College football analyst Josh Pate weighs in on impact of House v. NCAA case

On Tuesday's edition of TexAgs Live, college football analyst Josh Pate joined us to discuss changes coming with the House v. NCAA settlement and what it means for the SEC. Pate also covered the potential new College Football Playoff structure.

Key notes from Josh Pate interview

• Tennessee swapped Nico Iamaleava for UCLA’s Joey Aguilar. I agree that if Josh Heupel is who we think he is, if that system is not too complex to pick up, if Aguilar has a chip on his shoulder and his coaching staff will feel the same way, then yeah, I do agree with you in saying it works out well for Tennessee, In the financial aggregate, you get the side effect of not having to pay a guy $4 million. They may have the same type of production. That leads to a broader discussion, beyond Tennessee, similar to how the “Moneyball” era made us talk about baseball.
   
• If you are going to get 87 percent of the production but for $113 million less, isn't that a really good move? Is that what is about to happen in college football? The broader-reaching tentacles are: Is this a situation we had to go through to get to where we want to go on the other side? Does this force them to see the problem? There probably were some holdouts. There were some people saying that it wasn't that bad. This forces them to say, “Yeah, I guess we do have a problem we need to address.”
   
• I never envisioned a world where Iamaleava left and Tennessee just said, “Well, we have two here.” You have two guys to fill the quarterback room out, but not the starting quarterback chair. In this world, with the second portal window, I never thought there was a situation where they wouldn't go get one. I assumed Tennessee was going to have to go poach someone else's starter, but their departing guy left a really, really good piece of fruit that became available. At least it did work out so that the collateral damage was minimized.
   
• The College Football Playoff people have always been really good at the Overton Window concept. “As it stands now, we don't think the public will love this, but if we float the rumor of an insane thing, and then don’t do that insane thing, we will be accepted as normal.” Since you are dealing with people who think you and I are idiots, they think they can just do this over and over again. The seals will clap, and we'll move merrily along. I would be severely shocked if we do get a format implemented that bakes in TV ratings as part of the selection criteria.
   
• I looked at the rule changes after the House v. NCAA settlement, and I said, “Where's the surprise? Where's the stuff that's involuntary?" We stand in a world where there are stacks of NCAA rules that I look at and I say, “I don't think those will bear the weight of legal challenge, just nobody has challenged it yet.” One of them is the rule where you can't transfer inside the SEC in the spring window. I don't want this to happen, but in an alternate reality, what would happen if Iamaleava transferred to LSU and challenged his eligibility in court? If they ever get the employment model, how many industries do you know that only allow you to work for four years? They don’t really exist. As long as you are good enough to be an employee, you can stay. That's what people are scared of. What's preventing someone from playing for nine years?
   
• I don’t know how academics factor into that world. We have ignorantly thought that being in college football meant you were in college. I'm a person who believes that that should still be the case. In an employment mode, I don’t know how that works. You have to collectively bargain it. Then who bargains for it? Well, the players... But what players? You have guys who are here for three to five years, max. I assume you have a players' association, but who decides that?
   
• Here is one thing I have taken solace in. Are we going to have college football? I always smile when people ask that. Every network has seen fit to spend billions of dollars on acquiring these games. They have to have these games at the maximum. I have always believed that the answer to calibrating and fixing the issues will ultimately fall into the hands of conferences and televisions. We are never going to live in a world where those networks are OK with their purchases being sunk costs. That is who will ultimately fight it.
   
• I think there is another thing. Let's say the clearinghouse doesn’t have a legal leg to stand on because you can't police market value. There have been times in history when a group of people police themselves, but I will say that if I were making millions as a coordinator, I would realize that I am in a world that is very lucrative. Maybe they will say that we enforce rules ourselves to maintain the sanctity of this. That sounds like collusion. But what guys are saying is, “Yes, I could go snatch that kid off that roster, but for the greater good, might I want to explore alternate means?” If that happens communally, great, but it only takes one rogue. Every coach will tell you that as long as a certain coach at another school exists, it is impossible. I wish there were a stronger desire to maintain the ecosystem even when it is not policing itself.
   
• In the future, when the story of Lee Corso is told, the last few years are an afterthought. When you achieve legend status, you go out on your own terms. The Corso story is so wild. How deep in his life did he get before he got on TV? He was over 50 years old. Think about someone doing that now. You could see that, but you never would think that their most impactful 30 years are still to come. They probably can't tell you where he played or coached, but they know him from TV. That’s the craziest part of his whole story.
   
• I agree with you. That's a Hall of Famer. Charles Barkley is going to be remembered by a lot of people as a broadcaster.
   
• I was a kid when I watched Greg Maddux pitch, but I didn’t appreciate the performance-enhanced era. Looking back on it, it's mystifying. There's a guy who throws 89 mph, but I had no sense of appreciation for Maddux.