Pate identifies key weaknesses for a handful of teams, including A&M

College football analyst Josh Pate joins us on Tuesday's edition of TexAgs Live to discuss the likelihood of a 9-3 SEC team making it to Atlanta. Pate also identified weaknesses for five key teams, including A&M, and provided updates on Rahsul Faison's eligibility at South Carolina.

Key notes from Josh Pate interview

• I put the over under at 1.5 that a three-loss team makes the playoffs this year. I promptly took that over.
   
• We used to do “max day” in weight training. You go from benching 135 to 205 pounds. Can I get three plates? There was a kid who had never touched weights before. He got in a training program, and his max started going up pretty quickly. He was competing. Let's say we have Jeff and Andy, and Jeff is weaker than Andy, but there are three max days. Then he passes Andy, but he is so insecure and has an inferiority complex towards Andy. He mentions him in every other sentence. What you come to find out is that results can’t cure an inferiority complex. It was so stupid. It wasn't just the Big Ten. I love Rhett Lashlee. He made a ridiculously unfounded logic point at ACC’s media days. With Curt Cignetti, Indiana’s schedule is terrible. Everyone knows a quarter of the country would've navigated their schedule and flirted with a playoff spot last year. It's this bad faith and misdirection.
   
• The SEC was guilty of it, too. I heard some terrible stuff down in Atlanta. It just reeks of someone who thinks their audience is five years old. But they were allegedly adults. I wish someone would just shoot straight.
   
• The person I appreciated the most was Eli Drinkwitz. He did not look for a sign-off on statements or look to Birmingham. At that point, I don't care if I agree with him or not. I agreed with some of it, but at least it wasn't filtered. No one died. No one got arrested. It is still OK to live in that world.
   
• Everyone should be focused on the football season, but if you're sadistic enough to be focused on expansion and realignment over the game itself, 2030 is where you want to focus your attention. That's the edge of the cliff. If a sizable change happens, it happens then. That's when the contracts are up. I think the moves will be announced well before then. I think it was announced two years ahead of time for Texas and Oklahoma. Whether it's Miami/North Carolina or Virginia/Virginia Tech, I think they're going by that 2030 window. Your guess is just as good as my guess, as a university president's guess or a conference commissioner’s guess. I don’t think there’s any skill in predicting that. There’s guided knowledge in predicting something coming since that smoke doesn't blow from nothing.
   
• It's completely valid to be concerned about DJ Lagway. The concept of being injury-prone, we've seen it with a million players before. If that's a tag given to him, then it'll be a problem. I don't doubt he's not working hard. They have some of the best people from a medical and nutritional standpoint in Florida. If you're an injury-prone guy, you're an injury-prone guy. To anyone who says I'm not worried, it's a defense mechanism. Really? You're not worried at all that your QB missed spring? I don't care if he missed 48 hours of it. You're telling me he won't have any health issues the rest of the season? I'm a little worried about it.
   
• I think sometimes there's a misconception when a kid is left twisting in the wind, and the NCAA is sitting there with it on their desk. I'm not here to absolve the NCAA. We've both gone around the merry-go-round several times when it comes to the ineffectiveness of the organization. This isn't on them. There were a lot of people who didn't help Rahsul Faison. I'm not talking about Indiana or South Carolina, but you have to be careful when you put your circle together and when you decide who's going to represent you. I am not shocked that it has taken as long as it's taken. If the truth comes out, I think you'll find it wasn't a situation where it was filed, then six months go by. It may be more of, “Oh, something was filed. Oh, we have to file it a different way,” than the same thing, and the papers have only been on the NCAA’s plate for a few weeks. I hope Faison gets cleared, but it hasn't been a situation where he's twisting in the wind and the NCAA is taking their sweet time with their feet on the beach. The validity of the appeal...the likelihood it gets approved, I don't know anything about that, but the application being done properly, the stopwatch has started much more recently than the public has been led to believe. They've been led to believe it's been running for six months, and as I understand it, the way it needed to be applied for wasn't done until recently.
   
• Florida State, from an intangible standpoint, it’s leadership. From a tangible standpoint, I'd worry about effectiveness on third-downs on both sides. The line of scrimmage is a strength for them. I think it’s just in the kind of games they'll play. Their third-down effectiveness, if they get bit, it’s something that can bite them.
   
• Penn State made some moves in the portal to try and upgrade their receiving corps. They firmly believe they have difference makers in the room now. If they have that, they can win the national title. They could be that good because they've already been that close. If they are more dynamic when throwing the ball, that'll be a good thing. Since we haven't seen it, I think it's fair to question it.
   
• For LSU, cohesion early, commitment to running the ball and effectiveness running the ball are all weaknesses. I mention them separately because if you don't commit to running it, it doesn't matter. Alabama and LSU both fell well short of expectations and standards for running the ball.
   
• I believe Texas has the personnel on the defensive line, but when you backfill on the defensive line two years in a row, I always label that a question. Run-stopping ability, if I have to label a question, I’d name that the question. Notice how I haven't mentioned any quarterbacks.
   
• Clemson is kind of the same thing as Ohio State. Do you remember the Louisville game? They went in and got smoked by Louisville. They had their way with them on the ground. A lot of those same characters are being counted on to be part of a pretty ferocious defense. They look at the tiger paw and get amnesia from 10 years ago. They go, “We have Tom Allen. We’ll be fine. We have some NFL guys.” Is Clemson in a situation where they need 17 to win or 37 to win? Now they could probably do either. I just think about the overall caliber of defense they'll play. I wonder if they play up to standard or if it’s a more situational opportunistic type defense where they go play, we’re going to need 35, it’s just the way the game will be.
   
• With Texas A&M, the concern was this: Can Marcel Reed string together more consistent periods of play like the LSU game? If he doesn't, they can still win, but the margin for error is so razor-thin. Whereas, if the dynamics he can have as a passer come a little further, you give yourself more rope and be able to screw up and make up for it. Call it a concern or a question, whatever. Then the other one obviously will make the quantum leap on defense with Elko, that'd be a 1A, 1B for me. 
   
• I still would be surprised if Beau Pribula and Sam Horn split the starting role. Short of that kid completely mailing in his summer program, or him being injured. I'd be extremely surprised if, past the first game of the season, he's not the starter.
   
• I think a coach who we will change our opinion of is Kalen DeBoer at Alabama. That would be my SEC guy. Actually, Mike Elko is the answer. I'm not just saying that because I'm on TexAgs. People don't think as highly of Elko. They will at the end of the year. I'd stay in Texas for my national guy. Dave Aranda, I think, will have a massive bounce-back perception of Baylor. I think they could actually be in the Big 12 title game the closer I look.