Hour 2: Rams vs Seahawks Preview, plus ESPN College Football Analyst Josh Pate

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1:00Rich Eisen:This is the Rich Eisen Show. Hey, everybody. Can't get enough of the Rich Eisen Show? You're in luck. You can find us everywhere. Watch us weekdays on Disney Plus from noon to 3 Eastern. Miss the show? We've got a podcast so you can listen anytime. But here's the best part. Our YouTube channel. Subscribe at youtube.com slash Rich Eisen Show and you'll never miss a moment. Now, on with the show. Let's begin. This is the Rich Eisen Show. What do you think we are, gangsters? Live from the Rich Eisen Show's studio in Los Angeles. Can I interrupt? I'll address the Keon situation. Earlier on the show, five-time pro bowler Teron Armstead.

1:47Rich Eisen:Coming up, ESPN college football analyst Josh Pate. Senior writer for the MMQB, Albert Breer. And now, it's Rich Eisen. Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated is going to join us in an hour right from this moment to tell us what happened with the Bills in their press conference yesterday to lead to some of the comments being said, a lot of the backstory there, as well as spinning it forward when we might see other coaching jobs filled. What is going on with the Ravens gig? Is it close to Jesse Minner? Could the Chargers lose their defensive coordinator to the spot where Jim's brother left or was told to leave pardon me it was Tomlin who left his gig willingly in Pittsburgh the latest on all of that again that's one hour from now but we figured let's bring Josh Pate back on this program now that the college football season is all done and and have I guess a college football exit interview with the ESPN college football analyst Josh Pate good to see you Josh How are you, sir?

2:54Rich Eisen:All right. I'm good. I got acupuncture for the first time in my life today. So I'm laid out. This pertains to you, by the way. I'm not just running down my schedule so far today. Please. So I'm sitting there. I've got needles all over my head and my ears. And my wife is there because anytime I do something for the first time, I take her with me. Okay. And I'm floating in and out of consciousness. And she drops the, hey, Rich Eisen wants to know if you want to come on a show. She had my phone in her hand. Okay. Always safe. And I said, what must this be about? I mean, we're like 72 hours removed from the championship.

3:27But I told her without hesitation. Yes. Ask him if he can move it up an hour. Yes, I will do it. So I'm happy to be here.

3:33Rich Eisen:I appreciate that, Josh. I didn't mean to interrupt anything because I also know, having done acupuncture in my existence, that the first time I did it, you know, you're right. You're floating. You're figuring like, oh, God, this is pretty cool. but I'm a little bored, you know, with my own thoughts. So stupidly, I reached for my phone, but moved in a way that there was an electrical shock that shot me right down the entire body. And I thought to myself, that probably is the spirit of my wife not there saying, put your damn phone down. So, you know, like that's my answer to your story, Josh. I did it.

4:17I tensed up because I started to lean up and whatever happened to me, I felt like I was at a 49ers practice. Whatever happened to me, it just pulsated through my entire body and I laid right back down. I let her handle it.

4:29Rich Eisen:Okay, very good. And I'm glad you are now here. No, the reason why I reached out, Josh, is because, yeah, I know we're 72 hours clear, but this is a football-loving nation in which we reside. And the portal's done. And that was an interesting part of our conversation last week, so I want to button that up. but let let me give you the floor on on what you think indianas mean mean when writ large means for the sport and for everything going on josh all right so i still think they're an outlier in a sense that if you just look at what it took for them to do what they did i've never seen a team as efficient as them it was like as close as we could get to ai football without it being ai football that's that's how ruthlessly efficient they operated and so i still think that's a really, really fine needle to have to thread.

5:18I do think there was a little bit of a Roger Bannister type effect. It took forever for a human being to run a sub four-minute mile, and then Roger Bannister does it. Then a million people did it. You look at it and you say, well, was it always this easy? Well, no, it was never easy, but it was possible. It just took someone showing you that it could be done. Likewise, Indiana could have a little bit of a Roger Bannister type effect on your Minnesotas or a Maryland or a UCLA, just Washington State, like programs that you never in your sane college football mind would have associated with championship contention.

5:53It could be that. I think in the aggregate, Rich, the big ripple effect it has is on a recalibration of the hiring model. Because right now, anytime there's a job opening, we just had several of them. We had Penn State, we had Auburn, LSU, like all these jobs open. And if you go look at the hot boards, it's like the same 10 names. It's a really, really incestuous kind of pond water-esque feel to coaching searches. And Indiana just wins a national championship with Kurt Signetti. And hey, Signetti was always there. Anyone could have gone and hired him. No one did. Indiana took a risk, a calculated risk, but a risk.

6:29And so I just wonder whether it be an athletic director or maybe in the future, GMs are making the hires in college football, which is a whole separate hour of a show we could do. I just wonder how much it shakes up the hiring process. Because to me, everything about this sport right now works downstream of the administrative groupthink that goes into hiring.

6:49Rich Eisen:Yeah, I hear you on that. But I'm just wondering, why can't Signetti find the right quarterback again? Why can't he go ahead and replenish in the portal just like everyone else? Maybe he's already done it, you know, because these things are so crazy. He actually built the next roster or held on to his current one while going on this run in the college football playoffs. You know, it'll be tough. I mean, we had Fowler on the day after the game, but why not? I mean, the guy does seem to have a keen eye for talent and a keen eye of motivating him. Josh? I fully expect them to be there. Like, to me, I mean, I don't want to – look, I'm not Kurt Signetti, so I can afford to take them for granted.

7:33I'm so high in my respect for the sustainability of what they've built. I expect them to be there. You and I talked about this last time. We were talking about whether it's just kind of a one-and-done thing. I don't get that sense at all with them. This is not some rental car situation. They bought. They're there. Josh Hoover is a name that you should get familiar with. That's the TCU quarterback. They've already got him. They already brought him in in the transfer portal. He will be one of the talks of the sport next year. They were a very, very big destination for portal guys this past cycle.

8:07So they're going to be stocked up. They're going to have the athletes to compete, maybe even more so than they just did. I think the million-dollar question becomes, will they ever have the kind of just overall team dynamic they just had? Because talent notwithstanding, it takes a certain amount of it to compete, and they met that minimum baseline. but the team aspect just the overall but the mortar between the bricks that makes a team I've never seen anything like Indiana this year so I think they'll be in the dance or they'll be able to get in the dance for the for several years to come because I think their model is sustainable but what we just saw right here is special and I will never assume that anyone including Kurt Signitti could just just boom snap his fingers and easily replicate that.

8:53Rich Eisen:Josh Pate here on the Rich Eisen Show. And again, another reason why I reached out is our conversation last week where you said how many kids are still left in the portal with two days to go, 10 ,000, close to 4 ,000 in the FBS alone. And, you know, this is not just the sports world. So many things happen in the real world that we just move on because we've got other distractions, other things going on. The portal's now closed. And I'm wondering how many kids were left in the portal when it closed because nobody talks about that. Josh, what do you got? You know what it's kind of like? It's kind of like in the south, like when a big tornado outbreak happens.

9:33Right. And the news focuses on it for 24, 48 hours. They move on. community still devastating you're like where did the coverage go kind of in the in the sports world to to remove all the tragedy from it of course to maintain some of the same elements that's kind of how the portal is so i'm looking right here i hit up my buddy over at on three pete nakos this morning who just has a has a line to the portal he himself is not in it but he has a line nice portal okay so just fbs so we're just talking about the 136 fbs teams uh 1200 of them are still active. They are still in there. So to give everyone a little catch up here, the portal closed last weekend.

10:14And the rule isn't you have to have signed by the time it closes. The rule is you have to be in by the time the portal closes. Now, there's some very high priced legal types out there that we could double box me with right now. And they would say, this is all cosmetic. This is all a mirage. There is no window. The NCAA just put some dates on a piece of paper and they're crossing their fingers, hoping everyone abides by it. But really, legally, there's nothing stopping anyone. As long as you can get enrolled in school, you can portal whenever you want. All right. With that caveat added, right now, the portal is closed, according to the NCAA, which means if you're not already in it, you can't transfer the rest of the year.

10:511 ,210 are still active in that portal, meaning they have not signed anywhere. And I'm just telling you, I mean, people can like it or not. It's a reality that Several of those guys will never play football again. Several of those guys are in there. And then you notice when we put that clip out from your show last week, there was a mixed reaction in the comments. And some of the comments were, oh, this is terrible. You know, because I pontificated that jackals posing as agents were giving really bad advice to kids. And that's not my opinion. That's fact. But that wasn't the sentiment in the replies.

11:24The sentiment in the replies was largely, well, good. They deserve to learn these lessons, blah, blah, blah. on, people are taking their distaste towards the overall climate of college football right now. And the only face that they can aim that vitriol at is the players. And to me, the players are probably acting no different in the current climate than any player at any point in history would have acted given these current parameters. So yeah, a lot of guys just ended their career by going in the portal. Some of them by listening to adults who allegedly have their best interest at heart and they never even knew they ended their career when they made that decision so it's

12:02Rich Eisen:possible that of those um 1200 plus uh players still sitting in the portal that there'll be what a spring game injury a training camp injury and they'll be able to switch um or find a spot because the other teams that they portaled away from haven't taken them back or been told you're you're not welcome back here like so they're they're just waiting for an opportunity similar to a pro football player that doesn't get signed via free agency got caught is that basically what their their experience is going to be like over the next few weeks and months josh i imagine i imagine some stories are going to be like that you got to remember as much as people chuckle under their breath when i say this there is still an academic element attached to this where um you can't just go sit at home or sit in the dorm.

12:59There's this small matter of you needing to be in class, you needing to be enrolled somewhere. So as long as you're enrolled in somewhere, I guess you remain in good academic standing. And yeah, there's no limit. You can indefinitely stay in the portal until you want to sign somewhere. You just got to get enrolled there. But again, and this is why I wanted to say what I said a couple of minutes ago. This is all what's sort of just loosely written on the NCAA banner. They're flying behind the plane right now. Nobody knows if it stands up to legal scrutiny. In fact, we kind of know it doesn't. It's just, it's a case by case thing as to which of these things have been torn to shreds in court and which ones haven't yet been torn to shreds in court.

13:41So I think we're going to have one of the most ridiculously legally contentious off seasons in college football history, because that's all you're going to hear about for the next six months, unless you just plug your ears is a bunch of legal fights about what the NCAA can and can't enforce with the transfer portal.

13:57Rich Eisen:The only pushback or caveat I will give to what you just said about an academic piece to this still existing is unless there's somebody in the portal that's already graduated. Right. And the thing that leapt out at me in the days leading up to the national championship game, Josh, was an exchange between Carson Beck and a reporter. And I think the reporter must have have you know have an angle or she had a a story about you know the academic portion of all of this and asked Carson Beck was he in class like last week or the day before or something like that I'm paraphrasing but that was the general gist is asking him hey you know were you in class this past week and he laughed and he goes I graduated I haven't been in class in two years said the quarterback of a play of a team that was playing in the national championship game and i'm like wow like that's a professional quarterback like he does not go to class because he's already graduated and he's just being paid to play football but it's for the university of miami hurricanes rather than miami dolphins that's a fact josh that's that happened you know and i i don't know i just had to bring that up in response to you saying what you just well you got to remember so Also, the life cycle of your modern-day high-level college football player is they enter high school knowing, I plan on playing college football.

15:23So they get themselves in such a situation where they're ready to early enroll in college. Some of them skip their senior year in high school. They rearrange their schedule academically where they meet the academic requirement to graduate high school. Ryan Williams did this at Alabama. And so he's enrolled as a 17-year-old freshman at Alabama. but they early enroll they're on campus all year so they're taking a year-round class load so i mean look carson beck's not the best example of this but a lot of these dudes are done they already have degrees and even if they're just a standard four-year guy i mean a lot of them are working on a master's by the time their second half of their junior season just because they've already met the

16:02Rich Eisen:requirements so uh before i let you go um to uh your massage or whatever you're doing next is let's do this. Let's have a little bit of fun where your answer will not be remembered or I won't bring it up if it's wrong. But if it's right, you'll be like, I called it on January 22nd. The Heisman Trophy winner for the upcoming season is Josh Payton. I need to write this down. Hold on a second. The upcoming season. I want you to call your shot. But I don't know what. The event is probably December 10th or whatever the date is, right? This day is going to happen, and it'll feel like it's December 11th by the time they announce it because you just sit at Aragon, okay, can we just get the name, please?

16:49Rich Eisen:I got a boat riding on this one. You do. I know. I got futures up, too. Okay. No pressure, Josh. Make your call, Josh Pate. What do you got for me? It's silly to even ask, but I'm doing it. No, it's not. No, it's not. This is Big J stuff right here. I want to go Dante Moore at Oregon. Whoa. Okay. All right. Why? Why do you like? Oh, see, the why is that. That's what I don't like. I don't like it. Okay. All right. I asked. I don't get a follow-up. I agree. Okay, very good. I appreciate that. Does that make him the first overall pick in the draft, though? I think it's Arch Manning still. I mean, Arch Manning's the answer, obviously, but that's the one everyone's going to give.

17:31that's boring so it's january no one remembers this dante moore's got a kid named evan stewart coming back to cory and moore becomes a sophomore second year player so they'll be loaded at the wide receiver position and also is there a hungrier program in america right now than oregon they've been disposed of two times in a row i mean thoroughly disposed of in the postseason so a new coordinator up there but they hired from within so there's continuity in the system i think dante moore is about to have himself a big year josh pate thank you for the time i

17:59Rich Eisen:I appreciate it. And look for my calls. I'll just try and be less intrusive when I text. Yeah, I'll send you my acupuncture schedule. If we could just work that out. We'll dovetail it. I'm there for you. Thank you for the time. Appreciate it, brother. Josh Pate's college football show on YouTube and then, of course, on the ESPN family of networks. Do you have a Dante Moore card? I don't. I think we're about to get it. I'm going on there. Don't. You have this look of, you're about to tell me the odds. I am. Of course. But how are there odds? What do you mean? I just asked a stupid question. No, Richard.

18:38Rich Eisen:If he gets it right, when is the Heisman Trophy ceremony? Probably the first weekend of December of 2026. No, the first weekend of December is usually the conference championship games, which they've yet to do away with. Second Saturday in December? Hold on. Let me just tell you these odds while you look this up. So my man, Josh Pate, beautiful, a bald brother said Dante Moore of Oregon. He's 13 to one right now, which is a few back. Same odds as Sam Levitt and Gunnar Stockton. Julian Sayan also at 13 to one. Jeremiah Smith, 13 to one. They are behind the favorite. Once again, second year in a row, the offseason favorite TJ Jefferson.

19:19Arch Manning is eight to one. CJ Carr, eight to one. Josh Hoover, 11th.

19:26Rich Eisen:Yeah, Josh Hoover, who again, we just mentioned is going to be the next quarterback at Indiana. And if you're curious, Malachi Tony, who we fell in love with during the college football playoffs, only 18 years old, 27 to 1. Did you mention Jeremiah Smith's name? I did, 13 to 1. He's the same odds as Don Timor. Yeah, the old Google machine here says it's likely December 12th or 19th. Got it. So December 12th. So he just did it basically 10 months and change in advance. Your guy, Rich Eisen, Bryce Underwood, 30-1. Lenora Sellers, also 30-1. So Dante Moore, if he says, I'm not going to the draft, I'm staying put, and he wins the Heisman Trophy, and he's part of an Oregon national championship team, good decision.

20:15Rich Eisen:Boom. Because he's probably got some new sneakers to go along with it. Remember FSU, the joke was to call him Free Shoes University? university i think that's who don't that was supposed to be an insult i know and that was so now now it's like that's who don't day more plays for that's you know i was like that's a crazy world we're living in now oh yeah that was used to be the the the gag free shoes university yeah florida state stood for free shoes university that's right not anymore

20:47Rich Eisen:except what one time dion gave me free shoes see you didn't wear them did you did i tell you that story i told you that story recall i'll tell you this story yeah all right so thursday night football first season of thursday night football i think it was 2006 we're on the road and uh dion noticed mariuchi was wearing these worn out shoes so you always joke that he's going to get gucci's for my moochie i remember this have i ever told you this story no a long time ago okay gucci's I have to get Gucci's for my Moochie, is what he said. And so sure enough, Mooch shows up on a Thursday night with these new Gucci's.

21:29Rich Eisen:And all of us kind of go to Dion like, you know, what's the free shoes here? From Florida State. Except for Rich. And so last game of the Thursday night football season was Giants in Washington. and we all go to our hotel rooms and in the hotel room in a shoe box were new Gucci loafers for everybody. He got it for the entire group. That's baller. That is baller. He got Gucci's for everybody. Let me tell you, if I hit the lottery brothers, all you guys are getting some Gucci's. I'm looking at Gucci sneakers right now. They weren't sneakers. They were dress shoes and they were incredible. Did you wear them?

22:15Rich Eisen:I did. I wore them so much, they fell apart. Okay. Yeah, man. They're comfy, right? They were free. All right? And I say that to you, Mike, because that's your language, sir. So, Rich, if you want to buy Jordans for your Jefferson anytime, I'm a size 13. Let me make a note. Gucci's for my moochie. I remember. Said Deion Sanders, and then he got all of us. 844-204-RICH is the number to dial right here on the program. Don't go anywhere. Our higher register is still to come for championship weekend.

22:55Rich Eisen:The Rich Eisen Show podcast.

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