Tag: Late Kick

Wisconsin football one of Josh Pate’s ‘mystery teams’ entering 2024

Wisconsin football one of Josh Pate’s ‘mystery teams’ entering 2024

CBSSports’ Josh Pate labeled Wisconsin one of his ‘mystery teams’ entering 2024 on his podcast Sunday night.

The Badgers were included along with Texas A&M, Arizona and Syracuse — all three programs with new head coaches entering 2024 (Mike Elko, Jedd Fisch and Fran Brown respectively). The Badgers have more stability than the other programs but also have a high bar which the 2023 results fell well short of.

Related: Which Big Ten football team has the toughest conference schedule in 2024?

“Wisconsin is a big mystery team in 2024,” Pate said on his show. “They were 7-6 last year, it was a lot of internal transition, first-year staff going from Paul Chryst to Luke Fickell, that’s understandable. Their key offensive numbers were not good enough. They were in the 60s and 70s in terms of national rankings of key offensive metrics…So now they’ve brought in Tyler Van Dyke at quarterback, they’re 20th in returning production, they return 70% of a top-40 defense. It’s year two under Luke Fickell…I feel very, very comfortable in betting on a program in year two under that guy and under his staff.”

Wisconsin’s season can certainly go one of a few ways. The gauntlet schedule may lead to struggles and a poor record, or that schedule could become a stellar resume if the Badgers pick off big wins.

Either way, it should tell us a lot about what the future holds under Fickell and his staff.

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Late Kick’s Josh Pate argues it’s too soon to judge the Brent Venables hire

Late Kick’s Josh Pate argues that it’s too soon to judge the hire of Brent Venables six games into his first head coaching job.

To put it mildly, it’s been tough sledding for the last few weeks in Norman, particularly on the defensive side of the ball. The Sooners’ defense, led by Brent Venables and Ted Roof, has given up 12 rushing touchdowns and over 300 rushing yards per game in their last three games.

After three straight losses and being at the mercy of Steve Sarkisian’s playcalling, some Sooners fans are already wondering if Joe Castiglione made a bad hire when he swiped Venables away from Clemson.

On Sunday’s episode of Late Kick, Josh Pate was blunt on the status of this season but was very clear about how he feels about the Venables hire.

Brent Venables may be the right guy for the job, he may be the wrong guy for the job. I’m not telling either of you you’re wrong, I’m just telling you this particular version of Oklahoma is doomed to fail. For all I know it always did have terminal flaws. I’m not ready to give you an opinion on that… I want to give a guy more than six or seven months. – Josh Pate, Late Kick

Here’s the full clip:

It’s still early in the 2022 season and the Brent Venables tenure. Let’s give it time.

A lot of people underestimated the damage done to this team at the end of the 2021 season. These losses look bad, but judging a head coach hire six games into year one is premature.

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247Sports’ Josh Pate predicts College Football Playoff without Oklahoma

While he doesn’t have the Sooners in the playoff, 247Sports’ Josh Pate expects big things from Oklahoma in 2022.

One of the rising stars of sports media did a prediction mega-show on Sunday night. Josh Pate on 247Sports’ Late Kick put out his 2023 College Football Playoff predictions at the very end of an almost two-hour show, nearly double the length of a normal Late Kick episode.

The entire episode is a must-watch for any college football fan as Pate goes through every Power Five conference to predict each conference champion and, of course, finish with his prediction for the CFP. Pate also gave his production staff a big thank you at the show’s end.

Sadly, OU is not among Pate’s four playoff teams but fear not. This won’t be a wasted season.

Here are Pate’s playoff teams for the 2022 season.

This is a fun playoff, regardless of Oklahoma’s absence. Firstly, Utah getting in for the first time in school history after another Pac-12 championship would be great for that program and for the remainder of the Pac-12.

While I’m not as high on Michigan as Pate is, if they go 11-1 with their only loss being to Ohio State, it will be hard to keep them out if the Big 12 champion has two losses.

Speaking of the Big 12, Pate has the Sooners winning the conference over Baylor, leaving the Sooners with two losses and another Big 12 crown. While not going to the playoff may not seem ideal, after all the instability the program dealt with in the offseason, a conference championship would be a huge accomplishment.

Pate had Oklahoma State at 9-3 and missing the conference championship, and Texas taking a step forward with an 8-4 record.

Pate called the Big 12 the most difficult conference to predict. I agree with him. More than half of the Big 12’s 10 teams could make a run for the conference championship this year.

If Oklahoma does win the Big 12 this year, getting into the CFP is absolutely a possibility if they can get out of the regular season with only one loss or less. The Sooners, with one loss or less and a Big 12 crown, are more likely to get into the playoff than the Wolverines with one loss and no Big Ten crown.

A major issue for the Sooners last year was that they didn’t beat any good teams convincingly. They played down to their opponents all season long, and their position in the College Football Playoff rankings suffered because of it. If OU blows out some of their conference opponents this year while going 11-1 and win the Big 12, they will make the CFP.

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Analyst weighs in on Cade Klubnik potentially starting in 2022

Despite DJ Uiagalelei entering the 2022 season as Clemson’s starter, one analyst believes freshman Cade Klubnik could see the field early.

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney remained adamant in April that rising junior quarterback DJ Uiagalelei remained the team’s starter, but one analyst believes that may not remain the case throughout the 2022 season.

Speaking on his show, Late Kick Live, 247Sports’ Josh Pate responded to a bold prediction that five-star freshman Cade Klubnik will start at least one game this upcoming season.

“I actually don’t think it’s that bold,” Pate said. “I think it’s a five [on the one to 10 bold scale] because I happen to believe this is going to go down. Now, it flies in the face of conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom tells you a five-star quarterback with a year’s worth of starting experience under his belt is going to flourish in year two. That’s just what preview magazine, conventional wisdom tells you.”

“The second thing it does is it flies in the face of what Dabo Swinney, as head coach of Clemson, said in the spring. He was adamant that ‘we’re behind DJ (Uiagalelei). We have every bit of hope and confidence and trust that he’s going to develop into the quarterback that we need him to be.’ I’m a little less certain, but I also don’t think it gets real in anyone’s mind until you get into the season.”

In Clemson’s spring game in April, Uiagalelei finished with 175 passing yards and one interception on 47.2% passing. Meanwhile, Klubnik completed 65.2% of his passes for 106 yards and one touchdown.

With Klubnik’s impressive spring, Pate contended that if Clemson struggles within the first couple of games, Klubnik could be in line to start sooner rather than later.

The Tigers will play Georgia Tech in week one, and Pate believes fans will know after that matchup whether or not Uiagalelei and the offense have elevated beyond last year’s level.

“This year, you know in the back of your mind what you didn’t know last year,” Pate said. “That is, ‘I got a healthy and very talented backup on the bench in Cade Klubnik, and he had five stars next to his name too.'”

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