Josh Pate talks power rankings, important road games across the SEC

Key notes from Josh Pate interview

• Who cares what the others say? I do my own power ratings, and this week, Texas A&M passed Texas. I haven’t thought less of A&M. I look at the product on the field, the ways in which they can win and the multitude of ways they can win. You don’t have to worry about complacency. Another thing is that a lot of people will try to poke holes in Mike Elko and say he’s looking at other jobs. None of it matters as long as you keep winning games.
   
• I don’t think any winning team has had a noise-free environment as they get closer to their goals. Whether it is Atlanta, the College Football Playoff or even Saturday night in Baton Rouge. And then there’s Texas in Austin. Every step of the way, noise will happen. It is a privilege. It is bad if you can’t handle it. Imagine the alternative: Nobody is talking about you. Like South Carolina, no one is talking about Florida, except for who they will hire as their new coach. The doubters get to find out what they always thought would happen or not, like what we talked about.
   
• One of my biggest pet peeves in college football is defining the value of wins when they happen. I hate retroactively changing the value of games. For example, Oregon beats Penn State in overtime. It kills Penn State as a team. Then Penn State loses to UCLA and Northwestern, and Penn State fires James Franklin. You can look at this one of two ways: Retroactively say Oregon played a bad team, or you can properly understand that Oregon played a team that laid out their life in that game and lost. They were dead, and Oregon was the reason they died. I give Oregon credit for that win. A lot of people fall into the former category.
   
• You want to play these teams with bad records late in the season. That is a different galaxy. Playing them early in the year versus at the end. The roster, top to bottom, is more talented. The eighth-best team in the SEC is more talented than any other eighth-best team in any other conference. When you play that team in September, you play against future Sunday players. Then, if you play them in November, the resistance you get is down. People don’t respect it. You are viewed as an SEC homer when you make the point publicly. Maybe A&M’s schedule won’t come down to scheduling semantics. Hopefully, they are in a good spot where we don’t have to resort to that.
   
• I don’t view this game for A&M as a must-win. On Monday, I could paint you a good picture, no matter what, as long as you come out of that game smiling. There is nothing scarier than someone with blood in their mouth while they are smiling. That could be A&M. Texas Tech lost at Arizona State, but they aren’t done yet. That was Alabama after losing to Florida State. By harnessing the lost, they went on a stretch of winning games.
   
• With that being said, I think A&M wins the game on Saturday night. LSU does not match up well with A&M, but if I am wrong and LSU figures out how to make A&M turn the ball over a ton, it is not a great feeling. Still, it is not the end of the world. The playoff is 12 teams deep now. I’ve gotten concerned about how confident I feel about A&M and Oklahoma. I have a strange amount of confidence in a game where they are only a 2.5-point favorite.
   
• A lot of teams in the league are on consecutive road games back-to-back. Texas, A&M, Ole Miss and Missouri. LSU, we all know, can’t run the ball right now. It made them the lowest play-action team in the league. Garrett Nussmeier can’t push the ball down the field either. They’ve done a bad job of getting the ball to playmakers. A&M has done a good job of that. LSU has faced teams that can not score when they’ve won, but A&M can score. LSU is playing a top-10 pressure team and playing against a team that can score.
   
• I think A&M will find at least 27 points on Saturday. I don’t think LSU can find that, unless it is defensive or special teams-related. Then, when in the fourth quarter, history doesn’t matter.
   
• Here is the thing about Death Valley at night: Everything they say about it is right. If LSU has this season on the brink? I was there when Alabama was in town. Alabama beat them by like five touchdowns. When they were losing, all the fans left. Of the fans that stayed, they were there to yell at Brian Kelly. If A&M can flip the switch and strike the match, that place will take care of the rest.
   
• I have no clue about Texas this weekend. They can’t score. They have such a low margin of error because they can’t score. Can they find 20 points? If they can, you can rely on your defense to allow under 20. I lean Texas, slightly, but I am terrified.