The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Alabama & Notre Dame keep rising, another Georgia comeback, Michigan’s bounce back & Klatt’s Top 10

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

FOX Sports’ lead College Football analyst Joel Klatt reacts to a wild weekend in college football as 4 Top-10 teams go down. He begins the show by evaluating Alabama’s title credentials after a 4th straight Top-20 win, this time over Tennessee. Klatt explains Notre Dame’s biggest strength and why USC’s fatal flaw is keeping them from taking the next step up. He marvels at Georgia’s ability to consistently find ways to win games and considers if Michigan is starting to look like Michigan again after their convincing win over Washington. Klatt reveals his latest Top 10 and debates how high to rank teams like Vanderbilt after their win over LSU & Miami after their loss to Louisville. He also discusses Ohio State’s historic start to the season. Klatt then reacts to the news of Florida firing Billy Napier and gives his list of candidates that should be considered for the new opening. 0:00-2:04 Intro2:05-9:59 Alabama beats Tennessee10:00-17:25 Notre Dame beats USC17:26-24:08 Georgia comes back vs. Ole Miss24:09-30:09 Michigan bounces back with 24-7 win over Washington30:10-38:03 Joel’s new top 1038:04-42:31 Florida fires Billy Napier Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This Alabama team is becoming a real title contender. Maybe they continue to develop and turn into something that is nine and two facing Ohio State with potentially a playoff spot on the line. That Georgia team is just like nine lives. I'm going to be surprised if one of those guys that I just mentioned is not the head coach at Florida next year. Is why we love college football. Hey, welcome into the program, everybody.

This is Joel Klatt. This show is brought to you by Graduate by Hilton, and we thank them for their support. Hey, just remember if you have not done so yet, please subscribe to the program here on YouTube. That would help us out. Leave a comment down below. I'm going to do my best this week to get down into some of the comments. If you have questions, you can throw them down there. I'll try to get to those as well. And then wherever you like to social media, we're there all year long.

All of our content lives in short, easy to digest form right there on social media. At Joel Clat Shows, where you can find us, again, wherever you like to social media. Wild weekend of college football. And it was great. I know that we didn't have like the games that were just right down to the wire unless you stayed up until 2 a.m. Eastern time and watch that Stanford and Florida State game. But we had some great games and great matchups for top 10 teams go down. Miami, Ole Miss, Texas Tech loses that ball game at Arizona State. And then LSU loses at Vandy.

Hey, by the way, hard to win on the road. Just period, point blank in college football. It's hard to win on the road. I know Louisville was able to do it, but Ole Miss, Tech, LSU, they all go down on the road. I want to get to my top 10. I'll get to that at some point here later in the program, but I wanted to touch on a few of these games because there were some great performances and some teams that are starting to emerge. Of course, I threw that out there on X on Saturday night, and that's the team I'm going to

start with. This Alabama team is becoming a real title contender. You know, this is not a team that's just, hey, they're getting better from that week one No, no, no. Now, we can look up and say after this 37 to 20 win over Tennessee at home, all right, this team is legit. They're starting to play better on defense, holding Tennessee to 20 points. That was the number one scoring offense in the country coming into this ball game. The passing game continues to be elite. They're running it a little bit better every single week.

It doesn't really have to be great because of how elite they are throwing the football with Ty Simpson. And you look up and all of a sudden, Bama's one of the first. Bama's won four in a row over the last four weeks against top 20 teams. That is so impressive. There's no doubt. And it's even more impressive when you take a look at what those teams have done against everybody else. When you look at those four opponents that Bama has beat over the last four weeks, those teams are 23 and 1 against everybody else not named Alabama.

Hello, Bama's right here. They're right here. They're easily, I think, right now the class of the SEC. That could just be, you know, that could be overlooking A&M. We'll get to that in a moment. But the way they're playing against some of these teams, they're beating really good football teams, really good football teams that are doing it in different fashion.

There was a sequence in this football game, though, this Tennessee Bama game that totally changed the game. And obviously I'm talking about that into the half sequence in the first half. When Tennessee looks like they're going to go down and at least get points, It's a 16, what was it, 167 game at this point? I believe it was 16.7. And it looks like they're at least going to get three. So it's going to be 16.10 probably should get a touchdown.

I know time is dwindling, but Tennessee has gotten themselves down to this point where they've got first and goal with a timeout in their pocket. Okay. So let's just talk about this moment for a second. This was a massive coaching failure on the Tennessee. a total situational strategic failure from Tennessee. I know Joey Aguilar is going to get the bulk of the criticism because of the pick six, but let's just think about this for a moment, this sequence that happens at the end of the half.

It's 16-7. You're on the road. You've put together a drive, a really good drive, and you're on the doorstep. It's first and goal, I believe from the two-yard line right around there, and you have a timeout in your pocket. Now, the timeout in your pocket is the only thing that gives you the run-past conflict against the defense. It's the only thing because the time is so short. I believe it was under 15 seconds at this point. And so, yes, you can run the football.

But as soon as you run the football, you lose the ability to call timeout in future plays, which then means that you lose the run-past conflict on the defense. So on first down, Tennessee decides to run the ball. That's fine, I guess, if you think you can really get it in. Now, maybe you think you can absolutely punch it into the end zone at that point. Obviously, they think that they can. They don't, and they have to burn the timeout. Okay, so now at this point, it's second and goal, and you don't have a timeout.

So regardless of what you do with your formation or action in your concept, you lose the ability to put the defense in conflict because they know you're not going to run the football. Running the football at that point is essentially saying one snap to end the half versus throwing the ball and it's incomplete. You can throw it away and you're going to get multiple snaps. So they decide to get not into a passing set

and trying to orchestrate something in the passing game that can pick, that can gain a matchup on a defender. No, no, no. They decide to get in the same heavy formation as if there's some sort of run-pass conflict and throw play-action pass out of the backfield? You're not faking anybody with the run.

They know you're not running it. You don't have a timeout. Massive failure from the coaching staff at Tennessee, which was then compounded by a poor throw. Joey Aguilar is not, you know, he's not in a position that he gets no criticism because it wasn't a great throw. But there's no ability to put the corner in conflict, the defensive back in conflict at that point.

The run fake, he doesn't even pay attention to because he knows that you're not going to run the football because running the football ends the half. So at that point, you need to get into a passing set, gain a matchup, pick, rub, do something along those lines to gain the advantage necessary to score. That was a huge failure. See, a coach, a coach's job is always to put his players in a position to succeed. And that didn't happen for Tennessee in that sequence. And then it was compounded by the quarterback air. The ball is thrown really poorly behind the intended wide receiver. And then it's picked and it goes back for six.

It's like it's the worst possible case for Tennessee at that point. So what should be a 1614 game is at half now a two-score game. And you're looking up and you're thinking to yourself, well, how are we going to come back from this? Now we put ourselves in a real hole. And at the end of the game, you lose by 17, and that's a 14-point swing. The rest of the game was, you know, back and forth. They traded touchdowns in the second half. Two touchdowns for Tennessee, two touchdowns for Alabama.

That type of sequence cannot happen if you want to win on the road, in particular against a really good opponent in Alabama. So that's really the sequence. that's the game. Now, everything else has to happen. You've got to go execute in all the other areas. But in hindsight, you look at that scenario and boy, like, that's where the game ultimately turned. You have to be perfect to beat Alabama. Ever since that brutal performance in week one against Florida State, which is now just like the biggest anomaly of the entire season, it's the biggest outlier in the entire season, that's after what's happened to the

Seminoles, you have to play really well and you have to take advantage of your opportunity when they present themselves. And Tennessee wasn't able to do that. And so Alabama took advantage, and they go on and they win by 17 at home over Tennessee. And so like I said, I'll just reiterate. I think Alabama is the class of the SEC at this point. They're my favorite in this conference, the way that they've played.

We're going to ask ourselves at a point here when I talk about the Georgia game. And it's like, hey, you know, who can kill Georgia? We're hard to kill is what Kirby Smart says. Well, guess what? That Bama team was able to do it at Georgia. So they went to Athens and did this. And so this Bama team is not only an SEC title contender. They're probably my favorite at this point.

We'll see where they land in my top 10. And I would also say like that's a legitimate national championship contender. You know, what Ohio State did to Wisconsin is similar to what Alabama did to Wisconsin. So maybe these teams are more on equal footing at this point. And I tell you what, like you give that coach some confidence. Kalin DeBore wins. I know he didn't say Google it, but like we can Google him as well. Everywhere he's been, he wins, and that team is playing with a tremendous amount of confidence, love their quarterback Ty Simpson.

They've been able to expand on their passing game so that it's not just Ryan Williams, even though Ryan Williams is still dangerous. Yes, although he hasn't been this year. I know that there's a lot of scuttle butt, if you will, about Ryan Williams, but Ryan Williams is still there and they've got all this other firepower in their passing game, which makes them an elite team. So that's definitely a title contender. another great game I thought was that game at Notre Dame. Let's talk about this Notre Dame USC game. Notre Dame has answers, all right? I talk about this a lot, and if you're going to be a title contender,

if you're going to be a team that can go and win a national championship, you've got to have answers. Now, they still don't have any margin for error, so it's not a guarantee that they're going to be in the college football playoff, but I think we can all just use our eyes and see that Notre Dame is one of the 10 best teams in the country. Easily, easily. and they did it this time against a really good opponent with a potent offense

on a night in which their quarterback played really poor. And in fact, C.J. Carr was one of the reasons why USC even had a chance in that game. Obviously, inclement weather and everything, but Carr was not great. He made a couple of just really poor mistakes, and yet it didn't matter. Why didn't it matter? Because they have answers. Because they can go ahead and they can run the football with love and price for over 300 yards. Love finished with over 250 total yards.

yards. He was incredible. I tell you what, man, Jeremiah Love, I've said this since the beginning of the season. This guy is an explosive, all-purpose, catch it out of the backfield, do it all back. I think he's probably the best back in the country. I know that Wayman Jordan, when he's healthy, is really good. Justice Haynes, when he's healthy, he's electric as well. But, man, love is probably the guy that takes the cake. And when you look at this game, in a similar fashion to the Tennessee and Alabama game, there were a few mistakes that USC made that you cannot make and expect to beat a team of the caliber of Notre Dame on the road. You can't give up a kickoff return, which is what you're watching right now, if you're watching on YouTube. These are the things that have to get corrected if you're USC.

This is a team that is still a very good football team. And I know that they're not ranked. They're just on the outside of the AP poll right now. but that's still a really good football team. One of the things that continues to get exposed in their losses, Illinois and now Notre Dame, is their inability to stop a really physical run game, in particular right between the tackles. Notre Dame exposed that, Illinois exposed that.

It makes the win against Michigan look that much better, I guess, for USC because they were able to at least handle. And I think a lot of that was game flow. They got the lead and they took Michigan outside of the position that they wanted to be in in terms of run of the ball. But that needs to get fixed for, the Trojans if they want to go on and potentially put themselves in a position to be a college football playoff team. And their schedule is not going to do them any favors. Because when

you look up, there are a few teams on their schedule that are going to put them in the meat grinder. Iowa is going to do that. I mean, Iowa just beat Penn State with like negative yards passing. Not literally, obviously, but like almost. I think it was in the 60s from Mark Grinowski. and they were still able to beat, you know, Penn State because they can run the ball. Oregon is the second leading rushing team in the Big Ten, and they run it 36 times a game. So USC has to get that fixed. Heck, Northwestern is going to run it right at them. So this is a team that if they don't get that fixed, they're going to be in a position

where their offense is going to be leaned on heavily, and I know it's a good offense, but when that offense doesn't have balance, which they were unable to produce against Notre Dame, then they're not quite as efficient. They're not quite as efficient. I still like the trajectory for USC. This is a team that turned it over three times. They turned it over twice on downs. There was a couple of sequences that I just felt like similar to Tennessee.

I didn't love the coaching decisions in some of their sequences, in particular in the second quarter, when they got down there, third and short, inside of the red zone in a 1410 game. That can be corrected. What stands to, I think, be questioned is that run defense. and how staunch can they be in the middle? And if they can't correct that, then, you know, there's going to be another loss along the way because somebody is going to expose that.

There are teams on that schedule that can and potentially will expose that. Notre Dame is a really good team, though. I know with those two losses, I know Miami went down to Louisville, but still, like, we can use our eyes and we can see that Notre Dame is a heck of a football team. They don't have a ton left on their schedule. You look at the remaining schedule for Notre Dame. I mean, it's like nothing. Boston College, who is reeling right now, Navy,

which you should beat on just pure talent, at Pitt, Syracuse, Stanford. Like, this is a 10-and-2 football team. Now, I don't think that they should get a buy, but I do think that they're going to be 10-2, and I do think that they're probably going to be in the college football playoff. Because, again, the committee should be able to just use, use, use their judgment, use their eyes, and say, yeah, that team is really good.

And it's one of the best teams in the country. And certainly they could be right there. And again, they win this game with their quarterback doing virtually nothing except hurting them. Real quick on that sequence that I was speaking about for USC, it's the second quarter and it's 1410. And a lot of football happens after that. And I'm aware.

But it comes down to when you do get opportunities against really good teams in their building, you have to take advantage. So USC puts together a drive and they've got third and short inside of the 20 yard line. This is a scoring drive. You've got to get points. At a minimum, this needs to be 14, 13. And on third down, they decide to throw the football. Now, that signals to me that it's not four down territory, that you're willing to kick the field goal if you're not successful on third and short.

If you're willing to go for it on fourth down there, then you run the ball. You run it. I know they didn't have a ton of success, but they ran a ball well enough and efficient enough where they can feel like they can get a couple of yards on two carries. If you feel like you've got two plays in your pocket, you run the football on third down, and then you run it again on fourth down.

If they stop you that way, it's like you tip your cap and you're probably not going to win the game anyways. They throw it on third, and they come back with almost what looked like to be the same concept on the right side. And it's like, it was really well defended. I did not love the sequence of throwing the ball two times in a row on third and short inside of the 20 yard line. You've got to come away with points right there.

If you're going to throw it on third, kick the field goal. And their field goal kicker was terrific all night long. And so it should have been a 14, 13 game. Is it different after that? I'm not sure. I mean, Notre Dame drove right down. And that was when CJ Carr had that wild third and, what was it, two inside the five, and he's running around. And then he throws a pick.

And I'm just like, oh, my gosh. I mean, I don't always do Surrender Cobra on the plane, but there are times, two times Saturday when I did the Surrender Cobra on the plane. One was when the internet went out and I couldn't watch the Georgia game. So I had to watch that on film, by the way. I'll get to that game in a moment. But the other one was that pick for C.J. Carr, the internet comes back on. I'm on my second flight connecting, trying to get home.

And he throws that pick. And I'm like, oh, no. You can't do that right there. So they still won, though. They still won. How about Georgia, folks? Georgia is just hard to kill. Again, a multiple possession deficit.

And again, Georgia comes back to win. Third win for Georgia when falling behind two scores. I will just tell you this. in this season, how often have we sat here and been like, man, that was just a dud from that team and they go out and they lose. And here's the thing. If you evaluate it over 60 minutes, they just don't have duds. Even in the Bama game in which they lost, they're putting themselves in a position after the 14 point deficit to come back and potentially win the game. They had the drop pass.

They had the bad fourth down in that game. so they had their chances to win that game after a multiple possession deficit. Hard to talk tonight. This team is so resilient. And every week, regardless of how they're playing, for any stretch, they're eventually going to turn it around. And that should be commended.

That Georgia team is just like nine lives. and they take their entire M.O. I don't even think just from Kirby, although, yeah, he's got serious urgency with everything he does. It's Gunner Stockton. Gunner Stockton is just like he's one of these guys that you just, he can't be denied. You know, he's a Haynes King that can throw.

He reminds me so much of watching TCU a couple of years ago with Max Duggan. He really does. that second half was so good. I'm watching the film today. My youngest son, Theo, had a double header. He plays fall baseball. And so I'm sitting out of a double header and between innings and, you know, when he's when he's not hitting, sorry other parents,

but I was watching the Georgia Ole Miss film off in the corner. And listen, are they flawed? Yeah. You know, they're flawed. Their defense is not what Georgia's defense has been. And in some cases, it's shocking to see them get gashed. like they do on the defensive side. They gave up five straight TD drives to start the game.

That's just still, it's still like, am I watching Georgia? But then they're Stockton. And this guy in the second half was 12 of 12 with three touchdowns. He's running for touchdowns. When things aren't there, he gets first downs. He is such a gritty competitor. And that's not a cutdown. Listen, like, yes, he possesses a lot of talent.

And he makes really beautiful throws, the fourth down against Tennessee, incredible throws. But it's not just that. It's just like he's not just a pretty statue back in the pocket that makes plays. He will do whatever it takes to win the football game. And because of that, their team always has a chance. It's so crazy. I'm watching that film and I'm like, this feels like an old Big 12 game. It's jarring in a lot of ways to see this.

where it's just like back and forth and back and forth. And it's like, can either of these defenses get a stop? And eventually, here's what it comes down to. Eventually, Stockton is making all the plays necessary for his team to win the game. And Trinidad, Chambliss doesn't. And then all of a sudden, Georgia takes the lead and they win the football game. You know, it's a couple of errant throws from Chamblis. He's got the tight end open on the corner, and he kind of dirts it at his feet.

Now all of a sudden it's second and long. There's a batted ball. you know, they throw a little swing route. It's not going there well, and all of a sudden they have to punt. And now the stadium is going. You come back for their final series, he misses another throw,

and then all of a sudden the rush shows up and you lose the football game. There's so much pressure on the quarterback and those style of games to be perfect. That's what I remember watching the Baker-Mayfield-Mason-Rudoff game, Baker-Mayfield and the Texas Baker-Mayfield-O-U game where it's just back. and forth, Sam Ellinger is the name I was trying to think about.

And it's like eventually some quarterback is going to make a small mistake, and that's going to be the difference in the game. And that's what this game felt like. On the old miss side, listen, they've got to clean up some things on the defensive side that they get misaligned a few times and just give up freebies, not always for touchdowns, but freebies for first downs and things of that nature. And that's got to get fixed. There were some alignment issues to certain formations that I saw, and it's like, that certainly can get fixed during the week, and I'm sure it will.

Here's what Ole Miss has remaining on their schedule now. They've got to go to Oklahoma. They've got South Carolina at home, the Citadel. Goodness, can we stop playing the Citadel in November? November 8th, the Citadel. That's awesome. Then Florida reeling at Mississippi State. So Ole Miss is going to be right there.

This game at Oklahoma is going to be interesting just because of the level that Oklahoma can play defense. And obviously they got a nice win over South Carolina. And so Ole Miss is in the driver's seat. They hold the cards to their season as it relates to the playoff. I'm still going to be surprised if Ole Miss is not in the college football playoff, because they're not going to have to face Georgia in Athens every week. You know, and they come up short in this one. But again, like, that's still a really good football team. And I believe that they're going to be able to probably run the table at worst, have one loss in that. there and be right in position in terms of the playoff.

Then you look at Georgia. They've got the one loss, but now you go Florida in a neutral site. Florida just fired their coach at Mississippi State, Texas, and who knows what Archmanning is going to show up. Is it the Red River Archmanning? Or is it the one that played awful against Kentucky and had to beat Kentucky in overtime? I don't know. Charlotte, gross.

November 22nd, Charlotte. And then Georgia Tech on a neutral site. And that one's going to be a great game. Obviously, tech's having one of the best seasons in their history. So that's how Georgia finishes up. Maybe we see Georgia, Alabama and the SEC championship game. We might. And we're going to look up at the end of the year and we're going to think to ourselves like,

hey, maybe it's just like Ohio State, Bama and Georgia are the three best teams. I'll do respect to Indiana. I'll do respect to A&M. I'll do respect to Oregon. But it's like it might just be more of the same in terms of what we see at the end of the because those three teams certainly look like they're playing great. Michigan gets a big win, bounceback win, 24-7 over Washington. That was the game I was at.

And I wanted to touch on this one because of the style in which this happened. After that, I would call it an embarrassing loss at USC. There was a lot of conflict in that building and a lot of soul searching, I guess I should say. And they responded in a vintage Michigan way. And I was saying it on the broadcast. But that was a Michigan win. That was like watching the 2022 version of the Wolverines. Maybe not 23 version, but the 22 version.

They win it on the ground and they win it with defense. And Jordan Marshall was terrific. Underwood was great. I'm going to get to him in a moment. Their offensive line, even though they lost their left tackle during the game, Evan Link steps up as a redshirt freshman, and they were able to just pound the football at that Washington defense. and what that allows them to do is then throw the football in a fashion that helps Underwood be more efficient as a young true freshman.

When you can play that physical and the defense has to commit that amount of resources to try to stop the run, here's what happens. You can utilize your tight ends and your running backs in the passing game. It's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. And that's exactly what happened for Michigan. So now all of a sudden you're not sitting there just throwing the football. because you have to because you're down, you're behind the chains, and you're trying to get McCulley open, you're trying to get Marsh open.

No, no, no. Now Marsh and McCulley can become weapons in creative ways. The little flip reverse, a middle screen. You get the tight ends involved. I thought getting the tight ends involved, Tinelli was great, Zach Marshall was great. How about the depth of their tight end room? Those are the third and fourth tight end in their room,

and they were tremendous. So that offense looked like an offense that has some sustained. How do you get Bryce Underwood, who came in with the lowest completion percentage of any Big Ten starter, and get him to go 21 to 27 for, what is it, 230 yards and two touchdowns? Well, you run the football. You become mission again. It's first principles. It's foundational things. You went on the line of scrimmage, and then you throw the ball when you want to versus when you have to.

That's how you win at Michigan, complementary style of game. Now, to do that, your defense has to hold up and be a really good defense. And that's exactly what happened against what I think is one of the more potent offenses in all of college football. Washington has some great skill. Great skill. Quarterback DeMond Williams is a really good player. Denzel Boston on the outside, Jonah Coleman, Jed Fish does a great job with their scheme.

And yet, Michigan was able to hold up defensively and up, you look up at the end of the day, and they've given up seven points. They get a couple of interceptions. And then you realize the fashion in which it happened. They went back to first principles and foundational things for what Michigan has been over the last four and five years, which is a team that doesn't have to blitz every single play. Now, I know that that's Wink Martindale's like M.O.

It's his calling card are those blitzes. And he likes the single backer blitz. But when that happens, you manipulate the second level of your coverage in the past. passing game, you also present the opportunity to create seams in your run defense. Now, it only works if you can put pressure on the quarterback with four guys, which they were able to do with those edge rushers like Derek Moore against Demand Williams, which you just saw right there on YouTube, that sack on a fourth down. But when they didn't blitz as often, all of a sudden, the defense became much more difficult to face. I think that this is where

they need to sit. This is the vein in which they need to sit. They can't. came into this game blitzing at a 50% clip. That was number one in all of college football. And in this matchup, they blitz 20% of the time. Now, Michigan fans, I don't know if that means that's what the percentage will be moving forward or if it was game plan specific because of Demand Williams. We'll have to wait and see with what Michigan does this next week at Michigan State. But I do believe that this is a better defense when they just play base defense. what they do is they make the opponent earn their way down the field. And when the opponent has to earn their way down the field,

a small mistake here or there, an ill-timed throw, an inaccurate throw, winds up as an interception. When that happens, you win the football game because the offense is controlling the line of scrimmage. So again, Vintage Michigan. They're out there playing the way that they have for the last four and five years.

And here's the beautiful part if you're a Michigan fan. They did it with a ton of, of young players. I was touching on this during the broadcast. But on offense, you're looking up and I'm sitting there and I'm counting all these guys. And I'm like, holy cow, there's six true or red shirt freshmen's on the field in that offense. Three on the offensive line. Jordan Marshall's a red shirt freshman.

Got the true freshman in Bryce Underwood. Andrew Marsh on the outside. He's a true freshman. It's like a lot of young players. And all of a sudden, you're like, oh, okay. they're going to be really good next year. Not that they couldn't be really good this year. Maybe they can.

Maybe they continue to develop and turn into something that is nine and two facing Ohio State with potentially a playoff spot on the line if they were able to win that game. But that's a top 10 team all day long next year. A lot of young players on the defensive side as well. At times, there were three and four redshirt freshmen in the defensive secondary along with true freshmen. So Michigan's got a bright future ahead of them. That was a vintage win. and when they watch that film, they're going to be like, that's us.

That's us. Now, if you go and you do that the rest of the way, I think that that's the recipe for a really good back half of the year. All right, let's get to the top 10. Here we go, my top 10. I know I teased this on Saturday night on Twitter, but if you haven't seen, here we go. At number 10, I'm going to go with Vanderbilt. So they find themselves in the top 10. They beat LSU, took a part.

an LSU defense that has been largely one of the better defenses in the country. That's really the first team that has gotten after LSU's defense. So Diego Pavia continues to be a revelation. And everyone's like, man, why did he get an extra year? And by the way, I just love his attitude. Clark Lee has done such a good job at Vanderbilt. He's certainly going to get a huge look, a long look from all of these schools and programs that have openings coming up,

down the stretch. At number nine, I struggled with this right here. So I know they have two losses, but this is a top 10 team. So I've got Notre Dame at 9. And I talked about them already, winning in the fashion that they did, even with their quarterback not playing well,

I think that we're all blind if we don't see that Notre Dame is the top 10 team, legitimately. But in order to put them there, Miami can't fall out of the top 10 after the four-pick game to Beck, so Miami is eight. Again, I struggled with this whole sequence right here. Miami's going to be eight. And here, at the end of the day, Jeff Brom does this to somebody every year,

that Friday night win Louisville over Miami, and I don't expect Beck to throw four picks every week, and that's what it took for Louisville to win. So that's still a good football team. It really is. And I still think it's a top 10 team. I still think it's the best team in the ACC. So they're only going to fall to eight.

Now, the team in the ACC that I have to put ahead of them is a team that has handled their business. And that's Georgia Tech. They beat Duke 2718. Haynes King, here he goes again, 120 rush yards. He's like the new version of Colin Klein. Remember that year, Optimus Klein at Kansas State. So Georgia Tech is seven.

I love the story of Georgia Tech. Like, they've done a great job, and Haynes King is just a man. I love watching that guy play. So they're at seven. Number six is a team I've already talked about Georgia. Hard to kill. We're hard to kill, says Kirby, and I agree. Only one team's been able to do it, and that's Alabama.

So Georgia is going to be number six. That's going to be a tough out. At five, I also struggled with this. But if I'm being honest with myself, and I'm just looking at these teams, and I'm just like rank these teams as like best to worst in one through five. And I had this group of five teams. And so sorry Aggie fans, but I had to put A&M at the back end of this. And they're going to be number five.

Still top five in the country. I was a little concerned about the defense having to survive an ugly game against Arkansas. That is the second straight week, by the way, that we've seen Arkansas come alive on offense. Obviously, Bobby Petrino knows what he's doing on the offensive side. So is that cause for a cause for? concerned? I don't think so. I don't think so, but we'll see coming down the stretch. I do love what they have, though, and they were able to survive some injuries to their backfield and still look potent on the offensive side. Number four is going to be Oregon.

That was a huge bounceback win for them. After losing it home to Indiana, which we know is a great team, they hammered Rutgers with 415 rushing yards. Rushing yards. Dan Landing looked at the second half of that film against Indiana and he thought to himself, nope, that's not how this is going to go. We're going to be. a team that can win the line of scrimmage and they were able to do that. So they took apart Rutgers, a long trip in order to do that. At number three, I've got Alabama. Again, guys, like, let's look at this Alabama team a little bit differently after these last four weeks. And I can remember urging patience at the beginning of the year. I thought that there was a bit of panic

with the way that that happened, but they've gotten better and not only gotten better, but they've gotten to be like a great football team. This is a legitimate, National Championship caliber team. Alabama is going to be number three. And the top two teams are Indiana and Ohio State. Indiana took care of Michigan State 3813. Fernando Mendoza continues to be a fantastic quarterback. He might be the first quarterback taken in the NFL draft. And the number one's Ohio State. They shut out Wisconsin. Cornell Tate has over 100 yards and two touchdowns. Julian Sayan had almost 400 yards throwing the football. They've allowed 41 points through seven games. That's the fewest in college football since

1993, that great Florida State defense. This Ohio State defense is one of the best defenses, not just this year, but in a long time. It's up there with the 21 Georgia defense, some of those Bama defenses that were incredible, some of the great defenses in the 90s. Wisconsin had no shot in that game. Now, we know that, and Bama also took apart Wisconsin in a similar fashion, but Bama gave up a couple of scores in that game. And you can say, yeah, there were, you know, mop-up duties,

or that's fine. Ohio State didn't. They went out there and shut them out. 41 total points through seven college football games. That's an incredible number. Again, fewest since 1993. And then on the offensive side, are they running it great? No, no, they're not. And they're going to try to go back and fix that. And I'm sure they're going to do that. But Wisconsin does one thing well, and that's stop the run. Bama knows that. They were able to stop Bama's run game. And they were able to hold in check Ohio State's run game. and I know Ohio State fans are going to complain about that

because Buckeye fans tend to focus on the areas where they need to get better, I think is the right way to put it. But that passing game came to life. How about Julian saying? And that's quite an answer to be able to just go out there and throw for almost 400 yards. So the team's just on the outside of my top 10 after I finished it. These are the ones that I was thinking about. BYU, that was an incredible win in the Holy War at home over Utah.

I picked Utah in that game. BYU came of age at the quarterback position. Bear Bokmire was tremendous. He is tough. He is gritty. He is BYU. Man, I love watching that guy play. It's still a little bit weird seeing number 47 play the quarterback position.

But whatever, you know, that's fine. This is a tough team. Kalani Sataki continues every single year to be a team that just goes out there and performs. Remember, it's just a couple of years removed from this program kind of floundering around in this country as an independent and not finding a home. They find a home in the Big 12 and they've largely dominated the Big 12. This is easily a team that could wind up in the Big 12 championship game and they're going to be a tough out because of that physicality and their quarterback's grittiness. You can tell them you, you get a quarterback that is competitive and knows how to win football games and you can go out there and you can win football games.

I consider tech here because I still love tech, even though they lost to Arizona State, did not have their starting quarterback, Barron, and they were able to come back and take a lead late in that game, but they gave it up. Again, I would just say this. The injury to their defensive tackle, Skyler Gil Howard, is a big deal. Now, there is news out of Lubbock that they think he could return for the postseason, but he's not going to be back in the regular season, and that's not good for them. And you saw the effects of that because Arizona State was able to be pretty efficient on the offensive side.

I considered Missouri in the top 10. I still like Missouri. I considered Oklahoma. That was a good bounce back after the Red River loss. The defense was dominant against South Carolina of only given up a score. So those are the teams that I considered right there and they were just outside of my top 10.

Again, that BYU was a classic. Kudos to BYU. I love watching BYU play. So my dad was a high school football coach and the style of play that I grew up watching and then played in high school was similar style, just a rugged, run-oriented, tough, competitive nature.

And so I love, that's why I've loved Utah for a long time. You guys have known that. BYU fans hate that I've always loved Utah, and that's fine. But BYU is a good football team, really good football team. And I think one of the better, more underrated coaches in the entire country is Kalani Sataki. That guy is consistent. That team is consistent. That program is consistent.

They got grown men over there. And I really love what they were able to do in the Holy War. Time for our weekend check-in presented by graduate by Hilton hotels made for fans. In all your favorite college towns, you know that I love to stay in these graduate hotels. They're really a great product. I highly encourage you to go take a look. Next time you're out on a road trip or you want to go watch your favorite team in a college town, look up the graduate.

They're really good at what they do. I'm checking in on all these coaching hot seats. And sure enough, we got some action this weekend. Billy Napier fired by Florida and his first. fourth season. So they'll be looking for a new coach. And listen, they probably should have done this last year. He won those games at the end and survives and then comes into this year with this daunting schedule. And to be honest, it's probably not the worst thing in the world to not have your new hire have to face the schedule that they're facing this year. But this is the

way it falls for Napier and he loses his job. We look at the candidates for this job. Who are they're going to call? Lane Kiffin, for sure. Eli Drinkowitz, call him. Alex Golish, absolutely call him. Clark Lee, James Franklin. I think all of those guys are going to be in the mix. I'm going to be surprised if one of those guys that I just mentioned is not the head coach at Florida next year. My hunch is Lane and my dark horse is James Franklin. I think one of those two guys is going to be the coach at Florida next year. Now, we're going to to see where all these dominoes fall because these these openings this year are bigger than what we saw a year ago. And so because of that, we're going to see some massive contracts be given out.

We already saw one. We already saw one. And kudos to Kurt Signetti. Got to give him his flowers, his 11.6 million flowers annually and a fully guaranteed deal. And rightly so, because he has all the leverage over Indiana. He was going to be the first call for any big opening in the country. And now he's going to be locked up at Indiana. And good for them. I can't wait to go cover them. Big noon Saturday is going to be live in Bloomington as Indiana takes on UCLA this week.

Gus, Jenny and I will have the call. We'll see what happens at LSU. That does not look good right now after that loss to Vanderbilt. So Brian Kelly, he's up against it. They're going to have to play great football down the stretch for him to keep his job at LSU. And then when that happens, or if it happens, that's going to be the biggest domino. So Penn State right now is the best job available, then Florida,

but we're all looking at LSU and looking at what goes on there. And I will just tell you this, I believe that Lane is going to be one of the first two options at either Florida or if it opens LSU. So Lane Kiffin is either going to get a massive deal at Ole Miss to stay at Ole Miss or he's going to be the head coach at one of those places. But for now, without LSU, opening up, Penn State is still the best job open in this cycle so far. So that's the weekend check-in presented by graduate by Hilton. That'll do it for us in this edition. We'll be back on Wednesday with more Joel Clash show.

As we roll along in the college football season, man, this sport is amazing. I love this sport so much. I know you do as well. That's why you listen to this show, and I'm very thankful that you do. Thanks to our entire staff. Our staff does a great job. They work late on Sunday night to record this show. put it together so that you have it on Monday morning when you get in your car or wherever

you consume it on your way to work or whatever you do. So a big shout out to my staff here at the Joel Clash show. They do an incredible job. Thank you for listening. We'll be back on Wednesday. We'll have picks and previews on Thursday.