Josh Pate details why Kyle Field is No. 11 on his 12 toughest places to play

College football analyst Josh Pate joined us on Tuesday's edition of TexAgs Live to defend his top 12 toughest places to play, which placed Texas A&M at No. 11. Pate recapped his experience in stadiums across the country before highlighting the importance of rivalry games.

Key notes from Josh Pate interview

• For the toughest places to play, I applied my experience. The ones that I have never visited that I couldn’t put on there were Iowa, Nebraska and Wisconsin. You hear some degree of really good things about them.
   
• I went to two A&M games last year. The Missouri game was a blowout where the second half wasn’t competitive. The Texas game was… I don't know how you felt about the game. There was a weird longing to spark the offense. When A&M had the pick in the second half, that was probably as electric as their place the whole time. It’s not that it was ever over until it was over. You didn’t have that back-and-forth where you take it in the endzone going back and forth.
   
• I have yet to experience Kyle Field the way I know it probably is. The way you upset Alabama, I have been able to see it on TV but not feel it. I have been in Neyland Stadium the last two times they upset Alabama. The first time they did it was the first time in 15 years. I’ve experienced Neyland and Tiger Stadium at their best. The only Clemson game I’ve been to was a season opener against A&M. I think the kickoff temperature was like 138 degrees. There was probably a level up if it’s a night game at Tiger Stadium.
   
• What I was doing was in response to the EA Sports thing. It had Georgia at No. 3, and Neyland wasn’t on it. I have been in both stadiums for big games, but Neyland is a level above Sanford Stadium. What they were taking into account was winning games at home. As long as Georgia is playing at home, it's going to be hard to beat them. They can turn a Publix parking lot into the toughest place to play in college football. As long as Georgia is playing there, it's going to be hard to beat them in a parking lot because it’s Georgia.
   
• You've got to have a good team in the mix, but I was going off of the pure atmosphere I’ve been in. I don’t mind phrasing it as a magical place to play for A&M. Some places, I don’t know how to quantify it. It’s just loud. It’s a big college football stadium. Do you ever feel this? When you’re watching a game, and you’re saying it feels like this game is being played on the moon. I always used to turn on Kansas State, Iowa State and Manhattan College. I’m watching these places, and I know they're not that big. But it looks like those places are in Russia. I think in the SEC, the place that does that the best is A&M. The game day and in-stadium vibe is because of the unique culture and traditions. You can close your eyes and listen to an A&M game. You know immediately it’s Texas A&M. It almost sounds like a European soccer game. I do think there’s a lot of merit to that.
   
• I just did a segment where a guy asked me if there’s still immense pressure on Ryan Day because they haven’t beaten Michigan in four years. I probably went 15 minutes explaining my worldview of college football. To me, what makes college football great is that it is not like any other sport. In the NFL, it doesn’t matter if you lose to your divisional rival 10 times in a row. If you mix some Super Bowls in, no one cares.
   
• In college football, if you’re the head coach at Ohio State, you have to beat Michigan and win your rival game. Then you can win the Big 10 or national championship. People think it's backwards logic. No, it's unique to think the way you think because that’s only happened in the past 10 years. The previous 100 years are in line with what I’m talking about. I believe in the tradition of college football. I also don’t believe the playoffs should be as big as it is. If you’re trying to introduce a rule and add some randomness, you need to emphasize rivalry games above anything else. I'd be all for it. I don’t know how we would sell it, but I wouldn’t mind that at all because the playoffs aren’t as important to me. It’s the rival games that are important for me.
   
• I think it's relative to college football. Rivalry games mean way more than the All-Star Game ever meant to baseball. I know how incredible the All-Star Game used to be, but we're talking about college football, where the lore and tradition of rivalry games are more important than the All-Star Game ever was.
   
• Last year was one of the nightmare scenarios. Ohio State lost its rivalry game but still won a national championship. I can speak for myself. In the one-year sample size, I thought it was the end of the world for Ohio State. This ship is dead in the water, is how I felt about it.
   
• I always want my opponents to be undefeated when we play them. Your performance should be your performance. I think back to last year, Notre Dame got humiliated by Northern Illinois. You shouldn’t need that, but if they go out in Week 1 and lose to Miami, it’s not quite desperation mode. But the reality of the trade-off is that we are thinking you have a three-game season. The big ones are at Miami, Texas A&M and USC at home. You have to win both of the big games, or you put your hands in the faith of the committee. If Miami wins and Carson Beck plays good enough, what does CJ Carr do?. Let’s say Miami runs the ball more effectively than you think they should. How much does that make you salivate as A&M, knowing what your ground game could do? That's the beauty of the season. It goes from theoretical to you actually getting your eyes on results instead of just guessing like everyone else is right now.
   
• I think DJ Lagway is going to go off this year. In retrospect, he'll be in that conversation. I don’t think it's fair if you don’t have him at the forefront in the preseason. I have an opinion on him, but even mine is based on what I think will happen. Jeremiyah Love is there, though. They won't put the weight of the offense on him. Notre Dame has good pass catchers this year. It’s not like you’re loading the box on him all year.
   
• Cam Newton was like an alien, and who was your second favorite player on that team? It was Nick Fairley on the defense. Newton had to carry the offense. It could be that we get to Halloween and South Carolina is in the thick of the race. It’ll be because LaNorris Sellers is carrying them. They don’t even know if their best tailback will be eligible this year. That’s not even talking about the defensive backs that went to the NFL last year. They recruit pretty good, that’s as far as I'll go. They aren’t an automatic reload of a program, but Sellers covers it up because he’s good.
   
• I agree with you, seeing it in my own data. I don’t know when I haven’t done a full recruiting segment on my show. I’ve done 500 transfer segments because people click on them. You can’t get people to click on recruiting videos anymore. It’s because of the nature of the sport and how volatile the churn of the portal was, because people spoke about how it doesn’t matter. Even if they did mean something, it's all a bidding war. I know it turned me off, and it's turned a lot of other people off. If I’m the better fit for him, $25,000 isn’t going to swing the hammer, and he goes to you for transactional purposes.
   
• It goes back to who creates the best relationships, who gets out on the road and busts their tail, who has the best official visit, who has the best presentation and fit for the kid. That used to matter. Now, I think the volume has been turned down. The next order of business is to see how busy or not busy the portal is.