Josh Pate's Response to Alabama Losing to FSU

Alabama's loss to Florida State was baffling to many people, if not everyone. The Crimson Tide looked the exact opposite of what we had heard all offseason from coaches and insiders who were at practice, including Josh Pate, the host of Josh Pate's College Football Show.

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Pate predicted Alabama to win the national championship, as did several other media insiders. Pate also saw the Crimson Tide practice several times in fall camp and scrimmages, leading to him predicting the Crimson Tide to win the national championship.

"I did say that's about as hard a hitting practice I've ever been at," Pate said of what he saw from the Crimson Tide in two scrimmages. "Defense flew around at that practice. I didn't imagine that, and I'm not standing there alone watching that. I've got other very, very veteran football-minded people that are watching it with me, echoing the same sentiment. Well, they're not watching ghosts. It's just that the consistency in performance has to be there."

The consistency wasn't there for Alabama on Saturday, and Pate was just as shocked as the Crimson Tide faithful was on Saturday.

"I don't remember being more surprised by a college football result. This was App State over Michigan level stuff," Pate said on The Next Round. "Just in terms of 'What? What happened?'

"I was doing Portland radio, even they're talking about it. Everyone's dumbfounded by it. A couple of the things that I've had thrown in my face, that I'm not going to walk back on, are 'you said you went to some of their practices, and you really liked what you saw.' I did, and I did. There's nothing that I take back from that. I don't think my eyes lied to me. Now, what my eyes led me to predict, that went horribly awry.

"What we have concluded here is that practice can lie to you. The game doesn't; practice can lie to you, I guess. I do feel the need to point out, it was one week. Because I know how physical and how flying around those practices I went to were, I still have hope that that's somewhere in there. What's tough for me to square is - it's one thing if you just make execution-based mistakes. But if the mistakes are more fundamental, maybe DNA-based - and by that I mean the nonnegotiables. Effort, toughness, accountability, ability to sustain, will to win, that sort of thing. If that's not present, I don't know that you have some magical come-to-Jesus team meeting and get all that right. But I can't explain what happened to begin with, so it would be foolish to think I can explain where they are right now. So, they may come out with their hair on fire Saturday, which proves nothing; they may do it again against Wisconsin, and all anyone's gonna say is, 'yeah, but that style of offense isn't the one that's gonna expose you, plus it's a home game. But now, go to Georgia. Go on the road and beat them... The Georgia game is the one everyone has circled now. That's the one where you kinda find out what your season's gonna be made of."

Alabama will take on ULM at home at 6:45 p.m. on the SEC Network.

Wyatt Fulton is the Tide 100.9 DME and Brand Manager, primarily covering Alabama Crimson Tide football and men's basketball. For more Crimson Tide coverage, follow Wyatt on X (Formerly known as Twitter) at @FultonW_.