This is an IHeart podcast.

And just like that, we're back.

It's Tuesday morning.

That means it's another edition of the Late Kick Extra podcast.

I'm Josh Pate.

We got a loaded mail bag this morning. Just a bounty, all different directions of questions, and we're going to get to as many as we can. You can send a question, Josh Pate 706 at gmail.com. You can also DM me on Instagram, on Twitter, at Latekick Josh. Make sure you're following there. And I got to tell you right off the bat.

I've got access, obviously, to audience measurement tools that you guys don't get to see. But I try and tell you as much as I can. Some of it I'm not allowed to. But let me just fill you in on something. You guys are killing it. Absolutely killing it. We're up in an area of the year where we should be down in total podcast downloads.

For example, we're up over an area of the year where we should be down in total podcast downloads.

For example, we're up over a thousand a month from last month. So that means a lot of big growth,

but it also means you understand exactly what I'm talking about when I say,

off-seasons are not real. And if you don't believe they're real, it's just like the ghost in

your closet when you were seven years old. Guess what? He magically doesn't exist anymore. And so here we are in the middle of May and more people are listening to the podcast than you were a month ago and the month before that. And it shoots down that whole notion that you're supposed to take a break during the... See that word that almost came out of my mouth, even though I am not of this society,

I have to live in the society. And you hear that dirty O word all the time. And sometimes it

almost creeps in, but we don't take the Lord's name in vain or this sports name in vain around here.

Oh, and by the way, before we begin, it's not just the podcast version. Our late kick live YouTube

version did incredible

traffic Sunday night. The kind of traffic we did last Sunday would be great for a regular season

show. And which goes back to the message that I've continued to convey to you, everything around

here is free. I'm not sending you to a Patreon channel. I'm not demoting people who do. Everyone has to do

their thing. Since I'm fortunate enough to work for an actual network here, I don't have to be sending you behind paywalls for a lot of things. The key there is you got to be our marketing department. And as long as you're the marketing department, you hang around, you're listening, you're downloading, you're liking, you're subscribing, your five star reviewing reviewing on the podcast, and most importantly, you're spreading word of the show with your own mouth, with your own Twitter account, with your own Instagram account. As long as you're doing that, nothing around here ever cost anything. So not only are you guys doing that right now, and I encourage all of you to do that. It helps me, obviously, but it helps you keep all that money in your pocket. And thirdly, it allows us more freedom to go to the high-level mustaches around here at CBS Sports HQ and 24-7 sports and say, you wanted the audience? Well, there's the audience right there. Now you got to let us feed them and you got to give us permission to do it our way because that's what brought him to the table. And you are well on your way to getting us permission to do all that and then some. So before we start, I just want to convey when you do this sort of thing, when you give us this kind of positive forward momentum, you allow us the flexibility to get a lot of yeses, to do a lot of things that we want to do during the season from all kinds of different angles on all kind of different platforms that will ultimately bring you an experience to where you don't really need to go a whole lot of other places. Everything you need to find, everything you want to listen to or ingest from the world of college football and betting included is right here. So with that in mind, let's dive into the mailbag this morning. Jim is going to get us started.

I want you to listen to this one the whole way through because it really hit home at the very end. Jim says, I know having a great quarterback is the base need for success, playoffs minimum, but you could put Tom Brady at Vanderbilt and they'd still stink. So how many teams are out there that would truly benefit from a generational quarterback? I'm a Georgia alum. I've lived here all my life. I go through your hometown of Columbus three to five times a year on the way to Panama City Beach, which makes me the most average Georgian alive. It's so accurate. There's nothing wrong with average, Jim. There's nothing wrong. I've always been rubbed the wrong way when people look down their nose at Panama City, by the way. Some of you are doing it as we speak. And I just want to ask you, search your heart. Why don't you have to do that? Not everyone goes to PCB. I understand that. But as a young child, young JP ventured down 431 many a time on his way. You've got to stop in Uthala to see the live alligators. but then you continue on your way down to Panama City. Hey, look, not all of us used $100 bills for toilet paper growing up. Some of us had to go to the beach on a budget. They call it bobbing. And beach on budget was how we lived when I was a kid. So I went to Panama City many times. And let me tell if you were to look at my power ratings, worst sunburns in life, easily several of the top five

are going to be from Panama City.

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