Josh Pate, college football analyst and future commissioner, joined the CanesInSight Podcast to talk Canes and the national championship game. A transcript of that discussion is below.
DMoney: We record almost 500 shows a year and my two boys don’t watch a single one. But every day when I pick them up for basketball or baseball, they’re watching our next guest—maybe the voice of college football right now in 2026—Josh Pate. How we doing, buddy?
Josh Pate: I’m good. I’ll finish the story for folks. You and I are about to talk plenty about the national championship game, but what people don’t know is I’ve had more conversations with your kids over the past month than I’ve had with you. Not in person—on the phone. I’ve had more FaceTime conversations with them. Your kids and I have been in the trenches together throughout this playoff run.
DMoney: Shout out to Cam Ghorbi—what a weapon as an SID—who put us in contact. I’ve never seen an SID get more shoutouts on shows.
Josh Pate: Cam Ghorbi is not just a weapon within sports information—he’s a weapon in life. Cam Ghorbi: the weapon.
DMoney: First of all, congrats. Front Office Sports put out an article that ESPN is finally recognizing college football is the second most popular sport in the country—and front and center is going to be that face right there. You being in the belly of the beast, is college football having a moment?
Josh Pate: It’s having a huge moment. It also has a moment every year for people like us, because we’re in the weeds and we love it. For us, it’s the number one sport by a mile.
I started doing my show in some version about 10 years ago because I looked around nationally and I wasn’t getting what I wanted as a college football fan. You can either complain or do something about it. I chose the latter and hoped people would like it. Thankfully, they have.
It’s crazy how the world we live in morphed. It went from an afterthought, to being taken seriously, to “we really need to pay attention,” to now sitting with power brokers at ESPN who are fully listening, inquisitive, and sharp. I’ve got a ton of respect for them.
We’re at an inflection point. Pat McAfee has had a lot to do with it. The YouTube and podcast world isn’t “them over there” anymore. It’s, “What they’re doing works—how do we infuse it into what we do?” As a kid who grew up watching ESPN, it’s beyond awesome. I’ve had a great experience with them this year, and it looks like we’ll be able to do more moving forward.
DMoney: Switching gears to Miami—but not the championship yet. In the buildup, you hear Indiana framed as the plucky underdog, and the counterpoint is they’re playing a traditional power in Miami. Miami fans believe that, but the truth is we’ve been down for 23 years and staring at Nebraska comparisons. You understand the national perception—has Miami done enough to be treated as a serious power again?
Josh Pate: You’re right, and by the way, that Nebraska comparison was always made and always felt stupid to me. I’ve probably done half a dozen segments over the past three years on how stupid it is. But it was out there.
Yes, Miami has done enough to be taken seriously. There’s a big contingent of Miami haters who won’t publicly acknowledge it. They’ll hope it’s one and done. But this year has proven proof of concept.
It’s four years in a row where Mario’s product has progressed. You’ve got premier athletes. You’re a destination from a recruiting and portal perspective. It was huge that he backfilled Lance Guidry with Corey Hetherman and got the results he’s gotten. On the fronts it takes to win, they’re doing what it takes to win. They’re in a national championship game. Whether they win it or not, they’re there. So regardless of what people say publicly, in their heart of hearts, they know.
DMoney: Miami’s fan base is unique. It’s national—almost like the Raiders back in the day. We’ve got almost as many fans in Chicago as we do in Miami. What does Miami being on the national stage mean for college football?
Josh Pate: I was talking to Ghotbi when I was down there in the spring about scheduling—how you’re randomly going to Stanford, or you end up in some random spot. I asked if that was frustrating. He said it actually isn’t, because huge chunks of the fan base are transient. You go to Philadelphia and there are Miami folks. You go to the Bay Area and there are Miami folks. The light bulb went off.
From the national perspective: college football doesn’t “need” any one team. But it benefits when certain programs are nationally relevant, and Miami has always been one of those.
If you’re 25 years old, you’ve got no recollection of Miami being dominant. You know the 30-for-30s and the stories from older generations, but you haven’t experienced it. So you’re not just getting another relevant program—you’re getting the reemergence of the concept of Miami being back, and what that meant a generation ago and what it could mean again. That’s a big deal.
DMoney: Carson Beck was born a month before the Fiesta Bowl against Ohio State. That’s how long it’s been. Now to the game: you set the group chats on fire picking Miami. Walk me through why you like Miami in what should be a close matchup.
Josh Pate: I view Indiana as a plane that’s cruised at 39,000 feet all year. Very little turbulence, very little up and down. They’ve just stayed as you go, borderline unbeatable—unbeatable, because no one’s beaten them.
The first question I asked myself: is Miami’s best game capable of cruising at 40,000 feet? My answer is yes. Then the next question: can Miami play a game at 40,000 feet?
I look at the Ole Miss game, and I think it should have been a blowout masked as a close game. There were multiple double-digit point swings—missed field goal, dropped pick-sixes, and 10 penalties on top of it. Most of the time, if you do that in a playoff game, you get eliminated. Miami didn’t have to pay the price with a loss.
You can delay suffering that consequence to the next game, or you can clean it up before the next game—learn your lesson, thank the good Lord above you’re good enough to survive your flaws, and then play your best game of the year in the national title game. Since I’m picking Miami, I’m banking on the latter.
Everyone Indiana has played has had to deal with what Indiana does up front. Miami has to deal with that too. But this is the first game where, from a pure personnel standpoint, Indiana also has to deal with what Miami presents on the line of scrimmage.
If you let Fernando Mendoza settle in, he’ll kill you. I don’t think turnovers decided the Oregon game—I think Mendoza’s efficiency and them going 11 of 14 on third down would have sunk Oregon either way. The difference is the margin. You can’t let that happen. If Miami lets that happen, Miami loses too.
So can you affect them on early downs? Can you stop the run without loading the box? Can you put Mendoza in obvious passing situations? If you can, I’ll roll the dice that Miami’s pass rush affects him enough to keep Indiana from taking off.
Then on the other side: do you get to play your game? If it’s not a blowout, you maintain balance. Shannon Dawson stays in the script. You lean into the physicality edge on the line of scrimmage. Mark Fletcher keeps playing his best football at the best time. Carson Beck carries forward what existed in the fourth quarter against Ole Miss. Use his legs situationally.
If we get to the fourth quarter and Indiana hasn’t pulled away and hasn’t done what they usually do, I trust the physicality to tilt Miami’s way late. That’s why I picked them.
DMoney: You’re an FBI profiler with coaches. Two intense coaches in this game, two guys who coached under Nick Saban—Curt Cignetti and Mario Cristobal. Not “who’s better,” but contrast them. Where are they similar or different?
Josh Pate: Cignetti came up a rougher side of the mountain football-wise than Mario did—but Mario has had to retell the FIU story a million times, and hearing it again refreshed my memory about what he inherited. It was a tough situation, and I thought it was ridiculous he got fired when he did—probably the biggest blessing in his career, because then he goes to Bama.
Walking through that Alabama car wash exposed both of them to things they may have observed, but they didn’t fully understand how to compartmentalize and conceptualize until they walked those halls. They saw it done.
Then it’s not “copy what Saban does.” It’s take the principles you saw on display, run them through your own filter, and that becomes your program. Kirby did that at Georgia. It’s not a carbon copy, but the foundational principles are the same. Those are success principles. You’ll find them in Fortune 500 companies, too.
What I appreciate is thinking back to those early days—after Middle Tennessee State, after Duke—there are still people in that building who were there then. There are also players who weren’t there and still contribute heavily. But I think about the folks who were there from day one, before anyone believed, and what it means to them to be here now.
I know Mario better than I know Cignetti. I know a lot of those guys at Miami. Even to be in the game is awesome. But if you finish it and you’re holding the belt when the dust settles, I think about the validation in outsiders’ minds: their way really works.
DMoney: Perfect segue, because you said “belt.” When we grew up, if we weren’t in a stadium, we were in an arena or bingo hall watching pro wrestling. Give me your personal Mount Rushmore—your top four pro wrestlers.
Josh Pate: Steve Austin. Shawn Michaels—he’s my number one. Ric Flair is the right answer. I really like Ricky Steamboat. I was a huge Steamboat guy, but it feels like I’m trying to be contrarian if I put him there over Hogan or Flair. You asked for mine. I’ll put Flair at number four.
DMoney: The older you get, the more you appreciate Flair. When we were kids, we thought, “This guy’s built like my dad—how’s he the champ?” Now we get it.
Before you go, you mentioned the Magnolia Foundation on your show. I hadn’t heard of it until you brought it up. Can you tell our audience what it is and what you’re doing with it?
Josh Pate: Quick story. When I moved to Nashville in 2020, about a month later there was a big tornado—an EF4 that killed 23 people. It’s the only tornado I’ve ever taken shelter from, because I’m a storm chaser—normally I’m chasing them. This one came out of nowhere.
Years later, I talked about it enough on the show that someone heard it. His name is Matt Collins—he lives in Cookeville, Tennessee, where they got hit hard. He reached out and shared his story. Their little girl was killed that night. They survived, but they had to deal with the unimaginable emotional toll. He told me, “We had no idea what this would do to us financially.”
They realized if they were going through this, a lot of families who lose children go through it. They wanted to start a foundation to help directly with the costs, because the last thing people should be worried about in that moment is money. That’s the Magnolia Foundation.
I heard about it through him and asked how we could partner. One way was merchandise in the Pate State store—those proceeds go to Magnolia. But not everyone wants a t-shirt or hat, so I gave out the direct donation page: www.magnolia.com/give.
We ended up paying the cost of 25 funerals this past season for families who lost kids. We helped make nearly 200 Christmases happen. They also do what’s called commemorative care—costs that come after attention fades, when things still need to be handled. They help soup to nuts.
It’s been worthwhile. We’ve scratched the surface of what we’ll do, and I appreciate you giving me time to talk about it. It’s been the most important thing we did on the show this year.
DMoney: We appreciate what you’re doing.
When are you coming down?
Josh Pate: I’m coming down Sunday. I’ve got to make a pit stop in Wetumpka, Alabama for a family reunion—or as I call it, the South Beach of Alabama—and then I’m right on my way to Miami.
DMoney: Shout out to Wetumpka. Shout out to the Pate family. Appreciate you, man.
Josh Pate: I appreciate it, brother.
DMoney: We record almost 500 shows a year and my two boys don’t watch a single one. But every day when I pick them up for basketball or baseball, they’re watching our next guest—maybe the voice of college football right now in 2026—Josh Pate. How we doing, buddy?
Josh Pate: I’m good. I’ll finish the story for folks. You and I are about to talk plenty about the national championship game, but what people don’t know is I’ve had more conversations with your kids over the past month than I’ve had with you. Not in person—on the phone. I’ve had more FaceTime conversations with them. Your kids and I have been in the trenches together throughout this playoff run.
DMoney: Shout out to Cam Ghorbi—what a weapon as an SID—who put us in contact. I’ve never seen an SID get more shoutouts on shows.
Josh Pate: Cam Ghorbi is not just a weapon within sports information—he’s a weapon in life. Cam Ghorbi: the weapon.
DMoney: First of all, congrats. Front Office Sports put out an article that ESPN is finally recognizing college football is the second most popular sport in the country—and front and center is going to be that face right there. You being in the belly of the beast, is college football having a moment?
Josh Pate: It’s having a huge moment. It also has a moment every year for people like us, because we’re in the weeds and we love it. For us, it’s the number one sport by a mile.
I started doing my show in some version about 10 years ago because I looked around nationally and I wasn’t getting what I wanted as a college football fan. You can either complain or do something about it. I chose the latter and hoped people would like it. Thankfully, they have.
It’s crazy how the world we live in morphed. It went from an afterthought, to being taken seriously, to “we really need to pay attention,” to now sitting with power brokers at ESPN who are fully listening, inquisitive, and sharp. I’ve got a ton of respect for them.
We’re at an inflection point. Pat McAfee has had a lot to do with it. The YouTube and podcast world isn’t “them over there” anymore. It’s, “What they’re doing works—how do we infuse it into what we do?” As a kid who grew up watching ESPN, it’s beyond awesome. I’ve had a great experience with them this year, and it looks like we’ll be able to do more moving forward.
DMoney: Switching gears to Miami—but not the championship yet. In the buildup, you hear Indiana framed as the plucky underdog, and the counterpoint is they’re playing a traditional power in Miami. Miami fans believe that, but the truth is we’ve been down for 23 years and staring at Nebraska comparisons. You understand the national perception—has Miami done enough to be treated as a serious power again?
Josh Pate: You’re right, and by the way, that Nebraska comparison was always made and always felt stupid to me. I’ve probably done half a dozen segments over the past three years on how stupid it is. But it was out there.
Yes, Miami has done enough to be taken seriously. There’s a big contingent of Miami haters who won’t publicly acknowledge it. They’ll hope it’s one and done. But this year has proven proof of concept.
It’s four years in a row where Mario’s product has progressed. You’ve got premier athletes. You’re a destination from a recruiting and portal perspective. It was huge that he backfilled Lance Guidry with Corey Hetherman and got the results he’s gotten. On the fronts it takes to win, they’re doing what it takes to win. They’re in a national championship game. Whether they win it or not, they’re there. So regardless of what people say publicly, in their heart of hearts, they know.
DMoney: Miami’s fan base is unique. It’s national—almost like the Raiders back in the day. We’ve got almost as many fans in Chicago as we do in Miami. What does Miami being on the national stage mean for college football?
Josh Pate: I was talking to Ghotbi when I was down there in the spring about scheduling—how you’re randomly going to Stanford, or you end up in some random spot. I asked if that was frustrating. He said it actually isn’t, because huge chunks of the fan base are transient. You go to Philadelphia and there are Miami folks. You go to the Bay Area and there are Miami folks. The light bulb went off.
From the national perspective: college football doesn’t “need” any one team. But it benefits when certain programs are nationally relevant, and Miami has always been one of those.
If you’re 25 years old, you’ve got no recollection of Miami being dominant. You know the 30-for-30s and the stories from older generations, but you haven’t experienced it. So you’re not just getting another relevant program—you’re getting the reemergence of the concept of Miami being back, and what that meant a generation ago and what it could mean again. That’s a big deal.
DMoney: Carson Beck was born a month before the Fiesta Bowl against Ohio State. That’s how long it’s been. Now to the game: you set the group chats on fire picking Miami. Walk me through why you like Miami in what should be a close matchup.
Josh Pate: I view Indiana as a plane that’s cruised at 39,000 feet all year. Very little turbulence, very little up and down. They’ve just stayed as you go, borderline unbeatable—unbeatable, because no one’s beaten them.
The first question I asked myself: is Miami’s best game capable of cruising at 40,000 feet? My answer is yes. Then the next question: can Miami play a game at 40,000 feet?
I look at the Ole Miss game, and I think it should have been a blowout masked as a close game. There were multiple double-digit point swings—missed field goal, dropped pick-sixes, and 10 penalties on top of it. Most of the time, if you do that in a playoff game, you get eliminated. Miami didn’t have to pay the price with a loss.
You can delay suffering that consequence to the next game, or you can clean it up before the next game—learn your lesson, thank the good Lord above you’re good enough to survive your flaws, and then play your best game of the year in the national title game. Since I’m picking Miami, I’m banking on the latter.
Everyone Indiana has played has had to deal with what Indiana does up front. Miami has to deal with that too. But this is the first game where, from a pure personnel standpoint, Indiana also has to deal with what Miami presents on the line of scrimmage.
If you let Fernando Mendoza settle in, he’ll kill you. I don’t think turnovers decided the Oregon game—I think Mendoza’s efficiency and them going 11 of 14 on third down would have sunk Oregon either way. The difference is the margin. You can’t let that happen. If Miami lets that happen, Miami loses too.
So can you affect them on early downs? Can you stop the run without loading the box? Can you put Mendoza in obvious passing situations? If you can, I’ll roll the dice that Miami’s pass rush affects him enough to keep Indiana from taking off.
Then on the other side: do you get to play your game? If it’s not a blowout, you maintain balance. Shannon Dawson stays in the script. You lean into the physicality edge on the line of scrimmage. Mark Fletcher keeps playing his best football at the best time. Carson Beck carries forward what existed in the fourth quarter against Ole Miss. Use his legs situationally.
If we get to the fourth quarter and Indiana hasn’t pulled away and hasn’t done what they usually do, I trust the physicality to tilt Miami’s way late. That’s why I picked them.
DMoney: You’re an FBI profiler with coaches. Two intense coaches in this game, two guys who coached under Nick Saban—Curt Cignetti and Mario Cristobal. Not “who’s better,” but contrast them. Where are they similar or different?
Josh Pate: Cignetti came up a rougher side of the mountain football-wise than Mario did—but Mario has had to retell the FIU story a million times, and hearing it again refreshed my memory about what he inherited. It was a tough situation, and I thought it was ridiculous he got fired when he did—probably the biggest blessing in his career, because then he goes to Bama.
Walking through that Alabama car wash exposed both of them to things they may have observed, but they didn’t fully understand how to compartmentalize and conceptualize until they walked those halls. They saw it done.
Then it’s not “copy what Saban does.” It’s take the principles you saw on display, run them through your own filter, and that becomes your program. Kirby did that at Georgia. It’s not a carbon copy, but the foundational principles are the same. Those are success principles. You’ll find them in Fortune 500 companies, too.
What I appreciate is thinking back to those early days—after Middle Tennessee State, after Duke—there are still people in that building who were there then. There are also players who weren’t there and still contribute heavily. But I think about the folks who were there from day one, before anyone believed, and what it means to them to be here now.
I know Mario better than I know Cignetti. I know a lot of those guys at Miami. Even to be in the game is awesome. But if you finish it and you’re holding the belt when the dust settles, I think about the validation in outsiders’ minds: their way really works.
DMoney: Perfect segue, because you said “belt.” When we grew up, if we weren’t in a stadium, we were in an arena or bingo hall watching pro wrestling. Give me your personal Mount Rushmore—your top four pro wrestlers.
Josh Pate: Steve Austin. Shawn Michaels—he’s my number one. Ric Flair is the right answer. I really like Ricky Steamboat. I was a huge Steamboat guy, but it feels like I’m trying to be contrarian if I put him there over Hogan or Flair. You asked for mine. I’ll put Flair at number four.
DMoney: The older you get, the more you appreciate Flair. When we were kids, we thought, “This guy’s built like my dad—how’s he the champ?” Now we get it.
Before you go, you mentioned the Magnolia Foundation on your show. I hadn’t heard of it until you brought it up. Can you tell our audience what it is and what you’re doing with it?
Josh Pate: Quick story. When I moved to Nashville in 2020, about a month later there was a big tornado—an EF4 that killed 23 people. It’s the only tornado I’ve ever taken shelter from, because I’m a storm chaser—normally I’m chasing them. This one came out of nowhere.
Years later, I talked about it enough on the show that someone heard it. His name is Matt Collins—he lives in Cookeville, Tennessee, where they got hit hard. He reached out and shared his story. Their little girl was killed that night. They survived, but they had to deal with the unimaginable emotional toll. He told me, “We had no idea what this would do to us financially.”
They realized if they were going through this, a lot of families who lose children go through it. They wanted to start a foundation to help directly with the costs, because the last thing people should be worried about in that moment is money. That’s the Magnolia Foundation.
I heard about it through him and asked how we could partner. One way was merchandise in the Pate State store—those proceeds go to Magnolia. But not everyone wants a t-shirt or hat, so I gave out the direct donation page: www.magnolia.com/give.
We ended up paying the cost of 25 funerals this past season for families who lost kids. We helped make nearly 200 Christmases happen. They also do what’s called commemorative care—costs that come after attention fades, when things still need to be handled. They help soup to nuts.
It’s been worthwhile. We’ve scratched the surface of what we’ll do, and I appreciate you giving me time to talk about it. It’s been the most important thing we did on the show this year.
DMoney: We appreciate what you’re doing.
When are you coming down?
Josh Pate: I’m coming down Sunday. I’ve got to make a pit stop in Wetumpka, Alabama for a family reunion—or as I call it, the South Beach of Alabama—and then I’m right on my way to Miami.
DMoney: Shout out to Wetumpka. Shout out to the Pate family. Appreciate you, man.
Josh Pate: I appreciate it, brother.
