CBS Sports' Josh Pate joins TexAgs Live in midst of 'accordion season'

Fresh off his honeymoon vacation, newlywed Josh Pate is feeling relaxed during "accordion season." The college football analyst joined Tuesday's edition of TexAgs Live to discuss a handful of offseason topics, including revenue sharing and guidelines of the House settlement.

Key notes from Josh Pate interview

• A week ago at this time everyone was freaking out on the biggest day in college athletics. Imagine swinging on a hammock occasionally while checking your phone.
   
• Yeah, I had no idea what to expect. I came to CBS in January of 2020. I haven't been gone a single day, and when you cover football, I’ve never taken a week away. I didn't know how to handle myself, and some argue I never did. The inclination was there to make sure I was plugged in. I took some business calls in the morning because we are renegotiating deals, as far as putting content out and doing the shots, I was as out as one can be. I always follow the crowd. Never a leader, always a follower.
   
• This is also the time of year when you have deals to negotiate, everyone shapes contracts, and obviously, if you want to add people to staff, this is when people are free to move. This is also when to talk to coaches. From an idea standpoint, whether it's with you guys or me, maybe the big picture changes to add to the studio or go in a different direction in content, this is the time of year to workshop. It is the same in college football. It's accordion season. It’s the time of year to have the ability to have a vacation or change organizational charts. That's the nature of the accordion.
   
• You do a show that has an audience that watches shows, you talk about personal interest and serve the audience, but what if they don’t want to hear about it? How do you format it? This used to not be the case 15-20 years ago. This time of year, the preview magazine would come out. The danger is if it were June, and we picked up “Preview Magazine.” It gets old to say the same thing in four months. We wrestle with our own internal self, and look back when the ball gets kicked off in September. We look at how radically our opinions change and what could have happened. The answer is redundancy, so maybe out of all the negatives and one positive. It's the distraction, the rulings and settlements, if you don't stay focused day to day, who knows? We can nail predictions by focusing less on the sport.
   
• I’ve talked about it on the show. The first time I came back, the House settlement had been passed. What struck me is when I was gone, guys I talked to had the sentiment of going, ”Here goes college football. It's done now.” I say, “What are you talking about? What do you mean you're like me?” We all feel the same way. How is it gone today if you didn’t already think it was gone yesterday? They say, “How can you defend this?” It's not the case. We have a cap and revenue spending now, with NIL guardrails, whether you can enforce them.
   
• The metaphor I use is that Thomasville, Georgia, is an area in South Georgia, and if you grew up in Columbus and drove back to Florida, Thomasville is the worst speed trap. When it says 30 miles an hour, everyone drives that. Everyone has agreed to this new rule.
   
• Every time you hear coaches talk, they all talk the same way. They want rules, structure, to know what the deal is and enforcement. If that's the case, I'm perfectly willing to take your word. What I'm saying is get them on your record and ask everyone to their face, and they'll all nod their head. If it's a consensus, “yes,” then you won’t mind extreme, tough, rigid penalty scripture. I would say I would love to publicly be on the record. When you drop the hammer on their head, they can't push back. I do believe most people want this. It's the usual case if a kid is cheating. You try to get the best grade on the test. I don’t want to cheat, but if one guy is cheating and no one tells, I would get second best. That's how coaches feel, just get it on the record.
   
• Therein lies the crux of my point, get it on the record. If it's behind closed doors, cool. You assume to take them at their word. I assume David Nuño University wants these rules, then OK. Let's get it on the record. Everyone is terrified to have their words used against them. You don’t worry about that. When I get my wedding vows, I'm not nervous because I fully plan on adhering to everything I said. It's the same way with this. The entire third rail is, can you enforce the rules? Period. That's the whole fight in Congress: Can you get the full limited antitrust exemption, and I've been on record, I'm rooting for them to get it. It's not a perfect word. We aren't constructing college athletics. We are well down the road in cleanup mode. When in the yard of a disaster with a neighbour you don’t get along with, you kind of hope for the best.
   
• This is going to be common sense and more unwritten because of the feedback I got at the conference level with the big two. The ideal structure is a tier structure of earning where I enroll at Nuño University. If I'm a scholarship player, there's a guaranteed earning, and it's a basic incentive structure of learning for me to stick around. There’s no rule you have to do that, but an unwritten rule is needed. Let's all be adults and structure our revenue share in a responsible way. It’s the way you should do it and to serve the sport. What happens when there is everyone operates on the same premise? A sophomore earns more than a freshman. You don’t have to have language that makes the portal go away illegal. You would reduce traffic in the portal. It lets guys know they are free to leave, but they give up status and start over as a year-one player. For some guys, it makes sense, but for many, some guys jump to the portal to see what's there. There is a more tangible reason and the downstream effect of guys learning what it means for guys to stick it out.
   
• My thought was that the players be employed by the conference, and you know what I mean. I wanted the revenue share to be structured itself from the league to the individuals. If I'm from A&M and I need a middle linebacker, if it's up to me, I would pay as a third-year player. That probably reduces the roster churn, but not the level I wish. I'm not sure how that would work. If you're Derek Miller and managing payroll, does it make sense for us to implement that practice because he's a redshirt junior? Each department will call that for itself. I would hope for league-wide and sport-wide that the rare expectation to rule. If you have an established name and a guy from A&M deserves starting money, I hope he doesn’t leave his current school. I don't want a guy leaving an established place and saying, “Why would I ever do that?”
   
• My mom was asking me, “What does this mean?” She's a casual fan and watches the games on Saturday. She's a big Tennessee fan, but not following this stuff. She asked what's happening, and her question was saying that beyond the revenue share of any extra money, paying the kids. It's got to go to a Clearinghouse, and someone else will determine their market value. Isn’t market value whatever you can make, and normal world, it is. She said it isn't that illegal? I say, “That's why they need congressional help.” Otherwise, if you don't have limited antitrust expectations, those rules won’t work outside, but it gives Congress the right to. No is not enforceable. Can you imagine being a lawyer figuring out this rule? You can talk about football players and all types of athletes.
   
• I think the Oklahoma roster and much of the team, you can rub the magic eight ball and say Oklahoma gets an A-minus quarterback play that turns into everyone saying, “Oh, we have to play Oklahoma.”
   
• Carson Beck at Miami has the injured wing, and Miami dropped the ball a lot. The public deception is trending down. What if they get A-minus quarterback play? They hired a good defensive coordinator from Florida, and maybe that's where the “boom” happens.