Pate has a specific read on Tennessee, and it is not really about the quarterback battle everyone thinks it's about.
His lean is Faison Brandon. Not a lock, not a runaway winner, but the guy he expects to walk away with the job over George MacIntyre. What matters more, though, is what Pate thinks the quarterback race is quietly obscuring: a Tennessee team that is taking on water at almost every other position, and an identity that is already written whether Hooker's staff wants to admit it or not.
The Quarterback Lean
Tennessee scrimmaged Saturday, and Pate has been working the phones since. He is careful to frame this as a lean, not a declaration — Brandon is a true freshman, highly touted, and still climbing a learning curve most freshmen don't climb this fast. But the people Pate trusts around the program keep describing the same thing: better rhythm, cleaner flow, more big-time throws mixed into the reps. Pate's theory is that a scrimmage actually undersells Brandon's game, because his mobility is a game-day weapon that practice reps can't fully showcase.
As he put it: “if it already feels like he's got the edge, that's the guy I'd circle is the one I expect to win this job. That's where I stand right now. Second week of August.”
“if it already feels like he's got the edge, that's the guy I'd circle is the one I expect to win this job. That's where I stand right now. Second week of August.”— Josh Pate
That is a Pate lean, not a Pate verdict. He is explicit that he has not sat in on a single practice. But when the same signal keeps coming from people inside the building, that is usually worth writing down.
The Injury Math Nobody Wants to Talk About
Here is where the piece turns, because Pate thinks the quarterback story is competing for oxygen with a much bigger issue. Chaz Coleman is gone. Aren Carter is suspended. Jadas Richard is out for the year. Now Farooq, the starting safety, went down in the scrimmage. Add Ethan Davis still not practicing and a linebacker lost for the season earlier in camp, and Pate sees a pattern.
His exact accounting: “So then Aren Carter, the linebacker, one of the big time players for them on defense, he gets suspended. He's going to be out for two games, then he'll return. Jadas Richard, the corner, he's out for the year.”
Pate is not calling this a crisis. He calls it something closer to bad luck compounding bad luck — the kind of stretch where a program starts to feel disproportionately snake-bitten in August, the way two or three teams do every single year. His explanation for why this happens at all is almost matter-of-fact: “So, you can't bubble wrap people. You got to practice. You got to hit. You got to tackle.”
That is the Film Room point buried in casual language. You cannot evaluate a roster without live contact, and live contact has a cost. Tennessee is paying that cost early and often this camp. The mechanism is simple: reps against real physicality expose depth, and depth is exactly what several position groups don't have right now.
What Tennessee Actually Has To Be
This is the part of the argument that elevates from injury report to team-building thesis. Pate does not think the uncertainty is all bad news. He thinks it is clarifying.
The offensive line, in his view, is genuinely strong if it stays healthy — seven, eight, nine guys they believe they can win with. Pair that with Deshawn Bishop in the backfield and a transfer addition from Tulane that Pate says looks good, and the math writes itself: “there's no mystery how they're going to have to win this year. It's going to have to be Oline. It's going to have to be Bishop, who was a thousand yard rusher last year, at least be that again this year.”
The skill-position picture reinforces the point rather than complicating it. Pate is blunt about the ceiling: “It's not the deepest wide receiver room in the country. There's no big-time impact tight end here. It just crystallizes what you have to be about.” Translation in plain consequence — Tennessee is not built to outscore people through the air. It is built to control the line, feed Bishop, and shorten the game by limiting possessions on defense.
The honest complication sits on the other side of the ball. Pate credits Devin Hobbs and Xavier Gillum up front, but stops there: “Devin Hobbs, okay, good. Xavier Gillum, good. Past that, there's talent there. It's just unproven.” A run-first, low-possession identity only works if the defensive front can hold up on early downs without those two carrying the whole group. If that line stays raw past September, Tennessee's whole gameplan — win with O-line, win with Bishop, shorten the game — gets stress-tested before it ever proves out.
When a team knows exactly what it has to be this early in camp, Pate suggests that's not the worst position to be in. It just means there is very little margin for the injury list to keep growing.
Watch the quarterback battle if you want. Pate says the identity question is already answered — the Vols just have to survive long enough to prove it.
Articles are drafted from Josh Pate's College Football Show under the site's editorial standards and monitored by the editorial team — corrections are timestamped, never silent.
CONTINUED FROM THE NOTEBOOK
Pate's Real Alabama Argument Isn't Who Wins the QB Job — It's Whether the Line in Front of Him Can Block Anybody
The Pate State Staff on why Pate says the Keelin Russell–Austin Mack battle is a smokescreen compared to what's happening up front in Tuscaloosa.
ANALYSISProduced with Pate State AI · reviewed by The Pate State editorial teamStandards 📝 The NotebookTS
The Pate State StaffAUG 17, 2026
Pate has a claim about Alabama, and it is not about the quarterback battle everyone wants him to have. It is about the five guys standing in front of whoever wins it.
Everyone wants a name. Pate will not give one, and he explained exactly why on Monday's show. But buried underneath the quarterback discussion is the argument that actually matters to him: none of it counts if Alabama cannot run the football.
The QB battle, properly sized
Here is the context a casual scroll through message boards will not give you. Keelin Russell is the gifted, high-ceiling option who lit up spring ball. Austin Mack is the incumbent-adjacent option with more time in the building and, per Pate's sourcing, more trust from the staff. The decision looms with ECU on deck in week one, and plenty of people are already talking like it's decided.
Pate is not one of them. As he put it: “someone will lie about this quarterback battle and end up being right”. That is not him hedging. That is him warning you the loudest voice in the room is not automatically the correct one.
His skepticism comes from a specific evaluation framework, not a vibe. “highlights are not film”, he said, and then walked through what separates a real eval from a highlight reel.
“An eval is you take the best, the highlights, you also bake in the worst. And if there's a guy who's steady as you go and he's more poised play in to play out and he's a better communicator and a staff trust him more and he's more knowledgeable of the system, he's starting 10 times out of 10 over the dude who goes wow play, wow play, disaster.” That is the Film Room method in a sentence: isolate the whole rep, not the one that trends. Russell's flashes are real. So is the disaster tape Pate is implicitly referencing when he draws the contrast. He is not saying Russell has been that player. He is saying the eval has to account for the possibility.
Which is why Pate lands where he lands: “I think Keelin Russell's ceiling is higher. It may be higher than anyone else in the country, but it doesn't matter if he doesn't fulfill on the potential.” Ceiling without floor is a highlight, not a starter. Fair to both guys, hard on neither.
Why the position doesn't matter yet
Here is the pivot, and it is the whole point of the segment.
“if they're not good on the offensive line, if they can't run the ball, it's all a moot point anyway, Bama's not going to do all that much.”
“if they're not good on the offensive line, if they can't run the ball, it's all a moot point anyway, Bama's not going to do all that much.”— Josh Pate
That sentence is the actual argument, and it explains why Pate spent more time on tackles and guards than on quarterbacks. He has talked to people who watched fall camp practices, football people, some who played the position, and they describe a line that is further along than expected under new offensive line coach Adrien Klemm. Then he heard how last Thursday's scrimmage looked, and the word out of that was hit-and-miss, up and down. Two truthful reports pointing in different directions is not a contradiction. It is August.
The running back room raises the stakes on getting this right. AK Deer, reportedly the best back in camp, is out for an extended stretch. The five-star true freshman behind him, Xavier Crowell, has been banged up and hasn't logged the reps a rookie needs to learn pass protection with a new quarterback back there. That leaves more on Daniel Hill, Kevin Riley and a three-star surprise addition in Tayan Brown. None of that gets easier if the guys blocking for them are still finding their footing.
The honest complication
Now the other side, because Pate gave it one himself. He is not forecasting collapse up front. The read from people inside the building is genuinely encouraging, not a sympathy pat. It's plausible the offensive line is fine by October and this whole worry ages badly. Pate's own out is built into his framing: maybe the offense is just herky-jerky early while it finds itself, and the defense — a group he thinks is deep enough up front and loaded enough at defensive back to be one of the better units in the league — buys enough time for it to round into form. He even conceded the schedule sets up for exactly that kind of patience, with the tougher slate loaded into the back half.
But he is not assuming a smooth bridge, either. “if you told me Bama is going to be in a dog fight at Kentucky early in the year, I wouldn't be surprised by that. Wouldn't be surprised at all.” A defense that has to win one 21-6 in Lexington is a defense being asked to cover for an offense that hasn't arrived. That is the whole season in one sentence.
The quarterback battle will resolve itself. It usually does. What Pate is actually asking Alabama fans to track this fall is simpler and less fun to argue about on a message board: watch the line of scrimmage against ECU before you watch the quarterback's stat line. If Alabama can move bodies and run the ball on schedule, the name at quarterback becomes a footnote. If they can't, it won't matter who's holding the clipboard in September.
