ESPN’s Josh Pate on Whether Beating OSU Changes Lincoln Riley’s Hot Seat Status

USC beat Ohio State on Saturday night. According to ESPN's Josh Pate, Lincoln Riley then found a way to make it about the wrong thing.

Rich asked Pate the obvious question on The Rich Eisen Show: did Riley save his job? Pate's answer was that he's not sure the win changed much at all.

A Win Against a Backup

"I was happy for them that they got the win. I'm not sure what it changed," Pate said. His reasoning: if you had doubts about Riley not coming through in big games, a win in which he was "merely doing what he should have been doing a long time ago against someone with a backup quarterback" probably shouldn't change your mind.

"I'm not sure that it really altered the course of history," Pate said.

The Prepared Statement

Then there was the postgame. Pate asked how often a coach comes on air "with prepared statements in your pocket that no one asked you about." Rich called it wild, describing it as Riley's statement about winning and what it meant to him, "sort of a manifesto in a way to read at all of his haters."

Rich added that he doesn't even write anything out on Emmy nights. Pate jumped all over that, pointing out that Rich had just casually mentioned winning Emmys. Rich's comeback: "It's not a flex, man, if you're the Susan Lucci of sports television."

Pate said he has a group text with friends from several fan bases, including USC, and those fans hated it. They were celebrating, then suddenly wondered what Riley was doing. Their view, Pate said, was: why take "the one time that he's done what he's supposed to do, which is beat big-time competition, and turn it into this referendum on him?"

"The last thing you walk away thinking about is the players or the fan base," Pate said. "It had to become all about Lincoln Riley."

What would actually change things? "If they continue to win and then they go to the playoff. Now, that fundamentally changes something," Pate said. "But they still got a little ways to go before they do that."

Ohio State's Three-Loss Problem

Rich turned to the other side. Ohio State is learning what life is like with a talented young quarterback who may not be ready for big moments, and Rich noted "it's a quarterback-driven sport." He asked Pate whether there's a team that could take a third loss and still make the College Football Playoff.

"If we have, I don't think it's Ohio State," Pate said.

He reminded Rich that two weeks ago, the mere mention of Ohio State losing a couple of games down the stretch got people "tarred and feathered." Now they've lost one, and Pate expects at least one more, which would make them a 9-3 team among other 9-3 teams.

The difference, he said, is the committee. It has shown a willingness to judge teams based on injured quarterbacks, "FSU being the most glaring example in 2023." By Pate's count, Ohio State would be 3-2 without Julian Sayin, would likely miss the Big Ten championship game, and would be viewed as "a pretty ice-cold commodity."

Who Could Survive Three Losses

Pate does think some teams could absorb a third loss and still have the resume to get in. "Texas comes to mind, maybe LSU comes to mind," he said, adding that there's an outside shot Alabama fits too. He stressed it wasn't an exhaustive list.

"But I don't think that Ohio State is one of those teams," Pate said.