Pate offers thoughts on potential changes coming to College Football Playoff

Spring ball is a little less than two months away as Tommy Moffitt leads the charge behind Texas A&M's strength and conditioning program. College football analyst Josh Pate joined Tuesday's edition of TexAgs Live to offer thoughts on a handful of offseason topics. 

Key notes from Josh Pate inteview

• A lot of people, not just in College Station but where I'm from Nashville, are in a situation where you can see spring practice around the corner. But also, the forecast says snow in the next 24-48 hours. I'm working my way through it but I need this conversation.
   
• When we were together for the Missouri game, I went into the weight room, and Tommy Moffitt was in there, and he's done it for like 100 years. He talked about the situation Mike Elko put him in, and he said, "I think I like this moment in time more than any moment in my career.” It made me go, “Really?" You'd think that a guy with that much length on his resume has better days somewhere, but maybe your best days are these days.
   
• You always have strength and conditioning, nutrition and sports psychology. They are all connected like train cars to the engine of a head coach's philosophy and vision. Elko's vision and philosophy are the beauty, but also, the struggle is not just a quick fix.
   
• You should expect what Curt Cignetti did in Indiana. Not that he's quick fixing and taking shortcuts, not that it happened immediately, but he got there. If you believe in Elko's vision, which I do, you have to believe that year one will start to get an inking of it. In year two, you'll see it start to set in. In year three, you see that there is no remnant from the past. This is the whole thumbprint of Mike Elko
   
• I can give you what my expectation is, but I'll look at you by November. First off, this feels better than what we saw in September a couple of months ago, but it feels markedly different than what we saw the previous year. I could win a couple of three-point games, and my record swings from 8-10 wins. I always struggle with the concept of what an acceptable win-loss record is, but I don't know because I haven't seen the team play yet.
   
• It depends on what your goal is. Suppose your goal is to make the playoffs. It makes more sense to be in a G5 league if that's your goal. Now, you'll never convince me that those teams can win a national championship.
   
• My whole run with this concept is what success is. I'm not a college basketball guy when it comes to college football. In college basketball, there is this understanding: There are a lot of guys out there who can't win a national title, but we celebrate that they made the NCAA Tournament.
   
• I don't celebrate someone making the statement that “no matter what else happens, they made it, and it's done.” That is not how I felt about Arizona State or SMU. To make this thing, I ought to believe you can win the thing. Arizona State took Texas to overtime, and they had two more games to win even after that. SMU ditto. If you want to win the whole thing, you better be resourced like their big boys are. Missouri doesn't match Georgia or Alabama. They get the same money, and that's what gives you the ability to compete.
   
• If I am in an advanced class, and I am making C+ to a B-, and you're in a remedial class making an A-, we can either blindly look at the paper and say that David's grades are better than mine, and if I were in the class you were in I would probably be matching or exceeding. You're arguing for the little guy. It's almost like you bend the truth because you're able to. Because you can say so and so has had a better record than another team. I can plausibly get away with saying this. What you're talking about is more rearview than windshield.
   
• I've never been a playoff guy. I love the focus that's on it. No matter what kind of argument you make to me, you will not convince me that restructuring the postseason hasn't taken something away from the regular season. It hasn't taken everything away, but still. Given where we are, knowing it can't go backward, I like the model of their pitch, not the one they have.
   
• I think the guaranteed auto bid structure is important because it focuses on the conference, beefing it up. After all, people aren't scared that their win-loss record will be a factor in making the playoff. I like this method more.
   
• We still have the bowls now. It's not like they don't exist. The spirit of bowl season has taken a pretty big hit. What frustrates me is that there is this crowd that always says they have meaningless bowl games. Like they're speaking for everyone, but they're not speaking for me. I never thought they were pointless.
   
• Going back to the random 1973 Citrus Bowl, watch the level of play and the intensity on the field. It is like a regular game. There was nothing baked into your DNA saying you'd take bowl seasons seriously. It was understood. It's understood that we take things seriously legally.
   
• It was only very recently that the phrases “meaningless game” or “meaningless bowl” came around, and it coincides with playoff culture and anything not having to do with the playoff being meaningless. I heard the Week 1 theory you've talked about, and there's merit to that. It's not perfect, but perfection would be going back in time, and we can't do that.
   
• Its program ranking has nothing to do with the team and absolutely nothing to do with what I expect for the coming year. The program, the way I rank, is a rolling four-year snapshot. I'm judging win-loss record, on-field results, talent, acquisition, leaning disproportionally recruiting, I'm judging the research pool, and I'm judging program stability. A&M has been average in record portion, decent in talent acquisition and program stability-wise. We had a coaching change. And resource pool is, you know, I think I had them at eight.
   
• Well, they are making a mistake by sleeping on Marcel Reed. You have a very recent bias. It's why I take bowl outcomes so seriously. With Reed, had he and A&M ended the season red-hot, and if A&M had to have beaten Texas late in the year, it's all people would be talking about. With DJ Lagway, it's in the subconscious of what they've seen so far and what his ceiling is. They see far and beyond how they see Marcel Reed.
   
• You have to ignore that if you're going to accurately judge or have an accurate feel for the country, the conference and a bunch of teams comparatively. You can have a highlight reel in your head, but that's not football. You better have something algorithmic that doesn't get caught up in that. You find out why.
   
• Vegas wins 96 percent of the time. Why do review magazines get thrown in the fireplace every year? Why do predictions go up in flames by halftime of Week 1 every year? Sports are already almost impossible to predict. The whole “you are what your record says you are” thing. It's fair to judge teams based on a win-loss record, but a perception can be wildly off. Whether you win a couple of three-point games,, and I lose a couple of three-point games, we may be the same caliber team predictably, but it all depends on what you care about.
   
• If all you need is a record, then that's all you care about. You don't only care about highlighting culture. If you look at last year, it makes it impossible to predict that this year, 47 different factors are changing.
   
• A lot of this new world, anyone not familiar, go read Ross Dellenger’s report over the last several weeks. He talked about the structure coming up and the control of the SEC. He also put on a really good read about a new governance model where they take matters into their own hands, solid enforcement and rule structure. I think what the portal looks like will be contingent on that. A lot of it has to be included in one scope. I believe they are banking on being able to control that futuristic world. They want to control it all, and the question is, will they have it?