The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Big Ten Commissioner heads to NFL, Ohio State has new OC, & Harbaugh's Michigan future uncertain

Episode Date: January 16, 2023

FOX Sports’ lead college football analyst Joel Klatt is back to discuss the biggest news and storylines from the early days of the offseason in college football. First, Joel shares his thoughts on former Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren’s move to become the President/CEO of the Chicago Bears. He also explains why the next Big Ten commissioner will have major influence on the future of college football. Then, Joel discusses Ohio State’s decision to promote Brian Hartline to be the new offensive coordinator and Jim Harbaugh’s uncertain future at Michigan. Finally, Joel analyzes Clemson’s hire of Garrett Riley, the reigning Broyles Award winner for the top assistant coach in college football, to be their new offensive coordinator. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome into the Joel Clat show. This is Joel Clat and I am excited about this episode of the show. First and foremost, there's not going to be an offseason, folks. There's not an offseason in college football. There's always so much going on. And so we'll come here. We'll break it down. And we're also going to start bringing on some great guests for you during the course of the off season. You're really going to enjoy it. And you're going to learn things. And yeah, it's going to be a good deal. Remember, you can follow me on social. I'm on Twitter at Joel Clatt on Instagram at Joel underscore Clat. You can follow this show and keep up with all things offseason. Joel Klatt Show at Joel Klatt Show on any of the social medias. And then as always, just rate, review us, subscribe, and then share us with a friend.

And there we go. And then we're off to the races here in the off season. Let's get into it because there's been a lot of things happen here in the last week. So we've had some coaching movement. We've had big news out of Ohio State and their coaching staff. not any news, although some turmoil in Michigan, we'll touch on that, some assistance leaving TCU as well as Alabama, we'll get into that. But first, there wasn't a bigger move so far in college athletics, really, than the news

out of Chicago that Kevin Warren is stepping away from the Big Ten in the commissioner's position, and he's accepting the president's CEO role for the Chicago Bears. So first and foremost, congratulations to Kevin Warren. He obviously was the commissioner during some of the both toughest and most monumental occurrences in this conference's history in the Big Ten. And now he is moving on to be the president and CEO of the Chicago Bears. So congratulations to Kevin on that. It though begs the question like, where does that leave the Big Ten?

And really, when you think about it, college athletics and college football, more specifically overall. So let's dive into that and really try to navigate. And, you know, I'll have some thoughts. And I'd love to hear your thoughts as well. You can obviously hit me up on social. Just about where we're at in college athletics and what this position is ultimately going to be charged with. Let me start with this. whoever's hired as the new Big Ten Commissioner immediately takes the reins of a position that I would argue is one of the two most powerful positions in all of Intercollegiate Athletics.

The other being the commissioner of the SEC that's currently occupied by, occupied by Greg Sanky. So this is going to be highly coveted, obviously. the power that sits within these two conferences because of not just their revenue model, but also kind of their ability to expand through their revenue model, is immense. Their power is immense. And they will be able to wield that power and leverage that power that they have in order to shape, namely college football, but really intercollegiate athletics moving forward. And that's not a small thing right now.

So the first thing you have to realize about this commissioner job in the Big Ten is that this is a legacy position. Someone's legacy will be defined by what happens over the next six months, 12 months, two years in particular college football. That's one of the reasons why I think it is, and this goes without saying, it is vital that the Big Ten get this right. because the things that are on the table, the topics that are on the table, the problems, the issues that are on the table right now are transformative. And they will determine the path that intercollegiate athletics travels for the next 20 and 50 years. This is a real inflection point. And we all know that, right?

I'm not sharing anything that's new news. But when you look at some of the things going on, obviously NIL, and this is not just football. This is all over the place, NIL. By the way, overall player autonomy, because really NIL is just part of the new era in which players have a tremendous amount of autonomy over their own careers within college athletics because of the transfer rules. And when you combine NIL and transfer, then it opens up a whole host of other issues. that we've got to get our hands around and provide some guardrails for. That's just on the player front.

And by the way, if it was just that, that would be enough to make this a true legacy transformative position. And yet it's not all that's out there because we've got postseason expansion and college football is going to look drastically different come 20, 24, and then 20, 2026 when there's a brand new playoff enacted, even after the expansion of 2024, and then it's going to morph a little bit into 2026 and what that looks like, and then who's garnering power,

and then who has the ability to govern the sport? I mean, all of these questions are going to be asked and then answered over the next year two or three. That's why this is so important. You've got pending realignment. I know no one wants to hear that, but that's that's certainly on the table, and in particular in the next round of media negotiations. This sport college football and all of intercollegiate athletics is changing drastically. And so because of that, this is going to be a highly coveted position because whoever jumps in there can not only shape the sport, but then will be tied to the sport forever. And, you know, like that's a true legacy position.

Then if we move on, those are the things that are more overarching. that this commissioner is going to have their hand in with other commissioners and other power brokers within the sport. And yet that's maybe not even the most important piece of what this commissioner is going to have to deal with, the new one that is, in particular in the near term. When you look at the near term and what's going to be going on right now in the Big Ten, there are drastic changes taking place in the Big Ten conference, two in particular. The first being that next season for the college football season, a brand new media rights deal starts. And when you start a new media rights deal, it's bumpy.

Okay, because this is what people don't understand because they just read one article or one headline and they just think like, oh, seven years, seven billion. And now there's three networks and all that's great. There are so much minutia that went in to these negotiations. And so to actually navigate through the beginning of a new media rights deal is really hard, in particular when you're onboarding new partners like the Big Ten is, and in particular when those partners are network partners. Normally you only have one, maybe two network partners. Now they're going to have three, two of them brand new.

So this is a huge undertaking just to navigate the beginning of the new media rights deal in the Big Ten. There's always something that pops up. Trust me when I tell you this, that was promised in a meeting here or there that's going to be news to the new commissioner and maybe even the presidents of the Big Ten, maybe even to the network presidents. So the navigation of this deal is going to be a huge task and that this commissioner is going to have to be all over that. Then right after that, you're going to have two brand new schools. So if all of that wasn't enough. Now you've got to onboard USC and UCLA in 2024. And this is not, you know, like, onboarding, you know, a couple of schools that geographically are attached to the conference or

you should just be like, okay, well, the new divisions are this and here's how we're going to play and it's an easy schedule. The undertaking of onboarding USC and UCLA is, I mean, I can't even, I can't even think of the amount of work, the scheduling that has to go down. What do we're going to do with divisions? There are massive decisions to be made. All of this to tell you that, like, this position, someone is walking into, I mean, all of the above, a hornet's nest, yes, but also a massive amount of opportunity, a legacy position, all of these things. That's why this commissioner's job is going to be so coveted and already is so coveted. So that's what they're going to be dealing with in an overarching sense in college athletics.

That's what they're going to be dealing with in a specific sense, in a micro sense, if you will, with the Big Ten. And so you've got to look at that and you say, what type of candidate would fit in the Big Ten Conference? And so let's just make a quick profile. First and foremost, I think it's become pretty clear, at least it is to me, maybe not you, but it has to me, that the commissioner job is so big.

The revenue and the decisions are so massive that when you're looking at this, the outside of the box, business world with a sports interest, that makes a lot of sense to me. Because if you're just going down the road of a current administrator, I just don't think that they have the view of the world necessary to see what's going on right now in the current landscape of intercollegian athletics as a whole, but even specifically for the Big Ten. Again, I already mentioned it, like seven years, seven billion dollars. Right. Like this is not a small undertaking. This is not just like, hey, you've been a great athletic director for 15 years. Like, go take the commissioner's job. The commissioner job now is just so much different than it.

was 20 years ago. Not to say that there weren't problems 20 years ago, but they were just different. And certainly in scale, they were different. This is a totally different beast and a totally different animal. Therefore, I'm really thinking that this is going to be a person that is not from administration, because that can be a very narrow viewpoint, and in particular path, in terms of the way you cut your teeth. And in general, those people aren't dealing with revenue sources that start with a B, billion, right? No, not to say that they don't have like nine figure, you know, types of budgets and things of that nature, but it's a different animal these days. Then you start to look at the specifics or the specificity of unloading

USC and UCLA and starting a new media rights deal next year. Those two things alone, You look at that and you think to yourself, boy, it really would be nice if you had somebody that at least had some prior knowledge of things that went on in both of those negotiations, agreements, because navigating that was someone that's just trying to learn it from the outside coming in is going to be very bumpy. So first and foremost, if I was the Big Ten, I would form some sort of task force just for those two specific things so that the new commissioner wasn't having to be the end-all be-all in both of those kind of onboarding experiences. Basically what I'm telling you is that I think that this position needs to come from outside of college athletics, needs to have someone that has maybe some prior knowledge of some of these deals that have been made. I look at television executives. I think that would probably be a primary place to start if I was the Big Ten. And I was looking at some of these things. because the nature of intercollegiate athletics is totally changing,

and we need people with vision that have a really broad sense of what it means to be successful in the sports landscape overall, not just in our small little world of college sports, because college football is right now the number two sport in our country. And it's pretty clearly that. And so we need people with vision to move that forward and move us into the future in which we can continue to grow revenue and continue to do things that are necessary for the fans and for the players and for the overall experience. So those are my thoughts on the Big Ten and their new and open commissioner job.

I don't think I'm a candidate, unfortunately. I would love to be a candidate, but I'm not a candidate, right? Like, that would just be too good. I'm a bull in the China shop. They wouldn't do that, would they? No, no, no, no, no, no, I couldn't. Let's move on. Let's move to Ohio State because Ohio State made some news this week with some coaching moves. And this one was, I think, expected to some degree, but Ryan Day has hired a new offensive coordinator. And he hired what many believe is one of the best young coaches in college football from his own staff, Brian Hartline. So Brian Hartline is now going to be the new OSU. see at Ohio State. What does this mean? Why did they do this? What does this mean? Let me first go into just the specifics of like, why would you do this for Brian Hartline? Well, that's a no-brainer.

This guy is a great coach. We see what he's done just as a position coach. There is no better position room in America than the Ohio State receiver room. And it's been that way for a few years now. The level of talent that he recruits, but then the level of development that that talent then gets under him is really unprecedented in our sport. Look at what he, I mean, look at the guys that have played, these are guys that have played in the room. Chris Olave, Garrett Wilson, Marvin Harrison, Julian Fleming, Emeka, Abuka, Jackson Smith, and Jigba. If a wide receiver coach had one of those guys in the last four years, he would be walking around town like, I'm a great position coach, look at what I do in development and recruiting. I got that guy. I got Garrett Wilson. You know, I got Chris

Solove, he's got six of them, but it's not just these six. He also just recruited and landed three of the top 61 players in the country and three of the top 10 wide receivers in the country. Brandon Innes, Noah Rogers, and Carnal Tate. Like an animal. So we know Brian Hartline is an incredible coach. Okay, you know how I feel about that. So why would you do this? Well, one reason could be because he can help recruit more broadly now as an offensive coordinator than as just a wide receiver coach. Let me explain that for a moment. When you're being recruited, and granted, I wasn't recruited at a very high level, but generally speaking, what you see now is the coaching staff will give every coach a specific area throughout the country to recruit. And then you also have like your position group.

So regardless of who's recruiting that area, if there's a great running back or a wide receiver, like you're obviously going to be involved in that recruiting. Now, if you're just a position coach and you're not a coordinator or a head coach, then that's kind of it. So the most influence you can have is either in your area or in your position group. But as soon as you're an offensive coordinator, now, Every single offensive player that's being recruited by your program, you're going to be very involved in that recruiting process. You're going to be in the living room.

You're going to be making calls to a much greater degree than if you were just a position coach. So we see what an animal he is getting receivers. And now you can spread that out across offensive linemen and tight ends and running backs and all of it, quarterbacks. And that type of dynamic recruiter can only help raise the level of all position groups on that side of the ball. So that's one of the reasons why I think many in the Ohio State community are suggesting that their recruiting could take a leap or a jump or make a move up, in particular on the offensive side, now that Heartline has that ability to get in all of those rooms and not just in the wide receiver room. Now, there are some other reasons. why this might be happening. And no, I don't believe that this is just entitled. I do believe that this is more along the lines of Ryan Day starting to evolve in his career and move away from being

the play caller potentially and give Brian Hartline that opportunity to grow as a play caller and teach him and mentor him and grow him as a play caller. Now, why would Ryan Day do that? Well, first and foremost, you have to understand that's a tough decision for a guy like Day because he's an elite play caller, one of the best play callers in all of college football. It gives him an advantage, right? And anytime you have an advantage as a program or a coach, boy, you hold on to that with white knuckles, okay, because those advantages are really the lifeblood of what makes your program successful. So this is a big moment for Ryan Day. And you, you know, you know, yet it's something that I feel like he thinks is necessary. Well, let me run through some of the

reasons why he might think that. First and foremost, in the modern college football, let's just call it the last 20 years, 25 years, it is exceedingly rare to crown a national champion whose offensive plays are called by the head coach. In fact, 25 years I can only count one. Jimbo Fisher called the offensive plays for Florida State and James Winston when they won the national championship. Outside of that, Chip came close, right? Gus Malzon came close. And by the way, that game, it was going to be either Florida State or Auburn. So we were going to have to have won that year. It really, I mean, you've got to go back to, like, the guy who really did was Tom Osborne.

Tom Osborne was his own offensive coordinator, basically his entire career. He won those three titles in the 90s, Steve Spurrier. So it was very in vogue in the 90s, right? Spurrier and Osborne, I believe, won four straight national titles between them, if I'm not mistaken. And they called their own offensive plays. since then it's only been Jimbo Fisher. And we've had some great play callers that were on the offensive side.

I always think back to like Mike Gundy had to go through this when he was a great offensive mind and then he eventually had to move away from calling plays. I just think it's one of those things like Lincoln Riley's having to deal with this situation right now. USC, Oklahoma before it and now USC are running up against the exact same problem. It's like, hey, your defense is not good enough. your defense is not good enough. It's like you can only score so many points and gain so many yards without your defense being good enough.

Well, Ryan, to some extent, is dealing with that as well because you could say that in the last few years, the weakness on the defense has really hurt Ohio State in big moments. It hasn't been their offense that has let them down necessarily. And so now Ryan can spread himself over the entire team. and he can now do what Brian Hartline can do, which is bring a greater recruiting emphasis to the entire team. He can spend time with more players from the entire team, which in the day and age of transfer portal is an important piece for every single head coach. And you have the fact. And this has been true for a long time. But as college football has grown and the size of athletic departments and more specific,

football staffs have grown. The support staff around a football team has grown. The more people you bring in, the more problems you have. Well, guess where every single problem ends up? It ends up at the head coach. You're basically, as a head coach, a magnet for problems. That's all you do. These guys, that's all they talk to me about is like, all I do all day long is solve problems. Right? Like, and that's the least. favorite job that they have. They don't want to be doing that. Ryan Day would love to call the plays forever, but he's stretched too thin at times.

So, you know, he thinks to himself, I can keep Brian Hartline, he can recruit on the entire offense. I can groom him as a play caller. And by the way, I'm sitting on the headset on the sideline. So all those innate timing things in terms of calling a big play here or there, I can still influence that within my team. So the advantage that we have is probably still there because I'm so close. and yet we're going to gain these advantages in an ancillary way around the program.

Those are all the reasons why I think that this is happening at Ohio State. Let's move on. Their rival and a team that has beat them two straight years has had the second best record in all of college football over the last two years is Michigan. And here's Michigan in the news for all the wrong reasons after the two seasons that they had. Jim Harbaugh and his future at Michigan still uncertain after reports that he's been talking with and even in one case with the Denver Broncos interviewed for their vacant head coaching position. And this is all after there was a very serious flirtation last year with the Minnesota Vikings. And then after he did not get that job, he made it very clearly known to his bosses at Michigan and to everybody that it's like,

that's done. I'm done with that. I'm no longer going to be seeking that out and this is where I want to be. So why in the world is it still happening? Well, let's take a look at some of the reasons. I think Jim Harbaugh is doing everything he can to push his program, Michigan, in a positive direction. You might be thinking like, how in the world does interviewing with an NFL team push your program in a positive direction? Life is about leverage in a lot of ways. It is for me and my job and it is for you and your job. The more leverage you can gain and value you can derive, then you can place that pressure on your employer to do things that you need them to do.

You can make your life easier. You can try to make more money or you can push things that you care about further down the road. So let's step back from this. for a moment. Michigan's returning a fabulous team. Really good team. Some of their best players were young players. They also had guys that are now deciding to come back. Blake Corum's coming back. Trevor Keegan's coming back. Zach Zenter is coming back. Cornelius Johnson is coming back. That's all on the offensive side and all of those guys now will join a core of young players that was really great. J.J. McCarthy, the quarterback, Donovan Edwards, running back.

You know, Colston Loveland. By the way, this is happening on the defensive side as well. So they've got Sain Restill is coming back. Michael Barrett is coming back. They've got Junior Colson, a really good linebacker. They got Will Johnson, the corner, who's one of the best corners in the country. This is going to be a really good football team. They'll start in the top four. In fact, in my way too early, you know, top 10 for next year, I've got them at number two. Georgia, Michigan, Ohio State, and Alabama are going to start as the top four teams in the country, at least in my estimation. And it's going to be hard for people not to put Michigan to number two. Georgia will clearly be number one, but Michigan number two. So why is Jim Harbaugh

flirting with leaving when he's got this returning? Well, it could be the point that we're at in college football. Because the point that we're out in college football, is a fork. It's a crossroads. There was a crossroads back in the early 2000s in our sport, and I believe that there is a fork. There's a crossroads now. These are major points that you have got to make a decision as a program. Are you evolving with the sport or are you not? I've talked about it on this podcast before. And I've been... believe that Jim Harbaugh's flirtation with the NFL is a direct result of his desire to move Michigan and their football program along in the evolution of the sport. Get further commitments

as far as investments into the staff. Get further commitments as far as investments into a collective and what's going on with the NIL because the fact remains is that if you look at the recruiting rankings, they weren't as good as you would probably expect for a team that just finished with the second best record in college football over the last 18 months. Well, part of that is because Michigan, in a lot of ways, loves to rely on their reputation and their tradition, which is immense. They're the winningest program in the history of college football. I get it, right? Like, I get it. I've been around Michigan a lot. And yes, you could and should rely on the tradition of your program. But that being said, one of the reasons why Michigan went through what

they did in the last 15 years before Jim Harbaugh arrived in Ann Arbor was because at the last inflection point, they did not invest like other people did. It took them a while. They were behind. They were behind the eight ball. And it's taken Jim Harbaugh, you know, six, seven long years to fight, scrap, pull, and get themselves back to the the top, right, back to the level where they think they're competing at the highest level in college football. And it's taken investment into the support staff. Well, so it was an arms race in the early 2000s, things like facilities and, you know, in particular, coaches pay, how to retain coaches, multi-year contracts for assistant coaches, support staff around the program.

It was investment, right, into the kind of the infrastructure, both physical and ancillary, around the program. That's what was going on in the 2000s. The teams and programs that really invested heavily started to have a lot of success. How does Clemson do what they were able to do? Well, in many ways, this, they invested in their program. They invested in their culture, and it paid off for them. There were teams that did not do this. They did not invest in the facilities, and they did not invest in the staff and the ancillary staff as well, and they fell by the wayside, right? We all know that. Think about teams like, you know, this is one of the reasons USC struggled for a long time. This is one of the reasons Miami has struggled. This is one of the reasons Florida State has struggled.

And they've been trying to fight and claw and scratch and get themselves back to a place where they can compete on the highest level. One of the reasons Oregon is where Oregon is now is because at the last inflection point, they invested, heavily into the facilities and the support of their program. Well, now the investment is just a little bit different. The sports evolving. Now you've got to be ahead of the individual autonomy of the player. And you've got to be in line with where that's going. Okay. And the teams and the programs that do evolve, they're going to be the ones that run the sport for the next 10, 15, and 20 years. And the ones that don't, that just rely on their tradition are going to be left behind. So Jim Harbaugh knows this. He knows this. He's a really smart guy. And I'm not sure he loves

NIL. But guess what? He knows that this is a big moment in college football. He knows what it took to get to this point where they've been to two straight playoff appearances. He knows what it's taken to beat Ohio State twice. And he wants assurances that we're going to invest at Michigan in order to move it forward and evolve with the sport and not behind the sport. That's my speculation of this whole thing. Why would he do this with a great team coming back after what happened last year and all these different things? He just wants support. And I think that he's going to eventually get it from the president of the university. Let's move on. Last thing, and then we'll get out of here. A couple of assistant coaches and kind of big news that kind of dumped right before the NFL playoffs. Garrett Riley,

the offensive coordinator for TCU, now the offensive coordinator at Clemson. That was a big one. And folks, much needed. Look at what Clemson was on the offensive side this last year. You see what the 30th in the country scoring, 48th in total offense, 73rd in yards per play, 73rd, and 94th in yards per pass attempt. That is not going to cut it. In particular, when you look at the fact that it wasn't just last year. offensively,

Clemson in the last two seasons was 96th in the country in yards per play. 96th. Okay, so that has to improve. And Davos Sweeney absolutely understands that. He understands that because he's been to the mountaintop. In the last two years, they've lost six games. None of the scoff at.

They've been pretty successful, just went to the Orange Bowl. Like, this is still a good program. We all know that. But when you think about what they were in the previous six seasons, they lost seven total games. In the previous six seasons, they were 73 and 3 in non-CFP games in those previous six seasons. 73 and 3. So when you fall off in your 96th over the last two years and yards per play, well, that's the reason.

Okay, so Dabo understands that, and this is not a guy that loves to shake things up on his staff. This is a very tight-knit culture at Clemson. It's one that I'm a big admirer of, by the way. What they do with their program is unique and it's special, and the players love playing there. They really do coaches love coaching there. People take shots at Dabo and they think he's corky and weird and this and that. Guess what? The people that are around Dabo and the players that play for him absolutely love him.

So this is a big departure from that, i.e. like firing somebody and then bringing somebody else in. So he hires Garrett Riley and Garrett Riley just had a masterful season with TCU. Obviously ended poorly. Throw that out the wayside. That Georgia team wasn't going to get beat by anybody in that national championship game. And here's Garrett Riley to help save, if you will, the Clemson offense and try to return them to that place where they feel like they belong, which is on the upper echelon. Remember, in those six seasons, they had, what was it, six straight playoff appearances? Yeah, there were six straight playoff appearances. In fact, in those six years, 73 and three in non-CFP games, they won a couple of titles. They were sixth in yards per play.

Last two years, 96th. Not going to cut it. So here's Garrett Riley to Clemson. I think that's a great move for Davos Sweeney. And then the next bit of big coaching news was that Pete Golding is leaving Alabama. and he's going to go join the lane train. Here we go, down to Ole Miss, Pete Golding. Not a ton of thoughts on this, other than this.

I don't think anything happens at Alabama or within that program under Nick Saban that Nick Saban doesn't either bless or desire. He wants it to happen either way. I know of guys specifically, and I'm not going to name names, specifically that have coached for Nick Saban, that got great opportunities. And he told them, no, you're not going to do that. You're going to stay here and here's the reason why. He desired that they stayed.

Those same guys got different opportunities. And he said, thumbs up, like, go ahead. That's a good one. Go ahead. you cannot tell me that Nick Sabin sat in front of Pete Golding and said, yeah, Ole Miss defensive coordinator is better than being here. Like, you need to go do that. That's all I'm going to say, right?

Like I think Pete has done a nice job in many respects. They've lost Charles Kelly as well. He went to Colorado to be the defensive coordinator at Colorado. I would just say this. At Alabama, nothing happens in that program. Nothing. Nothing happens in that program. then Nick Saban doesn't either bless or desire.

And, you know, so that's where we're going to leave that one. I think Alabama is going to be just fine. Everyone's like, oh, I don't know about Alabama. I do. I do. Alabama is going to be just fine. And everyone's like, oh, hot take, Joel. Alabama's going to be fine.

Yeah, exactly. Like, there's no hot take with Alabama. There is no hot take. They are great, period. So that's where we're going to live. leave it. All right. You're going to want to follow us on social media at the show to just know what's coming up in the offseason. So follow us at Joel Clatt show. You can also follow me at Joel Clatt on Twitter, at Joel underscore Clat on Instagram. And then make sure to subscribe to the show,

first and foremost, and then just rate and review us and share us with the friend. We'll be back with more content over the course of the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned. Go check us out on social media and thank you for listening as always.