The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Arch Manning arrives, Alabama explodes, Michigan’s QB issues & should we be worried about Georgia?

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

FOX Sports’ lead College Football analyst Joel Klatt reacts to Arch Manning’s impressive performance for Texas and discusses whether the Longhorns have a QB controversy. He breaks down Oregon’s road win over Oregon State and whether that performance alleviates the concerns from the first two games of the season. He also evaluates what he saw from Alabama in their blowout win at Wisconsin and what makes Jalen Milroe and the Tide offense so scary but also points out a few warning signs that could flare up later in the season. Klatt considers what to make of Georgia’s 1-point win at Kentucky and whether or not to make a big deal about it. He then gives his thoughts on the Michigan QB situation as the Wolverines continue to look for answers from that position. Finally, he marvels at another incredible performance by Colorado’s two-way star Travis Hunter as he put on another show at Colorado State on Saturday Night. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Travis Hunter probably belongs in New York. College football has never been better. Interest has never been higher. Believe that we are at the dawn of the golden age of college football. It was an epic day of college football. It was one of those days where you fall in love with the sport all over again. What's up, everybody? Joel Clatt here.

Welcome into the Joel Clatt Show. This is presented by Hampton by Hilton, and we thank them for their support. Hey, listen, if you aren't subscribed, go over to YouTube and subscribe to the channel right. Now we got all sorts of cool content, including what we shot last week, live from Madison and everybody that came out to the live show, a slow clap for you. All you fans that came out for the live show on Thursday night, it was a lot of fun.

If you haven't seen it, go to YouTube. There's a lot of cool things in there, some stories from Derek Watt, Melvin Gordon. Mark Ingram joined us. We had a really fun time with trivia at the end. Jenny was doing her best game show host. So it was awesome. Thank you for everyone that put it together. Hampton by Hilton for helping us put it on. And of course, the fans for coming out. It was a really cool experience. So go ahead and do all of that, rate and review the show and do all the fun things. Follow us on social media.

I've got lots to get into today. Obviously, Monday shows are always packed and this one is no different. I've got to get into Texas. Arch Manning. Hello. Oregon finally looks right. I got to get into Alabama, the game that I called, what I actually now think of. about Alabama after seeing them live and that blowout win in Camp Randall against Wisconsin 42 to 10. I got to listen, we got a way in on Georgia. I get it. They always struggle with Kentucky, but my goodness, you know, they survive. Georgia wins.

Michigan, do we have a quarterback issue in Michigan? I'm definitely going to touch on that. And then I think that I need to touch on Travis Hunter a little bit as well. So we're getting into a ton of stuff on today's show. Let's dive into it, and we start with Arch Manning. How about Arch Manning and the Texas Longhorns? First of all, the game was never really in doubt, but everyone's talking about this because of the injury to Quinn Ewers.

A week after Quinn Ewers plays incredible football on the road in the Big House against Michigan, he goes out there and he gets hurt. Now, Texas, I always felt like, was very deep this year. It's one of the reasons I felt like there were such an elite team and in particular after covering them live and studying them for that game against Michigan, I was so impressed with their depth, and part of that depth included their backup quarterback. Now, some of that was an assumption. We think that Arch Manning is going to be good, and a lot of that has to do with his last name.

But we haven't really known. He looked good in some spring games and some mop-up duty, and we're like, yeah, you know, we think it's good. But this was really the first time that we got to see it, right? Like, see him have the entire offense at his disposal, see him run the offense with Sark being uber aggressive calling the place, see him being able to run on the edge. And I tell you what, all that did for me was solidify the fact that I think Texas is one of the best teams in the country.

And because I feel like they've done more on the field than anybody else, I put them at number one. So in my latest rankings, Texas goes up to number one. The AP did the exact same thing. So that was, now, granted, I don't love being the same as the AP, but I'll just tell you, like this is the first time since 2008 that the AP has Texas at number one, and there's my top 10. I have Texas one, Ohio State, two. I've got Miami all the way up at three because, listen, if you look at what teams are

actually doing on the field, Miami deserves that spot. Tennessee, the same thing. Georgia with their lackluster performance would go down to five, Bama, USC, Ole Miss, Penn State, and Oregon, that's how I round out my top 10. But Texas is the one at the top. Texas is a team that, well, let's just face it, in this season, we think, even though we have not witnessed a season with this new college football playoff and these new deeper conferences, we think it's going to take more depth.

I do. I think it's going to take a lot more depth to get through these schedules. Because in some cases, we might be asking teams to play upwards of 17 football games. That's by far the most that we've ever asked prior. We've seen teams go, remember when it was a thing, it was like, they're the first team that went 15 and 0. well, we might be asking teams to play 17 games. I think it might be even unrealistic to feel like teams are going to go through the season without some injuries.

And a lot of them are going to have to deal with injuries at the quarterback position. It's very rare for a team, even great teams, to have to play or get to play every single meaningful snap of their season with their starting quarterback. That's just incredibly rare. So at some point, and by the way, Ewers has a bit of an injury history with Texas. We've seen this before. Obviously, got injured a few years ago in that game against Alabama. I thought that Arch was going to have to play. Last year, we saw Malik Murphy have to play some meaningful snaps for the Longhorns.

And I felt like Arch was going to have to play. This did nothing but solidify the fact that Texas is like, oh, yeah, they're going to be just fine. In fact, you could probably make an argument that Manning might be even more talented than yours, even though yours clearly has the experience edge over Manning. So you can make an argument that they might not miss a beat, even if their starting quarterback goes down. And that's a quarterback that I still believe is going to wind up in New York for the Heisman trophy ceremony.

I mean, dang, right? Vince Young chiming in on Twitter at Vince Young 10. He says, okay, respect number 16. I see you champ with a little hookum right there or the horns. I think that Vince threw up the horns like that because what we saw from Manning in particular running the football was something I didn't think he had in him. That was something pretty special. That long run was the longest run by a touchdown run by a Texas quarterback since Vince Young. That's saying something because Colt McCoy was damn good.

By the way, and now they've got all these GPS trackers and you can track exactly how fast these players are running on the field. Can I just tell you like, if you're running over 20 and a half miles an hour, hitting 21, miles an hour. Some guys that are really fast can hit like 22, 22 and a half, maybe even close to 23. Arch basically hit 21 miles an hour on his touchdown run. That blows my mind. Blows my mind. That's like fast fast. Not just like regular like, oh yeah, he can run. That's like fast fast. I didn't, I mean, you watch Peyton like Bambi run around and you didn't think that That was it. This team might need him even more in an extended time.

And guess what? Sark, at this point, has got to feel to himself like, I'm good. I'm good. We're deep up front. We're deep at the defensive line. I've got my wide receiver core. This is just an incredible team, which is why I put them at number one. Now, yours is week to week.

It seems like it's not going to be a long-term thing, which means that Sark gets to play this week-to-week. And guess what? Here's the benefit for the doubt. Sark doesn't have to rush Ewers back. He can make sure that he's completely healthy. They've got ULM, Louisiana Monroe, or, yeah, Louisiana Monroe, then Mississippi State, then an off week,

then they've got Red River. So they've got all this time to get Ewers healthy if they really feel like they want him back for Red River. And then they've got Georgia the following week. Even if he's not great, like, I'm good. I'm good. Now, I don't believe that this is a quarterback controversy, and I do think that that's where people are going to,

go in particular from a narrative standpoint and in particular there. Because let's face it, a lot of people around Texas love to have an opinion. I'm glad in this case that Sark is unwavered by people's opinion about him or his program. This guy is very comfortable in his own skin and that's going to pay huge dividends for him in this situation because there will be noise. Now, every time that Ewers doesn't run around or if he gets sacked or if he struggles for even a quarter against Oklahoma, everyone's going to be like, Well, put in arch. Put in arch.

It's like, hey, but I'm in, relax. Just relax. Sark gets to ease into yours getting healthy. Then he gets to just evaluate it. He just gets to purely evaluate it. And if Quinn isn't effective, he's got a legitimate option. This is a win-win situation for Steve Sarkesian if he handles it correctly. Because like I said, the noise, excuse me, can get pretty loud down there around

that program. And if he navigates that, this is a team that certainly is going to be where I expected them to be. Because remember, if you go back to the preseason, who did I have in the national championship game, the Texas Longhorns? They've done nothing to that expectation except exceed it. Up to this point, they've done everything right. And now we know that they've got depth at the most important position on the field. Five total touchdowns, man. Arch, rolling down the field. Rolling. Just one time, I would love in my life to feel athletic like that, like run.

I was not a runner. I was very slow in every sport I played. Like basketball, I had to be a shooter. Baseball, I had to be like a power hitter and, you know, just didn't have the range and everything. I had to have a strong arm. quarterback. It's like, yeah, you got to be smart and be cerebral. Just one time. I would have loved to feel the feeling like I could run away from somebody on the field.

That must have been, that must have felt amazing. Arch. Just absolutely throttle down to the end zone. Cool to see. Hey, this Oregon team that we, including yours truly, we is in like all of us here at the Joel Clatch show, maybe listeners included, you duck fans. I think we had a lot of questions about this Oregon team after the first two weeks. And rightly so. Against Idaho did not look very promising. Boise State, you could argue it looked even worse and they got bailed out by huge plays specifically on special teams. Defense did not look up to standard, specifically against Ashton Genti, who I think is remarkable, the running back from Boise State. And then all of a sudden they were going into Oregon State, a team that knocks them off,

in their home stadium when they're playing the Civil War. They're in Corvallis. And Oregon just handled business. This is the team that we all expected to see week one against Idaho. They just arrived three weeks late. They got wrong memo. They were like, hey, I thought we were on the quarter system. You know, we just, you know, welcome Oregon to the party, everybody.

They're here. They're here. Dan Lannning, welcome. A little bit late, fashionably, some might say. But finally, welcome to the party of elite stature in college football. Because of some of those games early in the year, I did not just automatically put them back in the top five. Now, I do think that Saturday was a top five performance against Oregon State, a rivalry game when you're on the road. But I didn't just throw them up there because of the struggles, right?

And I feel like I'm consistent in the top 10. If they've struggled or anybody has struggled, I have moved them behind the teams that have taken care of business in front of them. Dylan Gabriel against Oregon State was phenomenal. This is the quarterback that they all dreamed of, that they all thought they had, that they celebrated that they got in the offseason when he transferred to Oregon. He was incredible as far as his efficiency and accuracy down the field. That's a big reason why they took care of the Beavs 4914. It is interesting to me, though, that there was a little bit of a reshuffling of the offensive line. If you didn't know this, Oregon did reshuffle the interior of their offensive line.

So they switched it up a little bit. in the second half of the Boise State game didn't necessarily pay dividends then, but it seemed to pay a lot of dividends in this game against the Beaves. Right guard moves to center, left guard moves to right guard, and then they brought in a new starter at left guard. So all of a sudden, you've got these new pieces, and it's really funny, because offensive lines are like, I don't know, it's kind of like dancing, even though I'm not a dancer.

So this is just all speculation. But, you know, when you see a group dancing, and you're like, man, they're just like very in sync, not the group in sync. You know what I'm trying to say here, right? Fumbling around. Not the group instinct. I'm not talking about Justin Timberlake. I'm just saying like, offensive lines have to be very in sync with one another.

Their ability to have that rhythm in the blocking style, regardless of the scheme that they're using, whether they're trying to block zone, block man schemes, gap schemes, pen and pole, all these different types of technical aspects. of running the football. Offensive lines like have this feel and they gel together and sometimes you just all of a sudden it's like you unlock it. And all of a sudden, you know, it's like the old, you know, lockers in high school and then you get to it and it's like, bam, then you open the locker and it just happens.

And it seemed to happen for the Oregon offensive line on Saturday. Defense was terrific. They were able to run the ball well, 240 yards on the ground, seven and a half per carry. And this is, by the way, in Oregon's. State team that prided itself on being physical. Remember now, Trim Prey takes over. He was the defensive coordinator. I told you before this game, like, I thought it was going to be close. I thought Oregon State was actually going to get to cover. And I took the points with Oregon State, and Oregon handled him. Gabriel 20 of 24 for 291, two passing touchdowns, a long TD run of 54 yards, and the

defense pitched a shut out in the second half. That was dominant. That's what we expected. to see out of Oregon in the first week of the season. And we didn't. And I was worried about them. I was very worried about it. It's like, okay, fool me once. It's like, okay, I get it. Twice, all of some boys say, I'm like, hey, Houston, we have a problem here. They corrected that. They corrected that. And now moving forward, everybody in the Big Ten, they're going to have to deal with a team that has that potential. I always talk about, and I know that this is kind of like an NFL draft type of lingo. Ceilings and floors.

It's like, what is the team's ceiling? At their best, what are they? What can they do? And then what is the team's floor? Right? Like, what is your worst shot in your golf bag? I'm throwing out way too many analogies, but whatever. It is what it is.

What's your worst shot? What's your floor? What's your worst performance? If we've seen the worst performance from Oregon already, and all we're going to see is performances above. the floor and possibly reaching the ceiling, then everybody in the Big Ten is in trouble because that's an incredibly talented team. If they control the line of scrimmage, if they're able to not allow a sack versus the 10 sacks that they gave up in the first couple of weeks,

like now you've got something or seven sacks, whatever it was in the first couple of weeks, now you've got something if the O line is what we thought it was going to be at the beginning of the year, if they can run it, protect the quarterback, if Gabriel can be efficient, and distribute the ball with ease like he did and even run and hurt the defense with his legs. Now Oregon could easily win the Big Ten. And now all of a sudden, the Big Ten is sitting here after three weeks. And I'm like, dang, there's legitimately four teams that I could see winning the Big Ten. Maybe a fifth.

USC is certainly within that reach. I think Penn State's ceiling is up there. I probably wouldn't put Michigan there, but watch out for a team like Nebraska. More on that later. That'll be more on that on Wednesday. Wednesday. All right. Let's move on.

That's Oregon. Let's talk about this Bama team. I love getting to cover Bama because I don't get to cover Bama a lot. So I enjoy these opportunities to get close to these teams that I don't normally get close to because I really get to evaluate them. And the closer that I can get to a team and cover them,

the more I feel like I understand what they, are, what makes them good, and why. And after that, it's just, it's easier to kind of predict and see the way their season might go. So let's talk about Alabama. First of all, that was very impressive. 42 to 10, not really in doubt. My heart breaks for Wisconsin quarterback, Tyler Van Dyke, getting injured as early as he did. But the game to me was not really going to be in question. Amma was just way too explosive. Ryan Williams, the wide receiver, number two,

the freshman who recategorized, reclassified from the 2025 recruiting class to the 2024 recruiting class, was specially 17 years old. There's nobody in college football that can cover him. Jalen Milro, incredibly explosive at quarterback, maybe the best

athlete on the field at every moment this season. This offense can hurt you in a hurry. They did it right before the half and really broke the game open after Wisconsin drove and missed a field goal. Two plays, bam, they're in the end zone. Bernard on that corner route, beautiful throw from Jalen Milrow, who by the way throws it down the field as good as anybody in college football.

The offense and their explosiveness, here's some numbers to back that up. Alabama has scored 11 touchdowns so far this year of 25 yards or more. That's the most in college football. So they are right now the most explosive offense and the most explosive offense. country. And that bears out. That bears out. Milro can take it the distance. Williams can take it the distance. Bernard can take it the distance. Both running backs can take at the distance. Justice Haynes and Jam Miller. And then the kicker for me was I was so excited to see Bama actually play with what I would consider to be their intended starting offensive line. And we finally got to see

that. So Caden Proctor was in at left tackle, Booker at left guard, Brails for it centered, Jaden Roberts at right guard and Elijah Pritchett at right tackle. And those guys in those five, kind of like Oregon reshuffling, it's like when you actually see the five that Alabama wants to see in there, man, it's pretty good. It's really good, actually. Wisconsin did not have much of a chance right down the middle of that defense. And then on the outside, it's like,

I don't know if anybody has a chance against Alabama on the outside. So I know their offense is explosive. That's what I know about Alabama. I'm taking that to a bank. And I also don't think that there's anybody that's going to take that away from them. I look at their schedule now and I'm like, they're going to be able to score with anybody on their schedule. And I understand that there's some really good teams on their schedule and physical teams on their schedule, but they are going to be able to score.

They're too explosive. That's what I know about Alabama. Here's what I don't know yet for sure about Bama after the first three weeks. And I want to preface this by saying, like, when you measure Alabama, you don't measure them against Wisconsin. You don't measure them against Mississippi State or the middle of the SEC. What are you doing? And I said this on the broadcast. What are you doing when you watch Alabama?

You always have an eye trained out for like Georgia, Texas, maybe even throw in there like Tennessee this year. What are they going to do against the elite teams in college football? Maybe even have an eye on like, what would they do against Ohio State? Because that's the standard that they've set. That's the standard that Nick Saban said, and that's certainly the standard that Kalin DeBore is going to try to live up to. So when you talk about Alabama, you have to understand the standard by which you're trying to evaluate them. And it's higher than almost anybody else in college football. Okay.

So that's number one. So with that in mind, what do we not know about Alabama? Well, I don't know if the secondary is going to hold up. They have not been hurt yet by this, but this. secondary does have a lot of new pieces. Talented pieces, yes, but new pieces. And again, I go back to this idea of playing in sync. And that happens at the offensive line. It also happens in the secondary. There's a lot of things that have to go uncommunicated. And you've got to understand them and be on the same page. Okay. And I will just tell you,

no one's been able to take advantage, but there have been too many wide receivers running free behind defensive backs so far for Alabama this season. We saw it again. Someone get by Red Morgan. He's a true freshman, very talented player, but still trying to gain experience. Zabian Brown, true freshman at Corner, still trying to gain experience. And then you have Keon Sab and Domani Jackson, yes, more experience, but transfers playing for the first time in this defense, for the first time at Alabama, and for the first time with Malachi Moore. And it should be noted, Malachi Moore did get banged up in that game on that hit near the goal line where, you know, it looked like he took a kind of a hit on the head. They didn't exactly tell us what it was,

but he didn't return to the game. So questions at secondary. That's what I don't know. I don't know about their run defense in particular on the edge. This notion that like their defense looked great against Wisconsin, I just disagree with. I disagree with. Again, Wisconsin had opportunities didn't take advantage. Very similar to South Florida the previous week. The edge again, as it was against South Florida, was weak against Wisconsin. Now, it just so happened that in a couple of those runs, they got turnovers. So they were opportunistic. Wisconsin fumbles doesn't look like much, but the Chesma Lucey run, it's like,

that's the exact style of run that South Florida used to really hurt them. What do you think a team like Georgia is going to be able to do? What do you think a team like Tennessee, Missouri on offense, Oklahoma? It leads me to believe that this defense is going to give up points in big games, which means I think Bama's going to be in some shootouts the rest of the year. After evaluating them, I don't think many teams will be able to just stop them offensively. maybe you'll get some three and outs, but you're not going to keep them from lighten up the scoreboard because of the explosiveness. But what I also think is that the defense is not going to be able to just go and stop somebody else,

in particular if those teams have the ability to strike down the field. The secondary is a concern. We just haven't seen a quarterback and a wide receiver group be able to take advantage of it. We've seen structures take advantage of it, but players not take advantage of it. but players not take advantage of it. Those players are coming. Georgia's got them, Missouri's got them, Tennessee has got them, Oklahoma has got them. This team will be in some shootouts.

So all I'm saying is like, we'll see how that plays out. I think Alabama is an excellent football team, excellent football team. Offensively, I think they're better than the team two years ago, even with Bryce Young at quarterback, because this team is much better at wide receiver. I think that they're deeper on the offensive line and better on the offensive line. My concern is on the defensive side. The defensive side for Alabama, while it looked great against Wisconsin, there were things that piqued my interest that didn't get hit by Wisconsin.

And the same could be said against South Florida. So just watch out. I would just watch out for some of those games because I do feel like Alabama and Kailin DeBore are going to have to win some sort of game against a really quality opponent, maybe on the road like at Tennessee and it's going to be like 45-42. And you might be thinking, we're like, well, we already got into games like that with Bryce Young and maybe it's no different. Okay. But I just think that that's coming.

That's coming down the road. Let's talk a little bit about this game that Georgia played against Kentucky. Should we be worried about Georgia or should we just pass this off as something that Georgia always does, in particular against Kentucky? Kentucky was coming off of, let's not forget, a 30. 6 home loss to South Carolina. Did you hear what I said? They were coming off a 31 to 6 home loss to South Carolina the week before. Maybe Georgia overlooked this Kentucky team, and maybe Kentucky went back to practice and they said,

okay, look at all these things we can fix. So one team was coached very hard and one team maybe took it easy. Sure. I can buy that explanation. Again, last week I got on here and preached about how These are 18 to 22-year-old kids, sometimes 23, sometimes 24. But they're distracted. Maybe Georgia was just distracted.

The problem I have with that is that Georgia does this against Kentucky a lot. In fact, the last few times they've been to Kentucky. And you can see if you're watching on YouTube, the scores up in the last few games. 2020, Georgia won 14-3, 22, Georgia won 16-6. And then on Saturday, Georgia wins it 13-12. I will call into question, by the way, why is Kentucky punting late in the game? Like, are you not trying to win? I didn't understand that at all.

Similar to the Denver Broncos kicking the field goal and then not trying the onside kick on Sunday. Granted, I'm a Broncos fan, so I'm watching that game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. I'm like, Sean Payton's playing to get the ball back with 12 seconds. Like, what? That's not a thing. Kentucky punts the ball back to Georgia. When he's got the ball with a chance to go down and actually take the lead, he's only a few yards from like being in field goal range.

And they punted? Man, I did not like that call. But whatever, that happens. Georgia was nearly doubled up in first downs in the game, 23 to 12. Kentucky had the ball for 10 more minutes, 35 to 25 minutes in the game, and Kentucky only made it to the red zone one time. So weird game, very weird game. Kentucky's field goal kicker, he made four field goals, he made two from 50 plus,

which made the punt all the more strange. I have no idea why Kentucky punted right there. It doesn't make any sense. Georgia was held to get this, a touchdown and two field goals in just three red zone trips, so not great in the red zone. And I understand that we've seen this before. And again, maybe we can just pass this off and say, well, last year they trailed by 11 at half to South Carolina.

They were tied with Auburn with five minutes to go in the fourth. In 2022, they went to Missouri. They only won by four on the road. Like maybe Georgia just does this. But here's the difference. Those years, Georgia wasn't playing the schedule that they're playing this year. And so all I'm going to say is not that Georgia is bad or get a bull or any of this. I'm just saying that if Georgia plays like they did on Saturday,

again or two more times during the course of the season, they probably will get beat because they've got much tougher games than they did in those previous years. They've got that game against Alabama. That's on the road. They've got to go to Texas. They've got to go to Ole Miss. They've got to host Tennessee.

Those are four of the best teams in the country. So unless Georgia's locked in, like, they'll get beat in one of those games. I just talked about the explosiveness of Alabama. How about the explosiveness of Tennessee? Tennessee had, I think, just under 100 points at halftime. Granted against Ken State, but whatever. Nico is balling for Tennessee.

We saw what Texas can do not only against Michigan, but then even without Quinn Ewers. So is Georgia, am I concerned with Georgia? No. Georgia's ceiling is just fine. It might be the highest ceiling in college football. The problem is that Georgia has, shown that their floor is really low. Their floor is going to Kentucky and having Kentucky

gain 11 more first downs than them. That's a low floor. If they do that against one of those teams that I just mentioned, those four difficult games, then Georgia will lose at some point. And you can't lose that often in the SEC or else you're going to subject yourself to a tiebreaker for the SEC championship game. And then you'll be playing in the first round of the playoff. Maybe at home, maybe you'll have to go on the road. So you see, it's just like you're bringing too much into the equation. You're making your road to a national championship much more difficult.

And let's face it, that's the only road that they really care about, is getting back to and winning the national championship. So concern for Georgia, not really. All I'm saying is that they better play more locked in in all these games down the stretch because their schedule is a lot tougher. So Michigan, you look up in the middle of the game on Saturday, and you're like, oh, okay, so like it's a little bit better. Michigan's playing better.

They're starting to get going, and then it's like, well, still 21, 3. Why aren't they scoring more points? And then you understand that like Davis Warren through three interceptions. So they beat Arkansas State 2818. The score clearly is not indicative of the game that was played. Almost all the points for Arkansas State were mop-up points, but points nonetheless. Michigan did get it back together on the ground, and they ran it for over 300 yards. Molling's over 150.

But this quarterback thing is an issue, folks. This quarterback decision that they have to make at Michigan is an issue. They've got to make a choice. Now, it seemed like they decided to get, like, after three interceptions, say, okay, Alex Orgy, let's see what you've got. So Alex Orgy won't on the field. But again, it was a lot more running than passing. What's really strange to me is that Davis Warren made a lot of really great throws.

and then all of a sudden just some bonehead throws. You're like, whoa, you can't do that. And as a quarterback, man, you have got to be the rock and the consistent player on the field. You cannot make those giant mistakes, and he made giant mistakes. You make those giant mistakes in the wrong game, and you get beat.

Okay? Playing a 10-point game against Arkansas State is not going to make anybody feel all that much better about what Michigan is doing this year. And I think Sharon Moore knows that, but it's not making his life as a first-year head coach any easier. And I think that they've got to make a tough choice at quarterback. Okay, so here's why. Both of these guys are very inexperienced.

Orgy has not played a lot of football. Warren has not played a lot of football. Okay, so thinking that you're going to go play with both of those guys and that they're going to serve two different roles and purposes within the offense, I think is naive. And I'm saying that to myself because prior to the Texas game, that was my belief is that, no, you know, I'm not, I'm unbothered by the two quarterback system because they can play two different roles within that system. And because of that, two different roles, everything's going to be fine. And it wasn't. And it wasn't.

And that's very clear now. So they've got to make a choice. It might not even be one of these two guys, but they've got to make a choice. Because the play at that position to this point is not good enough. You play like that at quarterback against USC and they will be beat on Saturday. That's just the facts of it. USC is far too advanced on the offensive side and getting so much better on the defensive side that this is a really precarious game for Michigan at home.

so they better have an identity with their offense. And the sad part for this all is is like they've got to find that identity in practice because we haven't seen it in the game. So that's why it's like it's time. Time to pick a path and view it like this, view it this way. The season is this road. And at some point you've got to pick the road that you're on. And it seems like right now Michigan's at a fork in the road.

And the further you go down, the middle between the fork, not making a decision, all you're doing is creating more distance between the two roads. That's all you're doing. So now you're just more in the wilderness if you don't go back to one of those roads. I don't know which guy they're going to choose. I do think that Davis-Worn has struggled up to this point. You see a lot of good things. It's 85% really good things.

but the 15% is the things that actually lead to losses. So the bad for Warren leads to losses because they're turnovers. Turnovers are not something that Michigan can handle. They're not built to handle turnovers because they're not built for explosiveness and quick scores. A big concern for them coming out of last week as Colston Loveland left the game in the third quarter, didn't return. We'll see what his status is like.

I do also, by the way, with Michigan, this is not just an offensive thing because I've got concerns on the defensive side for Michigan. I came into this season thinking that Michigan was just going to be able to maintain all of the things that they did before. They were one of the most well-coached teams in the country. Their game plans were incredible. And they had this ability to play a cohesive brand of football that was, what's the word?

It's like very team-oriented. You know, it was very cohesive. It was complimentary, as they like to say. And what I see from Michigan this year is not complementary football. I see the offense turning it over. They didn't win the field position battle against Texas. They couldn't get off the field on third down against Texas. So now all of a sudden, you're fighting with yourself

because you're making life more difficult for yourself within situations within the game. Let me just give you an example. I made the analogy last year, and yes, it was us and me here at the Joel Clashio, that Michigan last year was the boa constrictor, and I had even made that reference the prior season. And let me explain what the boa constrictor actually was and why it's different from what they actually do now. Here was the boa constrictor, was that they were totally unfazed in previous years, and more specifically last year, in playing tight ball games into the third. quarter. It didn't face them at all because they weren't going to run out there like Alabama

and score touchdowns of 25 or more yards. They wanted to. Part of their plan and part of their philosophy was to hold the ball, sustain the drives, grind it out, limit the number of snaps on the opposite side so that they could limit the number of defensive snaps their defense had to play. Once the defense went out there, here was the defense's job. The defense was playing a style of game that was like, listen, we know we're very good, so what we're going to do is we're going to line up properly,

we're going to leverage the football, and we're going to tackle really well, and we're not going to take a lot of chances. Because of that, they were forcing teams to snap the ball 9, 10, 11, and 12 times in order to score. And I can just tell you from experience, covering football and even playing at this level myself, it's really tough to get a college offense to execute 9, 10, 11, 12 plays multiple different times in a game.

It's almost unheard of. And that's what Michigan banked on. It's like, listen, they're not going to be able to execute for that long against us. We put too much pressure on them just with our leverage, our physicality, and our tackling ability. Okay. So what did they not do over the course of the last few years? They did not manipulate the structure of their defense in order to create pressure. They were not blitz heavy.

Over the last three years, they blitz 29% of the time. That was around 50th in college football, specifically 48th in college football. 48th. Okay, so about average. They weren't manipulating their structure in order to create pressure. The problem now is that's Wink Martindale's entire MO. So he wants to blitz. He wants to blitz as their defensive coordinator.

They were over 50% blitzing against Texas. And on the season, Michigan is blitzing at the fourth highest rate in college football at 48%. So they went from 29% over the last three years in which they were dominant, didn't lose a Big 10 regular season game dating back to the 21 season against Michigan State on the road. And they were blitzing 29% of the time. Now they're blitzing 48% of the time, and I don't believe that their structure is quite a sound. Okay, so the philosophy is not there. They're not playing complementary football. And I think that they need to get back to that at some point.

Here was where the boa constrictor comes in, is that they were fine playing these one possession games into the third quarter. In fact, the number of times Michigan was in a one-score game in the second half in the last few years. 2021, seven times. 2022, nine times. Last year, in a national championship year in which they went 15 and 0, they were in a one-score game in the second half seven times. And here's what would happen. They would be in a one-score game and the offense would score

or they would score to take the lead in the third quarter. And then that was the time for the defense to get aggressive. The defense would then get aggressive because they knew that a three-and-out at that point, was really putting pressure on the opposition, and they could get that opposition defense back on the field. The offense could lean on them again, possibly with a long drive, and now you're entering into that late stage of the third quarter, early stage of the fourth quarter,

and that's when you can finally take your two-possession lead. And guess what? With the style of game that they play, it was over. That was the boa constrictor. It was squeeze, squeeze, you don't think you're dead, you don't think you're dead, you don't think you're dead. I'm kind of living. I can kind of breathe.

and then you can't. And then you can't. That was Michigan. This version of Michigan is different. They don't play complimentary football right now because they don't win the field position battle. They're turning the football over and they're blitzing too much on defense. Those are my concerns with Michigan. They're specific because I've covered them eight million times over the course of the last three or four seasons. By the way, in those games in the last three years, they were 21 and two in those games I referenced. I'm just going to bring that stack back one more time. Seven times in 2021, nine times in 2022, and seven times in 2023. For a total of 23 times, they were in one possession games in the second half. And they were 21 and two in those 23 games.

That's the best record in the country. They won 91% of the time. Why? Because they played complimentary football. They need to get back to that. Okay. Before we get out of here. I do have to touch on the Rocky Mountain Showdown just really quickly because Travis Hunter. Dude, this is Travis Hunter. This is Travis Hunter. Like, who does that?

I don't know. I don't know who does that because, I mean, seriously, Colorado's probably not going to the playoff. Colorado's probably not winning the national championship. And Travis Hunter probably belongs in the York. I know it's only three games, but if he continues this at all, like at all, a percentage of what he's

doing, he belongs in New York. Another, another 123 snaps. That is bonkers, by the way. And those 123 snaps for Travis Hunter, season low, 59 on offense, 64 on defense. He had 13 catches for 100 yards and two touchdowns. That's like Blitnikov-style numbers. Oh, Andy had five tackles and an incredible interception, which he returned for 38 yards. And, oh, by the way, he ran down a CSU ball carrier after a 62-yard run. I mean, the guy is just like, he's absolutely phenomenal. Travis Hunter. Travis Hunter. I'm not going to get into all the trash talk and all that different thing between Because, you know, honestly, I don't really care. I don't think Colorado State should have been running their mouth beforehand.

I don't think Colorado should run their mouth afterwards. It is what it is. I want to talk about the fact that we're getting to see something that we've never seen in college football, at least in the modern era. We've seen some great players that can play both ways, and maybe they'll roll out there and maybe return a punt here or there. Not a guy like this. Not a guy that is clearly a guy that could win the Bolitnikov Award and the Thorpe.

He's not only in the conversation as one of the best receivers in the country. He's in the conversation as one of the best corners in the country. So again, how is he not in New York? Regardless of the way the season goes for Colorado, I'm just talking about him as a player. If this really is the most outstanding player in college football, how does Travis, if he can continue this at all, how is he not in New York as a finalist for that trophy?

And by the way, if he continues it on this pace, and we see him at the end of the year with 12, 1,300 receiving yards, over 100 catches with 12, 13 touchdowns receiving, and 6 to 8 interceptions, he should win it. That's just, it's like saying like, O'Tani, when he was pitching and hitting, he's like, well, he didn't deserve the MVP. Yeah, yeah, he did, actually. He did, because no one comes even close to the impact that that guy has.

Now, a quarterback might, and a quarterback probably will win it. And you know what? We're going to see everything we need to see in terms of the way the voters actually think about Colorado. But I will tell you this. This kid, Travis Hunter, he doesn't engage in all the BS. You remember last year with Blackburn who hit him in this Colorado State game? And I think he ruptured his spleen. I might be saying that incorrectly.

But he obviously had to go to the hospital. And then what did he do? He went and made social media post with the guy because the guy was getting death threats. Travis Hunter is the real deal. Is he brash? Yeah, he's brash and you know what? He backs it up. He's one of the best players in the country.

And to this point, this guy belongs in New York, at least in the first month of the season. If you're looking for anything else in regards to Colorado, yeah, the offensive line looked a lot better. Shador was sacked only one time when he's not sacked. Guess what he's going to do? Throw for about 300 yards, which he did, four touchdowns. run game went for over 100 yards on five and a half yards per carry. That's a positive for Colorado. They had some things that you can build upon. You can say to yourselves like, okay, I can see now that seven, eight wins right there for Colorado. I can see that bull birth. And maybe if they continue to

grow in those areas, you could see them threatened in the Big 12. We'll see. It did not look great against Nebraska, although we started to see them play pretty solid defense against Nebraska. And that carried over into this game against Colorado State. Tori Horton is a legitimate NFL receiver for Colorado State, and Colorado did a nice job against him. So CU's defense, which was not very good last year. In fact, one of the worst defenses in all of college football, they've allowed nine total points in their last six quarters going back to halftime of that in Nebraska game.

So signs of life, but to me, it's really more about Travis. I think that he gets caught up in everybody rolling their eyes about Colorado and people in the comments, always tell me like, stop talking about Colorado. I'm not going to stop talking about Travis Hunter. And I think that you would agree with me. If you're a fan of college football and if you're a fan and want to celebrate greatness in this sport, which we don't get to see for that long, because remember, these are little snapshots of time that we get these amazing players before they bolt off to the National

Football League. We've got a little snapshot in time to enjoy a guy that we're seeing do things. We've never seen anybody do. Never. I love watching this kid play. Absolutely love it. All right. That'll do it for tonight's show.

We've got a pack show coming up, and this is what we're going to do midweek. Matt Leinert's going to join me. We're going to talk a little bit about USC and Michigan. That's a game coming up this Saturday. And then I want to roll through all the conferences, and let's revisit what we actually think and know about the conferences now, as we're getting close to that quarter pole in the college football season. Let's revisit kind of who are the favorites now?

and what do we know of these conferences? And we're going to do all of that for the Wednesday episode before we lay down that preview episode on Thursday. I love this sport. I really do. Every single Saturday and had some internet problems in the plane. So I didn't get to watch everything. I was trying to follow as much as I could.

So I spun through a lot of the film here on Sunday before recording this so I could release this on a Monday. There was a lot of good stuff, folks. A lot of good stuff. And trust me, this might have been the most contentious Sunday for Steve and I. Steve and I go over everything. Steve Owens, 1969 Heisman Trophy winner. He's my editorial producer of everything I do. By the way, not actually the 69 Heisman Trophy winner.

I just call him that because that's his name. Steve and I, first time we've ever kind of like pushed back about content because I was like, man, there's a lot to get to. So I want to get to like Florida Florida State on Wednesday. We're going to revisit all the conferences and we'll really expand this thing out on Wednesday. But there was a lot to get to you here today. Thank you for watching. Subscribe on YouTube.

Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcast. And I will be back Wednesday with another episode. Enjoy the early part of your week, everybody.