an element. RIP Nissan Stadium. Nissan Stadium. I really wish we could have 10 moments of silence for the Georgia Dome. The place, County, State Place was so special. Special to me. He's crying, dude. Yeah, but I get what you're saying. But a college football game, 9, 10 of it, is the campus and the game day environment and the tailgating. Well, people who don't get it don't understand that. So they think we'll just take a game and put it in Ireland every year and voila, we took college football to a foreign market. No, you didn't. You took a bunch of college football players and had them play a game over there. The proper way to do it, the proper way to do it is tell people in Dublin, Ireland, hey, if you guys are ever going to come to the United States, you ought to come to Knoxville, Tennessee on a Saturday. That's what you ought to do. That's how you would experience college football. And you tell these people that and it just blows their mind. Like, we never, we never thought about it that way. I know you didn't. You shouldn't have your hands on the wheel. It was a fun time. It's fun. You should have come, Jesse. You weren't invited. John Crist, net positive with John Crist. You can go find that whole thing. It's like an hour and a half, maybe two hours worth of a sit. Now, we talked about all sorts of things, man, like all, every topic under the sun we touched on. So there's the plug. College football grows just fine on its own, okay? If you let college football live, if you let it exist as it naturally exists, it's just fine on its own. Now, I am a realistic. I understand that when a corporate partner comes to you and says, we've got two things, a venue and a major city and a huge paycheck in these troubled economic times. Yes, I know it's hard to say. No, I know it's hard. And that's why Baylor and Auburn are playing in Atlanta instead of Auburn. That's why Louisville and Ole Miss are playing in Nashville instead of Oxford. That's why Wisconsin and Notre Dame are playing in Lambeau instead of South Bend. But I don't have to like it. With the one exception being right there, because all of these other places are man made. God created the cottonmold, and so Texas and OU belong there. That game might as well be written in red. The rest of this stuff is up for debate and interpretation. And my interpretation is, and forgive me for holding this radical opinion that Arizona State versus Kansas is better served to be played in Lawrence than in London. Yes, that's a real thing that's happening this year. I don't even know if Kenny Dillingham has a passport. Imagine the watch list that guy could be on with. With how. With how he carries himself sometimes, which is an entire side topic that we could explore. But I do want to do this. I do want to credit some programs out there. And you're going to remain nameless because I'm not at liberty to share the full story here. I probably am, but I'm going to err on the side of caution. I know for a fact that there are some major programs in college football that have turned down huge paycheck games to be played at neutral sites that would blow your mind. Like if you think Brazil is. And Dublin is. The totality of this. Oh, Doug, you. I had one of them that blew my mind. And I don't even know conceptually how they play a football game at this place, but Yokozuna once wrestled Sid on the deck of an aircraft carrier. So really, if you Want to go neutral site bad enough you can go neutral site anywhere you want to. So credit those of you who have said no. Even if you have to remain nameless until you share with me that I can share your name, I will give you credit.
- [53:18]
Bradley
Hey, sweetie. Your mother showed me this Carvana thing for selling the car. I'm going to give it a try. Wish me luck. Me again. I put in the license plate. It gave me an offer.
- [53:27]
Josh Pate
Unbelievable.
- [53:29]
Bradley
Okay, I accepted the offer. They're picking it up Tuesday from the driveway. I haven't even left my chair.
- [53:35]
Josh Pate
It's done.
- [53:35]
Bradley
The car is gone. I'm holding a check anyway. Carvana, give it a whirl. Love ya.
- [53:40]
Josh Pate
So good you'll want to leave a voicemail about it.
- [53:43]
Podcast Announcer
Sell your car today on Carvana.
- [53:46]
Josh Pate
Fees may apply. Next up, back to matters on the field. The other night someone asked us, hey, who are the best players? Who are the players you're looking forward to watching the most in college football this year? And I listed four. And then I realized I got like 100 more. So I just wanted to share four more with you tonight. I didn't even mention Trinidad Chambliss the other day. And Trinidad Chambliss may very well be the most dangerous player in college football in the best of ways. I thought he was the most dangerous player in the College Football Playoff last year. In fact, his performance against Georgia just lives basically rent free in my mind. The way he burst on the scene. And also the story, like we all know the story. We all know the Ferris State and he's the backup there. And we had Kirby on the show last month who ended up playing him twice during the season and said, I didn't even know who Trinidad Chambliss was at the start of the year. How would I have known who he was? He was just under 4,000 passing yards last year, 22 touchdowns, three picks, no multi interception games. And he's back this year. And I know that this upcoming draft, the 2020, what, seven NFL draft, it's going to be loaded, man. It's going to be incredible. You know, it's okay to just enjoy a guy for how good a college football player he is. And that's how I'm going to choose to consume the play of Trinidad Chambliss this year. Same with Malachi Toney. Malachi Toney. Out of all the submissions we got for who's the best player in college football this year was number two behind Jeremiah Smith. So it was a super consensus. Jeremiah Smith's the best Player in the country. Malachi Toney was a guy who got some traction, though, and last year from Game 1, he was a stud man from the time they played Notre Dame. That was week one, right, Jesse? Yeah, that was the first game of the season. I mean, Miami knew they had a star on their hands before they played Game one. America knew they had a star on their hands after they played game one. And he had 109 receptions last year, which I didn't realize this, but that led the country. And there's such a variety of way that they use him. Well, really, there are two ways. They throw the ball to him and hand the ball to him. Him. But still, there are a variety of different ways that you can do those two things with him. And he's not alone is the other point. This is not one of those situations where Shannon Dawson has one playmaker and Mario's got one playmaker, and they know they just got to ride him into the ground. No, they can. They don't have to. And if all the attention goes his way, then you got several other guys that can break your heart. So Malachi Toney, amazing player. Looking forward to watching him. Colin Simmons, much more of a household name. Well, I don't know. Tony's a big household name now, too. But Colin Simmons, I'd call him the best edge, at least in preseason in college football. We got to wait and see what Dylan Stewart does this year. Hopefully more than four and a half sacks. That would be a really nice start. 12 sacks for Colin Simmons last year, so he didn't struggle in that department. He'll be the face of that defense. He and Arch Manning, you know, kind of the D and O face of what could be a national championship type run for Texas this year. He's playing for Will Muschamp now, and I know that I've got to remain cognizant. There's a portion of the population that once the national title game happens, they check out probably for your best when it comes to the mental health of what it takes to follow this sport right now. But those people will come back in August, Jesse. And you know, there's a lot of people who are going be surprised when they open their preview magazine and they see, wait a second. Will Muschamp is the defensive coordinator at Texas. Yes, he is. And he's got Colin Simmons and he's got a loaded defensive front where Colin Simmons does not have to do it all, Specifically that interior. That allows them to do a lot with Colin Simmons. So I'm looking forward to watching him one more time around the merry go round. And K.J. bolden at Georgia looking forward to watching him. If I call Colin Simmons the best edge, can I call KJ Bolden the best safety in the country coming into the year? 10 tackles in that College Football playoff game against Ole Miss. A lot of times if you watch games on tv, you can watch the quarterback. I think most people just follow the ball. You can watch offensive line, you can train your eyes on the line of scrimmage. I say that's the smartest way to watch the game. But there are very few safeties that like draw your attention or command your attention. And K.J. bolden's kind of that kind of player. You don't say that a lot about the safety position. So, yes, for obvious reasons, Georgia good defensively every year. KJ Bolden will be a reason again this year. Looking forward to that. Feels like a palate cleanse when we get to talk about that. We just need to do that in every show. And then when we get in the season will do like four players. I am currently enjoying watching four players I wish would be doing more. That'd be a little negative though. I'll tell you what was a positive, man. We did a lot of traveling over the past couple of days, but for the best of reasons, the Pace State Speaker Series was in Lubbock, Texas two days ago. We were in Albuquerque, New Mexico yesterday. We went and saw Joey McGuire. We went and saw Jason Ek. I always like to give some behind the scenes tidbits for loyal viewers of the show. And of course we bury it way late in the show. So we flew to Lubbock, got in there, what, Tuesday night? Prez. I think Tuesday night? Yeah. Or Monday night. Tuesday. Wednesday, yeah, Monday night. And we get in like when we landed, Texas Tech softball had just come back and they had beaten Alabama and they forced a game two. And remember, they needed to double dip Alabama to make the women's College World Series final. So then they did. But like, we're in Lubbock as that's happening, there are people in the hotel lobby watching and half the creative staff is still over in the building, which is like right across from o hotel. So the city was alive. Like, if the folks in Oklahoma City had any doubts that like Lubbock, Texas was glued to Texas Tech softball, they were. And lo and behold, they beat Alabama, double dipped them and they are actually playing as we speak in the Women's College World Series, facing elimination tonight themselves. But that's not what I want to talk to you about right now, what I want to talk to you about is we had a great time. Got to credit Dirks, which they catered for us. Dirks. It's like, I'm not going to compare restaurants. I'm not going to do that. That would be irresponsible. But it reminds me of one of our favorite establishments here in Nashville. And by our, I mean mine, that I force the staff to eat three times a week. But I think Dirks maybe has a leg up on our establishment. So I'm going to say that. But Joey McGuire, very open, very candid. He always is. I always appreciate it. And remember, we went out there on the heels of him and Sark kind of sniping back and forth at each other. But also we're sitting in his office as the Brendan Sorsby thing is going on, as that court case is going on. So he was really open about that, but he was really open about a lot. The full sit downs, like 40 minutes. It's on the YouTube channel. Let me give you just a little sneak peek of what it sounded like with us talking with Joey again.
- [61:16]
Joey McGuire
But your twos and threes, like, there's got to be a, there's a level of respect there that like, you almost like, come on, man. I know you've got a really good football team and he does have a great football team. I am really anxious to see them this year. And I know when you feel as a coach, you have a really good football team, sometimes you say some stuff, you know, and, and then you got to, your players got to go back it up on the field. My deal was, if you're going to say that, man, one, come out and just say who you're talking about. And then two, let's play. Like, I feel great about my team, whoever the quarterback is, I feel really good about my team. So I'm, I would love to play them, man, for so many reasons. I'm hoping. And, and, and we're working our tail off to make the playoffs again. But I hope that round one is against the University of Texas or whenever we play. I mean, I like, I want to play those games.
- [62:16]
Josh Pate
I know most of you never been to Lubbock. I have, obviously. I'm lucky to go to a lot of these places. And look, when we go to Miami or Athens, Georgia, a lot of people have been to those places and a lot of people can see them loving those places. A lot of people who have never been to West Texas think they have this idea of what West Texas is like. And they think they would hate it. And all I encourage you to do, if you can do it, is go out there, go to a game, and if you can go to a Texas Tech game, it'd be awesome. But there's this, like, there's this vibe, there's this energy. It's really unique. There aren't places like West Texas that aren't West Texas. Now, I will say it's not for everyone, but if you're cut of a certain cloth, ah, that place really appeals. And I told him, and I've run into this a few times, there are people out there who say, I straight up came to Texas Tech for the money. That's what got me here. Then when I got here, I realized, wow, I actually love this place. I thought I was going here because I was getting paid, and I did. But it turns out I could see living here. I've heard several of those kinds of testimonials, and it tracks with me because I love going out there. But where we hadn't been that we went the next day is the University of New Mexico. In fact, I had never been to the state of New Mexico. So we didn't fly. We chose to drive from Lubbock to Albuquerque, and we loaded up in our Chevy Traverse via Enterprise and we headed right through Clovis and right through Vaughan and right through thunderstorms and all the way to Albuquerque and hung out with Jason Eck a little bit the night before. Hat tip, Kimberly Eck and the fine other members of the Eck family. We appreciated meeting all them. And Gucci, two weeks old Jesse, brand new English bulldog. I saw him all the time growing up in the state of Georgia, but they got him in New Mexico as well. Great collar on that dog. Great collar. But that's not what we put on camera. What we did put on camera was a guy that I talked about three years ago and then especially two years ago on this show as being a guy that we had circled in red Sharpie. I think those were my exact words. And I said, look out for this guy. I get tons of really good feedback about him from people who don't know each other. They're independently giving me the same feedback. And this Jason Eck guy, man, he knows his stuff. He's really good. And so I bought all the Jason Eck stock, like two years ago. And we were trying to find a way to get out there to see him. And we finally did. Again, this whole sit down is on the YouTube channel. Here is a small peek at our conversation with him, I. I assume most people watching this right now can identify with having self doubt or at least uncertainty about self and someone you respect showing more belief in you than you have in yourself, or maybe claiming they see something in you that you don't see in yourself at that time. Because you never forget those people. No, you never forget those moments.
- [65:19]
Jason Eck
No question. And I've seen the power of that, the power of building belief in people. And I think that's maybe one of the best things I do as a head coach, is get. Get people to believe, even though, you know, it might not be a, you know, rational thought to say, we can go compete with Oregon when you're in FCS school, or you can beat UCLA when you're, you know, you've been playing football here 100 years and you've never beat a Big Ten team. But when you build that belief in getting them in that right mindset, special things can happen.
- [65:46]
Josh Pate
That is not a teal pullover. That is a turquoise pullover. And anyone who says it's teal is an idiot. I found out because I labeled it teal, and it's not teal. It is turquoise. There's a very, very special meaning behind the color turquoise as it relates to New Mexico football. That was really, really fun. Okay? And I also want to remind everyone, you know, sometimes people who don't know our show very well, they say, oh, man, you just cover the big two leagues. No, we don't. No, we don't. But here's what I will assume. Everybody who yells for us to talk about the G6 more, everybody who demands more G6 content, I'm going to safely assume that you and every member of your family has already clicked on that full sit down today. Right? Certainly no one ran their mouth about our programming here, but failed to watch it when we provided the programming you asked for. Surely that's not happening. So there was one negative from our trip to New Mexico. I got a speeding ticket. For the first time in speaker series history, I got a speeding ticket. Not a bad one. Not a bad one at all. And I credit the cooperation, for lack of a better term, with the fine state patrolman there in the state of New Mexico. Very affordable ticket, as tickets go. One of the more affordable in the modern era. But there is absolutely nothing for vast stretches of New Mexico. And I cannot tell you how much I loved it, because at the end of the day, people will let you down, okay? But scenery never will. And if you want some time to yourself, if you just want to sit in isolation and think this right here is it for me. It's a long drive, so you probably need a helicopter. You know, if you're going to do business in a lot of places, you probably have to be able to get somewhere pretty quick. But I could see myself out here, Jesse. I could see it. Prez came with us and I told him several times, prez, this may be it for me if we're looking to move studios, if we're looking to relocate, if Nashville's just not doing it for us anymore. I could see it. I could see it. I loved it, man. I love Casey Musgraves has got a new song, Middle of Nowhere, and it was just playing in my head on repeat as we were driving through vast stretches of New Mexico desert. I loved it. Would would go again. We had a couple of questions recently that were submitted to the show via the FanDuel Discord. And because you submitted your questions via the FanDuel Discord channel, you guys got, what was it, $100 a piece, right? Jesse? $100 in bonus bets just dropped in your account for doing nothing more than asking questions to the show in the FanDuel Discord. So if you don't believe me, well, there's the QR code or you can just go over to the FanDuel Discord. Most of you guys know how to get there and you can ask questions through there. Also, you could just go to FanDuel and look at the over under win total for Ole Miss football this year. You could do all of these things on FanDuel. They are the exclusive odds provider of the show. A lot of markets over there already. A lot more markets will begin to appear as the season draws closer.
- [69:03]
FanDuel Advertiser
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- [69:47]
Josh Pate
All right, we Wrap the show tonight with none other than bold predictions. Bold prediction time on this show means me saying nothing except reacting to your bold predictions. And what you're trying to do here is be bold enough that it scores nine and a half or higher on the boldness scale. Because if you're a 9.5 or higher and the prediction hits, you get a chalice of supremacy at the end of the year. Prediction number one on tonight's show, at least Joshua hits us up and says Ohio State and Oregon play each other three times. Regular season, Big Ten title game, national title game. Hmm. That gets a nine and a half for me. I don't know about you. That gets a nine and a half from me. So one of them is guaranteed they're going to play in the regular season. Then you got to have them play in the Big Ten championship game, obviously. So first question that comes to mind is where is Indiana? Did Penn State, via a softer schedule, screw it up and make it to Indianapolis? Did we keep Michigan out of the Big Ten title game? So that has to go, right. The loser of the regular season game can't really afford to be losing any more conference games, so we got to have that go right. That's happened before, though. But then to play in the national title game. Okay, then we got to ask ourselves, first off, does the winner and the loser of the Big Ten title game both make it? Probably so. Does the committee set them up on opposite sides of the bracket and do they both make it all the way through the bracket? And those three things combined make it very difficult. So I'm going to say a nine and a half on the boldness scale. Next up, this one. Not as bold as it sounds. Someone. I'm not going to say that full name. I don't even know how to pronounce it. But in Grapevine, Texas said Brigham Young, undefeated in the regular season. 120 regular season. Well, that's only a nine for me. I'm really high on Brigham Young this year. They were 11 and one last year and they don't have Texas Tech on the schedule this year. However, they do have Notre Dame on the schedule, but they get Notre Dame at home. So no Texas Tech. Notre Dame at home. They do go to Utah. They do have a bottom 10 strength of schedule according to our in house metrics. And whether you agree with that or think they've got a bottom 25, they got a schedule that's workable. That's what they have. They got a very experienced team. Bear Bochmire back at quarterback. They have got a top 20 overall returning production. They got a really, really solid defense here. I think that this is in the cards and so I'm only going to make it a nine. It's very hard to go undefeated, but this is not something that would just totally shock me if it happened. Next up, this one would. This is a good prediction here. Chris from Crown Point, Indiana. Originally he's from Crown Point. Now he's in Tomball, Texas. He says Arch Manning is not going to finish the season as the starter at Texas and not because of injury. So break that down, not process that. Arch Manning is going to get benched this year, is what he's saying. And if that happens and it's not due to injury, if there's a point in this season where Steve Sarkeesian just steps up and says, hey, everyone, we're making a change at quarterback. K.J. lacy is our starter now. We want to thank Arch for his contributions. He's not hurt. He's just not good enough to be our quarterback. I got a real hard time seeing that because I expect a big jump in production from him this year. I thought the Michigan game was really big for him. Side note, the Michigan, Texas bowl game was better than most of the playoff games last year. Saying a lot for a meaningless game there. Shocker. Yeah. So this is not going to happen, or at least I don't think so. I'm going to make it a 9.75. That's how surprised I would be at that. Lastly, now, I want you to pay close attention if you're thinking about submitting a bold prediction. Cautionary tale here. Biased Vol From Morristown, Tennessee. My boldest prediction is the national champion will be a program who has not won the title in the past 15 years. This is what Meemaw would call fortune cookie stuff. This is bumper sticker stuff. This is stuff that sounds good but doesn't stand up under the weight of closer inspection because this sounds bold. Someone who hadn't won the title in the last decade and a half is going to win the title. Well, that's great and all except that Notre Dame and Texas and Oregon fit that description. And those are three of the top five teams. And the odds to win it all. This year, it gets even worse. Miami and A and M and Ole Miss also fit that description. Those teams are in the top 10 in the odds to win it all. It gets worse. Texas Tech, Oklahoma and USC fit that description. And they're all in the top 15 in the odds to win it all. So this is not bold. It's a six. Is that a little bit of a punishment? Yes, it is. I appreciate the submission immunity. We appreciate submission. However, this is not bold. This is not bold. If Oregon wins the national title, if Notre Dame, my post spring number one team in the country, wins the national title. Is that shocking? Is it shocking if Miami wins the national title? Texas? Of course not. In fact, Jesse, I wouldn't even be shocked if we had a national title game featuring two teams playing each other that haven't won the title in the past 15 years. Let me take it a step further. Irresponsibly, unnecessarily, I may end up predicting a national title game matchup that features teams that have been 15 plus years since they've won it all. So yeah, that's a six. We don't even normally go below an eight. But I wanted that in the batch so that I could make sure you guys understand it can't just sound bold. It's gotta be bold. And with that, we wrap up the show 13 minutes behind schedule. Appreciate you so much. We'll be back Sunday night. Make sure you check out that speaker series content. Those are two really good sit downs we did with Joey McGuire and Jason Eck until Sunday night. For producer Jesse, for director Bradley, the entire crew, I'm Josh Pate. Take care. Have a great weekend and God bless.
- [76:28]
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- [77:12]
Josh Pate
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [77:14]
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