Late Kick's Josh Pate discusses what makes the Texas A&M job 'elite'

Host of the Late Kick Podcast, Josh Pate joined Tuesday's edition of TexAgs Radio to chat about the recent pandemonium in Aggieland and what could be next for the Texas A&M football program following Sunday's dismissal of Jimbo Fisher.

Key notes from Josh Pate interview

• I have found, and we have talked about this privately, that not everybody who covers college football loves college football. Those are the ones that tend not to be talkative. That's not us, though.
   
• Let's set this entire scene. I have thought for a long time that A&M is one of the best jobs in the country. You cannot have a rational conversation with much of the college football community about that because they do not possess the ability to decipher between program and job. A&M having a lot of money makes it a good job. The difference between the big boys with great programs and A&M is that they haven't made the right hire.
   
• I grew up in Georgia, so people said that about Georgia. They had a lot of money, but they didn't know how to win. People would say it would never be a winner, but then they hired Kirby Smart. All of a sudden, those people who said that disappeared. What if A&M had hired Smart? There is no doubt in my mind that they'd be doing the same thing that is currently happening in Athens. This opinion is not "out there." To me, it is radical to say that A&M is not an elite job.
   
• Where is the program? It had talent acquisition figured out from a recruiting standpoint. It has the resources. It's not a complete three-year rebuild. It can be an immediate contender for the right guy. Whoever gets the A&M job is right on par with what Ryan Day got at Ohio State.
   
• I praised the Jimbo Fisher hire. Everybody is a genius after the play or after the hire. I've been on the TexAgs board. People are saying this decision should have been made one or two years ago. That's not reasonable. In a no-consequence environment, sure. That's not the world we live in. I praised the hire, but it ran its course. At Clemson, they might be having the same conversation soon, but Dabo Swinney won two titles. There was an inability or unwillingness to change at A&M under Fisher. There is some of that at Clemson. This is not a theme that was born at A&M, and we'll see it again in college football.
   
• There is not a sure-fire guy. Dan Lanning would be that, but I don't think Lanning is coming to A&M. Everybody gets drunk on the reward, and you totally turn your back on the reward. Lanning is low-risk, high-reward. You cannot have Jon Sumrall at Troy on the list. He doesn't have enough miles on him. He could be a rockstar down the road. Glenn Schumann knows the Alabama and Georgia ways. There are things that set him apart. Down the road, he could be a rockstar. At A&M, you don't have to take large risks like Mississippi State or Arkansas will. Across the landscape, there are not a lot of low-risk candidates. The guys out west are blindspots for me because I don't know much about them personally. I don't know where the slam-dunk candidate is, even if you print money. It's not that easy.
   
• It's important to make a quick hire. Down the road, you probably cannot tell me the day that Kirby Smart took the job at Georgia because he built a winner. I'd rather hire the right guy in January than the wrong guy in December. It's not the end of the world if you don't have a guy in early signing day or beyond.
   
• The Mississippi State game reeked of playing with no consequences. It was like how you act on the last day of school. If I didn't know better, I could have sworn that Fisher had been told Friday. Apparently, that wasn't the case. There is a line of thinking that this makes A&M look bad because they fired a coach after winning 51-10. I think it makes them look good because they held firm in their decision. Remember when LSU waffled on Ed Orgeron, and they ultimately let him stay a year too long?
   
• There is a juice between A&M and LSU. In the grand scheme of things, this game does not matter. You can go back to when Alabama hired Nick Saban. None of Shula's success mattered. They went 7-6 in Saban's first year, but none of that mattered because they were building a winner. Make sure you're tracking in the right direction. If you're in the process of hiring the right guy but lose to LSU by 30, it sucks on that day. Two years from now, if you're in the conversation for the college football playoff, nobody is going to care what happened at the end of 2023.
   
• I could see Jimbo Fisher coaching again, but I'm not sure it would be major college football. What if a G5 program wanted a coach with experience? I could see that. Remember, for most of these coaches, how much they make is not what fuels them. They are fueled by competition.
   
• I would not consider Lane Kiffin at A&M because I don't think I need to take any kind of risk. People are going to care about Kiffin's past, and I do not know how much that would matter to A&M. Kiffin has figured somethings out. They might be a little ahead of the curve on NIL in ways you don't have to at A&M. I would be 60/40 on any given day with A&M hiring Kiffin, but it would depend on the other candidates in the conversation.