CFB analyst Josh Pate joins TexAgs Live as a Tuesday-morning regular

College football analyst Josh Pate is now a TexAgs Live regular, and he'll join us weekly on Tuesday mornings. Along with Billy Liucci and David Nuño, Pate ran down a number of offseason storylines from around the country, ranging from portal craziness to QBs in the SEC.

Key notes from Josh Pate interview

• Nuño, how far down can you button that yellow shirt? Can we go all the way down to the naval cleavage? Is this the time of year when you aren't worried about tan lines? Who am I to question someone's fashion?
   
• By the way, I don't want to talk for the Cuban people, but how are you looked on by your fellow man when you reveal something like that? Nuño is the Cuban Chameleon.
   
• I'll always go with a team like South Carolina. They lost a few games, and you have people over there saying, “The skin of our teeth against Alabama. We could have been in the playoffs. The LSU game got robbed from us.” And they're not totally wrong. I think of the other side of the coin.
   
• There is a theory that fans believe that whatever your record was the previous season becomes the starting point for the following season, even though the record says 0-0. Penn State is going to be a victim of that this year. “We were in the semifinal. Everything less than a championship trip is a bust or is a disappointment.” Well, that convinces you that you're starting there, and I don't believe that.
   
• With the SEC, I look at South Carolina, trust but verify, and Tennessee, trust but verify, especially with the potential offensive line issues. Conversely, it would disappoint me if LSU wasn't a playoff team this year. With the lack of continuity returning at the QB position in this sport, you have Garrett Nussmeier, who did what they did out of desperation in the portal. You ought to be one of the 12 teams that make it in. Auburn has to flip the hourglass over this year.
   
• I also don’t think Brian Kelly is totally comfortable with the landscape at LSU right now. We were down there for the Alabama game this year. I was in the building, and I was in the vicinity of his office. He walked out, we talked, and the first sentiment was, “Man, I cannot wait until we reach a point when this makes sense again. When the structure of the program makes sense, it is about developing them and not looking over your shoulder the whole time.” He's just saying the same thing everyone else is, but not every place has the same expectation level as LSU. Most fans haven't seen every single one of their head coaches win a national championship since the turn of the millennium.
   
• I think Kelly feels pressure, but not because he's scared. The only thing worse than fear is uncertainty. You do not handle portal guys like you do in high school. In some cases, you haven't even met them. Think about what kind of crapshoot that is. When your livelihood is on the line, and you just have to spin the roulette wheel? You can stack the odds in your favor in traditional recruiting back in the day. How can you even know what your team is coming out of spring or fall camp now?
   
• Florida State last year was in everyone's top 10 at the beginning of the season. NFL scouts were saying this is one of the most talented teams we've seen. Nick Saban goes on TV and says, "I think that team is right there. They might make the championship.” It's not that they were lying to us. There's just a big difference between ingredients and a meal. The individual pieces and the team are different. You can't know if you have continuity in your team anymore.
   
• There are two classifications of quarterback. One is a guy who can carry a team. They are those Cam Newton alien types. There are actually three. One of them is that he's not good enough, so we don't talk about them. Then there are guys who are good enough. Will Howards was the perfect example of this. He wasn't good enough to win a championship with Kansas State, but if he's plugged into the right system, he can do his job. That is what I'm asking Marcel Reed to do. If he turns into a megastar, that's great, but there is a reason we make documentaries about guys like that. It’s because they are pretty rare.
   
• I don't think Mike Elko is out to build a QB-centric team. If you believe in your ability to stack talent and develop a program, I don't think you want your hopes and dreams to hinge on the healthy ankle or arm of one guy. At Saban's Alabama, there were very few times when one guy went down at the quarterback position, and the entire thing blew up. I want Reed to make marginal improvement, and I want the collective level of the team to make me say, “There's not one individual star that's rising above and beyond, but it feels a little different.”