ESPN’s Josh Pate Talks SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 & More with Rich

Josh Pate showed up to The Rich Eisen Show sounding like a man who had just been handed the best schedule of his life.

"I've never been more invigorated, Rich," the ESPN college football host said. "A lot of really weird slash awesome things happening in the college football world right now."

His evidence: you can make an argument that the sixth highest profile game on the SEC slate this week is No. 19 Missouri against No. 24 Mississippi State. That is a loaded weekend.

Rich was ready for it. As he put it, conference play is finally arriving after what Dick Vitale might call Cupcake City. Pate agreed, and he wants some of those cupcakes off the menu for good. He had been reading Scott Dochterman's work on how different next year will look now that week zero goes away, with some leagues likely jumping straight into conference play. The Big Ten's most recent weekend did not help its case.

"We cannot have Big Noon Kickoff at Kent State Ohio State again," Pate said. "We got to nix that."

That led Rich to Indiana, which has not played anybody yet, and to Curt Cignetti defending Josh Hoover from the podium. Cignetti said there was "too much scrutiny" on his quarterback, walked through every missed throw on the tape, and closed with, "I'm glad he's our quarterback."

Pate, who speaks fluent Cignetti, first gave a nod to the reporter hammering away on the keyboard in the background of the clip. "I hope we never lose the keyboard tapping," he said. "That is the modern-day flashbulb."

Then he got to the substance. When he visited Bloomington in the spring, Cignetti grinned and told him, "We got what we needed at quarterback." Same attitude now. Indiana knew it was playing nobody early, so nobody can know yet what the Hoosiers are.

"There's like the trust but verification process in college football," Pate said. It has always been that way, but more so now because rosters are thinner and churn is higher than a generation ago. Oregon was the cautionary example: everyone believed something about the Ducks until they went to Oklahoma State in week two.

Indiana banked a lot of equity last year proving people wrong, Pate included. But if the Hoosiers are sitting at 30 to 27 on the road at Nebraska in the fourth quarter in a few weeks, he said, that would actually be in line with the rest of the sport. For a team coming off a national title with the No. 1 overall pick at quarterback, "that wouldn't be the most insane concept in the world."

Rich called Ole Miss against LSU in Oxford "an epic battle in a quintessential college football environment," and Pate had a story before he had analysis. Buddies of his used that game to bring pro-sports-minded friends into college football, and watched them get hooked on the soap opera and drama. "It's better than you could script if you got a team full of script writers," he said.

The football, though, is what he cared about. These are top 10 caliber teams, and his first takeaway was about LSU quarterback Sam Leavitt. LSU put half a hundred on Clemson in week one, and Pate thinks plenty of people got ahead of themselves.

"Cuz it turns out Clemson's just not a good football team," he said. "I don't know that Sam Leavitt's on that same shelf."

Trinidad Chambliss, on the other hand, is on it. Pate asked how many times Leavitt looked settled, how many times his feet stopped chopping, how many times the play was carried out as designed. Louisville had put 38 on Ole Miss a couple of weeks earlier, so the Rebels can be moved on. But Ole Miss had to have the game, and it showed that its front still has "game takeover potential" while LSU "still got a ways to go on that offensive line."

"It's a tale as old as time," he said. A misleading week one result inflated the expectation bubble. Now LSU is properly calibrated and faces Texas A&M, another team in wounded animal mode, in Death Valley on Saturday night. "Either A&M or LSU's about to be a two-loss team before October, and that's going to be uncomfortable."

Then Rich sprang a surprise. He had no idea Pate's friend circle included Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire, and he rolled the tape of McGuire at his press conference.

"I'd like to thank Josh Pate," McGuire said. "Keep it up Pate. Like he's my buddy and everything but keep picking against us man." McGuire noted that Pate had said Tech doesn't look the same. "We don't look the same but we're three and 0."

Pate wanted to know where exactly he was wrong. His crime, he explained, was saying on the internet that Houston would cover and Texas Tech would win, which is exactly what happened. He went to bed on Friday night, woke up with his phone blown up, and found a text from McGuire too.

"Yeah man, I got like a dagger to the ribs when I didn't even have my contact lenses in yet."

The crew immediately offered to cut "Keep it up Pate" as a drop for his show. Pate countered by recording a 30 second message for McGuire to show his team: he does not think Texas Tech is what it was a year ago, the Big 12 is wide open, Houston and Texas Tech could see a rematch, Utah and Brigham Young look good, he is not writing off Oklahoma State, and Arizona State could be in the mix if it ever gets back from London. "It is anyone's ball game in the Big 12. Cut."

Next up for Ole Miss is Florida, and Rich played Florida coach Jon Sumrall's reaction to hearing Vegas had the Gators favored. "There's a lot of good drugs out there, huh?" Sumrall said, before adding that he had told his team week four rankings mean nothing.

Rich asked if Ole Miss had proven it is the best team in the SEC, a national title contender, with a Heisman favorite. Pate was fine with the Heisman and fine with the title talk, but not ready to look past Georgia, which has not played much of anyone. Georgia was taking practice reps during a commercial break at Arkansas because, per Kirby, they weren't getting enough work during the game. Until further notice, Georgia is No. 1 and Ole Miss is 1A.

Pate was on the field for Florida at Auburn, and said the Gators took the fight to Auburn physically, though Byron Brown and the Auburn offense did some work against the Florida secondary. He understands the point spread. "This is the biggest letdown spot in the modern era of college football," he said. But if Ole Miss jumps out 14-0, "I don't care about letdown anymore. I care about Florida having to keep up with the best quarterback in the game."

Asked what he is looking forward to, Pate went straight to Rich's team. He wants to see Michigan take care of business at Iowa, a game with a total in the 30s. He compared it to Oregon's cold, rainy, low-scoring win at Iowa last year, one he thinks buoyed Dante Moore's confidence. He is eager to see what Bryce Underwood can do, even if it takes 14 passes and 22 runs. "Frankly, I'm comfortable with that game plan."

His off-the-radar pick was Virginia Tech, a double-digit favorite at Boston College. If the Hokies handle it and Pitt beats Bucknell, next Friday could be undefeated against undefeated in Blacksburg, with primetime standalone treatment and "that whole James Franklin Enter Sandman for the first time in front of the world treatment, unless of course they screw it up this week and then no one cares."

Rich wrapped by promising to send over the drop. Keep it up, Pate.