Josh Pate breaks down the effects of Tennessee, Iamaleava breakup

After Tennessee moved on from Nico Iamaleava because of failed NIL negotiations, college football analyst Josh Pate joined us on Tuesday's edition of TexAgs Live to give some insight into the contract decision and what it could mean for the future of the sport.

Key notes from Josh Pate interview

• I didn't know that the second week of April was going to be a hot button for college football. I figured we would be talking about what Rory McIlroy did at the Masters. He won it, and congrats to him.
   
• You could be in the middle of the season right now, and the Nico Lamaleava stuff would be one of the higher topics. It's really transcendent to college football and a hot topic in the sporting world.
   
• You are talking about collateral damage. If one thing happens to one, but the damage happens to the whole thing, that's basic collateral damage theory. The last two times we spoke, we went down this road in some form, and I will again. I have stopped caring about every individual in this whole deal. Any opinion I have is in the best interest of college football.
   
• I was trying to be as forceful as I could and shut my mouth for hours, but then I went on a show Sunday night and talked about it. A lot of people were of the opinion that this is a tipping point that will substantially move the needle. I said what I said. Then, it got echoed Monday by the college football system and beyond. I feel like this may not be a justification for people who are a little upset about the state of college football. We have those six or seven times a year, but this is one of those times where someone who would be checking out in April says, “What's happening over there in college football?”
   
• Ross Dellenger’s article got lost in the noise of the Iamaleava and Tennessee stuff, but he wrote an article saying lawmakers, in a bipartisan nature, have been as close as they have ever been to getting some kind of limited antitrust exemption for college sports. Anyone rolling their eyes right now should be. There's no point where federal exemption should be the only hope left for college football. I can't hit the rewind button, so given we are where we are right now, I found that interesting. I can't imagine the impact or fire it lit under some seats.
   
• If they did, you and I would love that, but some lawyer could look in and say, “We are restricting movement.” The point is that what we are doing is solved, as rough a term as solved can be these days. If anyone out there has a life and is not following this stuff, they are aiming for limited antitrust exemption. That means we've got some rules we would like to have in college sports, but we can't make them because we don't have the legal power to enforce them. Players aren’t moving constantly. You can have transfer portal windows, you can actually absolve NIL being what it is now, which is pay-for-play, and you can police that and get them in trouble instead of threatening to sue.
   
• It's important to note that others are ignorant of the mentality about this stuff. Someone in the core will say you'll still catch this fall. It's two-fold here. First, the Mississippi River metaphor: If you live in New Orleans, and I live in St. Louis, you're not planning to go to New Orleans overnight. It takes time to see the effects. That's how it is in college football. They aren’t cratering overnight. No one's suggesting that everyone in totality would stop watching. Think about it from the standpoint of what we are arguing right now. It's their slice of the revenue pie. One thing it assumes is that the pie is fixed. The pie is always going to be pie. It's just figuring out how big our slice is going to be. But when you look, and it's halfway as full as it used to be, you ask where it's all going.
   
• The thing about younger members of generations is that 10-year-olds right now will be decision-making adults in a decade or less. If they are football fans, they have ingrained in them what's good about the sport. They have to be taught and have to be able to observe for themselves what makes college football great. You can't just lie to a kid. They see through it. You tell a story about who it used to be, and they just don't see that. I don't think any of this is irreversible. If you have the right people in the room, you can course correct this in a year with a handful of decisions. If you think we handled this the right way, think about the cape those people would wear for the rest of eternity as the people who saved college football.
   
• Of course, the Iamaleavas misread it. They did back in December. There are many pitfalls to your dad representing you. Drew Rosenhaus could represent his son because he is a professional certified agent and could probably remove the emotion. But dad is first, agent second. Emotions are involved. He was a former highly-rated quarterback, so they assumed he'd get paid. They reached out hypothetically, and I'm sure they got hypothetical feedback they probably didn't think Iamaleava was ever going to be on the market.
   
• It was known all the while that Iamaleava was going to the highest bidder. Then, he got to Tennessee. He and his campaign acted in accordance with how someone for sale would act. But if you're going to the highest bidder, it's still rolling the dice on the production part. You come with baggage. They are taking a risky asset, one that may not pan out as originally planned. Could he not play this year? Sign with someone and sit out?
   
• From an opposing quarterback perspective, Texas A&M has a high-risk, higher-reward type of lineup. If you look at these names and how they're panning out, sellers are at the high end, but they haven't been mentioned. You start to ask from the A&M standpoint that there's a variable there. Everyone says the same thing about Marcel Reed. If you combine that and say Reed gives B-plus play, you would have a moderately surprising team.
   
• If we play this hypothetical world where we are guaranteed that Reed’s floor is relatively here, Mike Elko isn't building the roster to be quarterback-centric. Reed's got to ball out. That's not the case. You give me B to B-plus level play, and the team is built around you. There's not a game you feel inferior in this entire slate.