The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Caleb Williams wins the Heisman, CFB Awards, Deion Sanders making moves

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

FOX Sports’ lead college football analyst Joel Klatt discusses USC’s Caleb Williams becoming the third Heisman Trophy winner under head coach Lincoln Riley. Joel explains why this stretch for Riley is so unprecedented and what makes Williams so special. Then, Joel discusses other award winners, including TCU’s Max Duggan, Alabama’s Will Anderson, Texas’ Bijan Robinson, and more. Finally, Joel shares his thoughts on Deion Sanders’ moves since becoming the head coach of Colorado and the early success Coach Prime has had on the recruiting trail. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Now this is how you break on a slant route. Will Johnson read it perfectly. He's one-on-one coverage. Watch how quickly he breaks. Right when he sees the foot in the ground from Purdue, he takes off into the inside and beats the wide receiver of the ball. All Sheffield can do then is become a defensive bat and tackle him. And now that's two interceptions for the young Will Johnson.

Well, hey, hey, hey, hey, what's going on? here. This is the Joel Glad Show. I appreciate you joining us here. We've got a lot to get into. By the way, hey, subscribe to the show. Join us. We're just going to continue to keep growing. You have made us the number one college football podcast in the land. We very much appreciate that here at the Joel Clat show. And we just encourage you to continue to share it with friends. By the way, I'm going to continue this. This is not just a seasonal deal. I will continue the podcast throughout the offseason. We'll talk about the draft. We'll talk about recruiting. I'm going to get into a lot of different features in terms of the sport, the most influential people within the sport, including some of the commissioners are going

to sit down. So stick with us here during the off season and we'll continue to take you through bowl season, the draft, so on and so forth. Okay. So rate, review us, subscribe. Let's get into today's episode because it was, while not a busy weekend, I guess for not for not having a lot of games other than Army Navy. It was kind of a busy weekend. And by the way, love Army Navy. And that game was fantastic. If you, that game is Americana. And I, and I'm, it's one of my favorite things of all time. Real quick, my dad was a Marine. And he was a high school football coach as well. And so when we were growing up in the Colorado area, yeah, he would take us to University of Colorado games. That's where I fell in love with the sport.

but he would also get free tickets to go down to Air Force, and he would take us down to the Springs, to the Academy. And I just loved, like, the pomp and circumstance that came with the academies. And, you know, that was a fun deal. So I've always loved Academy football, and they obviously do it about as well as anybody in that Army Navy game. Okay. Let's dive in now.

And let's start with the Heisman winner, because Heisman was handed out Saturday night. and as we all know and expected, it went to Caleb Williams. Hey, Baker, he won a Heisman. Last night we saw Caleb Williams out of the USC win the Heisman trophy. NFL scouts drooling over this kid? They are, but he's not eligible for the draft this year. So I did my research.

I'm texting everybody and said, this guy is so good. He would be the top quarterback in this year's draft. He would be the top quarterback in last year's draft. He's not going to be in the college football playoff, but we will see him next college season with Lincoln Riley and the Trojan. By the way, any excuse that I can get to put Peter Schrager on my show, I have the utmost of respect for Peter, but he's also just a dear, dear friend.

And obviously he's exactly right. You talk with people around the NFL, and they are drooling over Caleb Williams. Whenever he comes out, whether it's next year and he was even teasing, you know, to Fowler, to Chris Fowler, like, oh, maybe two more years. It's like, well, okay, I mean, I don't know how much money you're making. but it probably, you know, listen, it's going to pale in comparison to what a first pick in the draft is going to get. But he's doing just fine.

So I think Caleb Williams might entertain it, but probably not in terms of staying two more years. He definitely has to come back for one more year. But let's get into like what this actually means because this was, obviously he's a great player. I was seeing this freight train come down the tracks for the last month of the season. We all were. Like he was going to win the Heisman trophy. He won every single region, by the way. Every single region of voting, he won some of them by a substantial amount, and rightly so.

I could go on and on about his game. What makes his game so good? What makes him so dangerous? But I think maybe the most more important. point is about this juggernaut that is now being created in terms of the Heisman. His coach, Lincoln Riley, has now had five starting quarterbacks in his career as a head coach. Five. Four of them have been Heisman finalists. Three of them have won the Heisman trophy. That's a staggering thought. What Lincoln is doing with quarterbacks is totally

unprecedented. We've never seen anything like this before. And it's not just like, hey, they put up great numbers. They're just so damn efficient. They don't turn the ball over. They obviously produce on the stat sheets. And they win a ton of football games. This guy's a ridiculously good coach. And I'm not, by the way, I'm not going to take anything away from Caleb. And I'm going to get to his brilliance in a moment. But I do want to just rest for a moment on like, Why is this happening? Why is Lincoln Riley the Heisman whisperer, if you will? And there are a few things that we can talk about and break down.

And it's not necessarily scheme specific, but it is scheme specific. Let me explain what I mean by that. So Lincoln now has had Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, Jalen Hertz, and Caleb Williams, all be Heisman finalists. Of course, Baker, Kyler, and now Caleb have taken. home the hardware. You can't say that it's about a system because every one of those guys is a little bit different. This is not the exact same player. They're not cut from the exact same mold. They didn't play the game the exact same way. So it's not necessarily just like the system.

Like it has been in the past with some of those like air raid Texas tech guys. It's like kind of the same player, year in and you're out. Yeah, different names on the back, but same style of player. These guys have all been very different players. Their strengths, their weaknesses, all been very different. So it's not the system. And yet, yes, it's the system. It's the fact that Lincoln Riley understands that his system has to be quarterback friendly, regardless of the quarterback that's playing in the system. I've talked at length with him about this. And I think one of his best lines that he's ever given me when talking about like, well, you know, is this system quarterback friendly? Has it been quarterback friendly. And he always says like, hey, if your system isn't quarterback friendly,

then you need a new system. Such a smart line and a point. Because as we know, if you don't have requisite quarterback play in college football, certainly in the NFL, but in college football, it ain't happening. You're not going to be a great team. He is proving that out year over year, over a year. And some of the things that I love about it is that it's not just about the system being quarterback friendly. It's also now that Lincoln system is pliable to the style of football that his quarterback is more suited to. So now here's this guy that's had all these different styles of quarterbacks. They've all been highly successful. They've all gone to New York. And they've all run the same offense, but the offense has morphed and evolved and been pliable enough to fit their strength.

You see Jalen Hertz and Kyler Murray each rushed the ball for, you know, over a thousand, right near a thousand yards. Hertz, I believe, had 20 touchdowns. They all threw the ball efficiently and didn't turn it over, you know, in terms of total number of interceptions. Baker, obviously, was not going to put up the rushing numbers that those other guys did, but was a juggernaut throwing the ball. Caleb is a bit of both. He's putting up huge numbers throwing the ball, but he's also creating with his legs to a point outside of the pocket while not creating rushing yards, but certainly threats and the ability to throw the ball down the field. Every one of these guys has been different. And so it's not just as your system QB friendly, it's also as your system

QB friendly and pliable enough to adjust to whatever your quarterback can do. And I think that's what Lincoln does best. This is a guy that understands what he has in front of him and how to be successful. If I'm a quarterback out there, there's only a very few number of places that I'm really taking a hard look at. And you know exactly where they're at. Alabama's doing a nice job. Ohio State doing a great job with quarterbacks. Lincoln Riley doing a great job with quarterbacks. No disrespect to anybody else, but this is track record stuff. Every single year, you feel like you've got great quarterback play at these places. And it's because the coaches and the coordinators in the system, they are built to showcase whatever the quarterback is strong at.

And I think Lincoln's system is no different. I think the main point about the way that Lincoln coaches his players is that he doesn't coach the creativity out of them. A lot of times, you know, coaches in the college level, they can get so concerned with mistakes that they turn players into robots and they lose what made them really good. There's a certain level of creativeness and artistic nature to the quarterback position. You cannot play it like a robot. The best ones have a beauty about the way that they play.

Now, it can be in their mind, yes, and they can look like robots, but the creativity and the beauty in their mind is manifesting itself. There can be creativity from an athletic perspective. There can be a creativity in terms of the type of thing. throws that you're making. The point I'm trying to make is that there is no one way to play quarterback. There's no one way to play in Lincoln Riley's system, and that's being proven out. And he's at least confident enough and puts his ego aside as a coach to say, I'm going to let this offense evolve to showcase the strengths of this player,

versus I'm going to force this player to evolve to showcase the strengths of my offense. Those are two very different things. And I think he's proven out now in his short time as a head football coach that he's going to allow the quarterback to flourish. And the quarterbacks are. And now he's had three Heisman trophy winners. Three. Again, that is staggering when you think about it. I think the other part about this is that you get the sense that the best is still ahead of Caleb Williams,

just because of how much he grew from his freshman year. Remember against Baylor and Iowa State his freshman year at Oklahoma did not play great. And then he obviously evolved, got better, and played spectacular football this year. Now he's going to have another year. And what you saw from guys like Baker Mayfield when he had multiple seasons as a starter is he got better and better and better. Remember, Kyler Murray had multiple seasons within the system as Baker's backup and then starting. The only guy that only had like one year of learning it and operating it was Jalen Hertz. And I've talked with Lincoln at length about where he thought Jalen could have gone had he had multiple years in that system.

So when you're looking at a guy in Caleb that is like, well, yeah, he's a better version of Baker. And while he might not be as quick or fast as Kyler, he clearly throws it better than him. And he throws it better than what Jalen did. So I really believe that Caleb is a generational player. He's kind of like the best parts of Baker and Kyler. and really the only comp for him, as you've heard many times, and I said it all the way back, you know, the USC UCLA game, his comp is really Patrick Mahomes.

That's scary. That's so scary. I mean, look at what Mahomes is doing. Do you see that little flip against the Broncos yesterday? It was incredible. So here we are. Riley's got another Heisman trophy winner. Now USC has another Heisman trophy winner.

West Coast is now relevant. Again, we just don't see many guys from the West Coast do this. and he won going away. He won every single region. Again, we don't generally see this unless it's at USC, and he's able to do that. And Lincoln Riley and this experiment at USC and the experiment of going out and spending huge dollars

to get a coach to try to transform something in a very quick time frame has worked. It's absolutely worked, and USC is reaping the benefits of that, and now they've got a Heisman trophy winner. So congratulations to Caleb Williams, among all the other finalists as well. Okay, let's move on now.

let's talk briefly about all the other award winners. Here we go. You're going to look good in this. Purple. Oh, we're talking about this. You're going to look good, but I think you're going to even look better in a tux. What I need a tux for? In February for the Davey O'Brien award. Oh, okay. When you win. Because you have one. Gotcha.

Wait, what? Oh, thanks. Oh, shoot. I did not even get that right over my head. How can you not love Max? Dougan, right? That's, I mean, that's, oh my goodness. So Max Duggan is going to win the Davey O'Brien Award. And that's, by the way, to be expected, because how many times have we seen the Heisman and the Maxwell kind of split with the O'Brien when it comes to quarterbacks that are finalists for the Heisman? We see that all the time. So Max Duggan, the competitor that he is, the year that he's had, and the season that TCU has had, you know, not a huge shock there for the O'Brien. The, the Benerick Award goes to Will Anderson,

Jr., the outstanding edge rusher at Alabama. This was also a bit of a no-brainer, even though he didn't put up the numbers that he did a year ago when he was totally dominant, 17 and a half sacks. A year ago, he still got to double digit. He got to 10 sacks. And trust me, when you actually watched the film of Bama's defense, I don't know if there was a pass rushing down that he didn't face multiple blockers. Like, he was double-teamed all the time.

Still got to double-digit sacks. Still got to 17 tackles for loss. So Will Anderson, Jr., congratulations. he wins the Beneric as the best defensive player in the country. As far as the linemen go, best interior linemen and best center go to the same player. Olu Olua Timmy, the transfer from Virginia, goes to Michigan, had an outstanding season at Michigan, and really anchored that offensive line that has become one of the more dominant offensive lines in the country. And I think probably should again back-to-back year win the Joe Moore Award.

That's how good they were. They ran it for 243 yards per game. That was to be expected. Ola with Timmy has been outstanding. And if you've watched any of the games that Gus and I have called, we've talked at length about Ola with Timmy. Everything that he played through, his dad had surgery on a brain tumor this year, the exact same week that he learned of his former teammates at Virginia,

and their tragic passing. I can't imagine what he was going through. That was the week of the Illinois game. And this guy has been a leader. He's been very mature for Michigan. and a lot of people up there at Michigan will tell you that he came in with the exact appropriate mindset to work hard, keep your head down as a transfer

and he earned the respect of that locker room and now he's earned the respect of everybody across college football. He's your Remington and Outland Trophy winner. The Doak goes to Texas running back Bejohn Robinson. That was also to be expected. He had almost 1,900 yards of scrimmage offense. And this guy was spectacular. I think the only question about Bejohn Robinson was why didn't they use him more?

And I know you don't want to use up too many fastballs, if you will. But if you look back at their season, they have TCU at home in November, a game that you've got to win if you're a good program. And they could still get to the Big 12 championship game. They've still got those aspirations ahead of them. And he touched the ball 12 times in that game. Wins the award appropriately. But I think if I'm a Texas fan, I'm still frustrated by those 12 touches against T. DCU probably wasn't enough.

And then you get to some awards that really could have gone one of two ways. And there were some that there were a lot of suspense and maybe a bit of controversy for who won the awards. Now, listen, I don't begrudge anybody them winning these awards. And these are all guys that are very deserving of these awards. None of these guys are bad players. There are some that could have gone either way. So if we go through those, the Mackie is one of those. If I had a vote, I would have voted for Brock Bowers.

Now, some would say Michael Mayer from Notre Dame was the best tied in. I mean, now you're just like, these two guys are brilliant players. Bowers wins the award. And you know what? Deservidly so. This guy is special. He's electric. As a tight end goes, we haven't seen a guy with this type of athleticism,

in particular with the ball in his hands at that position in a long time. So Bowers wins the Mackey Award over. Michael Merr, the Notre Dame tied in, Mayor is going to be just fine. He's going to be probably a top five or six draft pick next spring. The Thorpe Award, Trevious Hodges Tomlinson from TCU, he wins the Thorpe Award. This is one of the ones I was actually fairly surprised about.

He only had three interceptions, didn't even have as many past breakups as his teammate. And then you've got Clark Phillips at Utah, who is a fabulous player, had six interceptions on the year, and he didn't win. I thought that that should have gone to Clark Phillips from Utah. I don't want to take anything away from Travious Hodges Tomlinson, who is a tremendous player and has been for the better part of a couple of years. He wasn't great early in the season as he was battling some injuries. Once he got healthy, he played much better. But Clark Phillips, you know, with those six interceptions, I thought that that was a bit of a miss. And then finally, the Bolitnikov goes to Jalen Hyatt, the wide receiver from Tennessee. What a marvelous year he had with Hendon Hooker.

And I'm glad that they got some recognition and a national award because they deserve it. Hendon should have been in New York. I mean, that's a total snub should have been in New York and wasn't. But as it is, now Jalen Hyatt wins the Blitnikoff. Now, his numbers suggest that this is absolutely the right call. I think most of us would say if you just watch college football, the actual best wide receiver in the country was Marvin Harrison Jr. But again, these awards aren't always just like, well, who's the best? Like, you have to have the numbers on the stages. And the bottom line is, is I think Harrison

Jr. probably wins the award if he has a big day in a win over Michigan. He didn't. And so Hyatt wins the award. He was marvelous all season long. It's a system that lends itself towards great wide receiver years. We saw that with guys like Corey Coleman and Katie Cannon at Baylor. and it's a very similar system, if not the exact same system, in terms of the passing game. And he was tremendous. So Jalen Hyatt wins the Bolitnikoff Award. All right, that'll do it for award winners. I've got another topic here because I was hoping this was going to be the case at my alma mater.

But folks, Colorado's coming. We're going out work them. We're going out recruit them. We're going to out scout them. We're going to out develop. We're going to get our education. we're going to graduate these young men because the caliber of players

that we're getting ready to bring to you, they're going to want something. But guess what? I'm going to want something back. Dionne Sanders is in the middle of a giant recruiting weekend right now in Boulder, and he's already got some of these commitments flipping over. So now

all of a sudden, you know, listen, he won the press conference and the press release, and it's like, this hire did what it was supposed to achieve early, which was garner a lot of attention. has. But I think what's shocking a lot of people is the staying power to that attention. Because, well, let's just put it this way. Okay, so I'm from the Colorado area. I'm from Denver. I did local sports talk radio in Denver. I know that that place is a, it's a Broncos town, period.

It's all about the Denver Broncos all the time. Even like it takes like a Stanley Cup run from the avalanche to replace the Broncos on the front page of the sports page. It takes like a World Series run from the Rockies, which is few and far between, but they've had one. Maybe like an MVP like Yokic, you know, but it doesn't happen often. And it never really happens for Colorado. And now the University of Colorado has moved the Broncos to the back page.

Colorado is all anyone can talk, all anyone can talk about there. And so it's the staying power, I think is what's surprising. Every college football show, including this one, is talking about Dion and Colorado. He's all over social media. He shows up to a basketball game. Didn't even go down on the floor and give some sort of fake accent. You know what I mean? Didn't even go down on the floor.

Place goes absolutely bonkers chanting his name. All they have to do is put him on the screen. the energy is so palpable from Colorado. And now what that has to do? So it's like the energy has sustained through this whole week since the announcement and since the press conference. Now it's got to translate into players. And it is.

It is. And that's when people are going to start sitting up in their chairs and they're going to be like, oh, okay. Like this is real. This is not just fun speeches and talking about luggage and it's Louis. and I mean, those things are amazing, and that's all anyone can, by the way, ask me about. But now it's starting to become real because when the rubber meets the road in college football, what is this sport all about? Players, right? You've got to have the players to go out and

compete and win. And now they're starting to win some of those battles against the big boys. How about latest news? Dylan Edwards, four-star running back, flips from Notre Dame to the University of Colorado. If that's not like one of these first dominoes, if that's not one of the first like shots across the bow, I just do not think that this is going to be a one-off. I think that after the season, we're going to see Travis Hunter, the former number one recruit overall, a commit to Colorado. Obviously, Shadur, Sanders, his son is going to come play quarterback.

I would be shocked if we didn't see like guys like Kevin Coleman or Ketron Evans, the wide receiver and defensive tackle who were top 300 recruits come with Dion. from Jackson State. It's also happening in terms of his staff. Because remember, a big part of college football is, yes, the players, but you've got to have the staff that can recruit them and then develop them. And he gets a couple of guys that I think, again, shocked a lot of people throughout the college football world. Sean Lewis leaves as the head coach of Kent State, and he's going to be the offensive coordinator.

And Charles Kelly, the associate defensive coordinator at Alabama, he was a safety's coach. Now he's going to be the defensive coordinator. When's the last time Colorado was stealing head coaches to be their OC, was going and taking Alabama assistance to be their defensive coordinator? Like, this stuff hasn't happened at that place for a long time. A long time. When's the last time they won a recruiting battle against Notre Dame? I mean, this doesn't happen.

So there is a small groundswell, and I'm just telling you, this wasn't just a cute press conference and a great speech on social media, It's not just the energy in the basketball arena when they introduce him on the big screen. It's not just his first recruiting weekend. It's going to be the second recruiting weekend. What we're going to start to see, I guarantee you, is these dominoes not just start to tip over, but stack on top of one another. I would be pretty surprised if Colorado, even in this recruiting cycle, doesn't finish somewhere

when you combine transfer portal and high school recruiting in the top 25 or 20 in the country. they were sniffing that and haven't been sniffing that. This is a program that has been basically dormant for the better part of 16 years. Save for one season under Mike McIntyre when they were able to win their division on a senior-laden team and really play above their heads with some NFL guys and go and play for the Pac-12 championship, this has been a program that has been dormant, totally dormant, for the better part of 17, 16 years. And now it's totally different.

Colorado is right now until the bowl games start, the most relevant program in the country for the better part of two weeks. They're going to be, you watch these commitments. I guarantee you, by the time you're hearing this, you're going to hear about more and more commitments from this recruiting weekend, this weekend in Boulder, and next weekend in Boulder.

They're really excited about a bunch of these players. And I can just tell you that Dion, and the intent to hire Deon is absolutely working. There's no doubt about it. And as an alum, listen, I'm very excited. And I think West Coast football, we get USC back in the mix. You get this great year from the PAC 12, where you've got, what was it, six teams in the top,

what was it, 18 or so in the country. A really good PAC 12 year. You got the Heisman trophy winner. And now all of a sudden you've got a former power with a national championship under their belt. at Colorado with a Heisman trophy winner with Thorpe Award winners, with Buccas award winners, and now all of a sudden they've got real buzz

and they're winning recruiting battles over Notre Dame. West Coast football is starting to become more and more relevant in college football. And you know what? For me, I'm here for it. I think it's fantastic. And I hope that it continues for them, obviously, and the entire Pac-12 conference. And by the way, the conference is going to need it.

Once USC and UCLA move on to the Big Ten, they're going to need a program like Colorado, like Oregon, like Washington, like Utah, to firm up and just be stalwarts in the college football world. So that's exciting, folks. And this Deon thing, this is not just a splashy press conference. This is working. They're stacking up dominoes. And that's going to continue over the next couple of weeks.

That's something definitely to pay attention to as this recruiting cycle is going to wind down until we get to the early signing day, period. Okay, that'll do it for me today. Come back later this week. We'll have another episode of the Joel Clatt Show. Remember to subscribe, rate, review us that always helps. Share with a friend. We'd really appreciate that. And then also, hit us up on social media at Joel Clatt show.

You can hit me up personally on Twitter at Joel Clatt or on Instagram at Joel underscore Clat. And here's what I'd like to do. I'd like to just throw out a question to you as we're entering into the offseason. What type of topics would you like to hear about this offseason? I want to make sure we are serving you, the college football fan, because we all love the sport. And I know what I think is interesting, but I also want to know what you think is interesting. So any subject that you want me to get into, throw it in there. Hit me up on Twitter

at Joel Clatt, and we'll try to build up a really cool offseason of subjects, topics, and guests that we can get into that will make our offseason a little bit more enjoyable as we wait for college football to begin next September. All right, that'll do it for me. Thank you for listening. And again, please subscribe, rate and review us. Thank you.