The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - CFP Rankings Reaction: Ohio State at #1, Michigan behind Georgia and Oklahoma behind Texas

Episode Date: November 1, 2023

FOX Sports’ lead college football analyst Joel Klatt reacts to the first College Football Playoff Rankings. He discusses the decision to put Ohio State at #1 and why the Committee chose to put Georgia over Michigan despite very similarly rated schedules. Klatt also discusses inconsistencies in the rankings, particularly when considering Texas, Alabama and Oklahoma. He concludes the show by naming two teams that are currently outside the Top 10 but have the runway to make it to the Playoff. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today on the Joel Klaude show, we finally got the rankings. So let's discuss them now. 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 just one of those days where you fall in love with the sport all over again. Welcome into the program, everybody.

I'm Joel Klat. This is the Joel Klaz show. This show is presented by Hampton, by Hilton, and we finally got rankings. here we go. This year has been so exciting. As you know, I have loved this season. We've got a great race. And I think we've got more teams than ever that can be involved in this national title hunt that's reflected in these rankings. And I will give you all of my thoughts here as we move forward here tonight and an immediate reaction to these playoff rankings. All right. Now, first things first, if you are new to the show, thank you for joining us. And by the way, it's going to be an epic November. So slow clap for you for finding.

us and invite a friend. You can follow us on social media at Joel Clat Show wherever you like to social media. You can watch us on YouTube, listen to us wherever you like to get your podcast. Make sure to subscribe wherever you're at and leave us a comment, review, all those different things, and then invite a friend because college football is always better with a friend. Okay, let's get into this thing because, you know, as is the case all the time, you get the rankings and you look at them and you're like, yeah, you know, they're fine. And then the closer that you look, the more that you see some irregularities in there, you see some hypocrisy in there, and then the more that you look at it, the more you get frustrated knowing that there's just

these people sitting in a boardroom and you're like, well, how can they do one thing in one area and then another thing in another area? And don't these rankings actually matter? And then some people say they don't matter. We've got to just slow down and realize that we're finally to November. We get actual tangible rankings and we get to parse that out. So let's get started. Let's see the top six. how the committee gave them to us here on Tuesday. Number one, Ohio State. Eight, no. Best resume in the country.

I don't think a lot of people are shocked at that one. Number two, Georgia. Number three, Michigan. Number four, Florida State. And then just on the outside, a couple of pack 12 teams, Washington at number five, and Oregon at number six. So let's immediately, let's just start with the reaction right off the top. Ohio State is number one in the country.

even though they're not number one in the country and either of the human polls. Now, a lot of people will say, like, well, this doesn't make any sense. And we don't think that they're actually the best team in the country. Fair enough. But they do have the best resume in the country. And so this could have been seen and predicted. And a lot of us did think that Ohio State was going to be in this position because of those wins. They've got great wins, folks.

All right. The win at Notre Dame, outstanding, in particular with the way that Notre Dame has been playing, and in particular lately, which is going to come back as a form of recency bias that this committee has sprinkled across this top 25, and this is the first instance, because the team that they beat is playing really well currently. Okay. So they've got that win on the road against Notre Dame, probably one of the best, if not the best win in the country, in particular when you take into consideration the location, did that on the road. They've also beat Penn State. So here they are with two of the best wins in the country.

Penn State was 11 in these rankings, Notre Dame was 15. And so you can see this coming. And I don't have a problem with it. Ohio State is a damn good football team. We talked about this on Monday. They're built a little bit differently than they have been over the last three years. And because of that, maybe this is a form or a strategy or a blueprint for Ohio State that will pay better dividends for them at the tail end of this year than it has over the last.

three years. Even though they've been great and they've been at the top end, they haven't gotten over the hump. They lose the national championship in 2020. They lose to Michigan in 2021. They lose to Michigan again in 2022. Then still get into the playoff, lose to Georgia and a heartbreaker. Maybe this different blueprint is what they need. So they've got the best resume. I don't have a big problem with them at number one. Even though I don't have them at number one. I'm candidly thankful that the committee is honoring them for scheduling the way that they've scheduled, in particular to that Notre Dame home and home. So the committee honors that that road win against Notre Dame and I think better college football is better for it. Then Georgia and Michigan,

those are the second teams and third teams ranked in these rankings. So Georgia is number two, and then Michigan is number three. And at first blush, you're like, okay, you know, there's nothing wrong with that. And candidly, I don't think that there's anything wrong with that. And any of these three teams, by the way, probably could have been number one in the country. They chose Ohio State based on resume. And I agree with that, in particular when you're looking at the strength of schedule and the horrendous schedule that Georgia and Michigan has played thus far. Now, every Georgia fan, it's like cue them, wind them up and cue them right now because they'll be like, we had a game with Oklahoma scheduled.

Okay, but you didn't play it. So all you can do is rate based on the games that have been played. And the fact remains that Georgia's strength of schedule is 100th in the country. Michigan is 11th in the country. These two teams have not played a very difficult schedule. Okay. And they have been dominant at times. And in fact, one of these teams has been much more dominant than the other,

much more consistent than the other. And I think we all know that that's Michigan. So Michigan gets put third, even though their body of work against a similar schedule is far superior to Georgia's. That just seems like it's a little off from the committee. They didn't have a resume to go on because they already put that resume up in number one. Then they look at Michigan and Georgia and it's like their strength of schedule is basically the same. And yet Michigan has been by far in a way the more consistent, and dominant team of the two.

Now, you can tell me, like, you know what, the back-to-back championships carried the day. Okay, fair enough, that's fine. You know what? The way that they looked against Florida was outstanding, even without Brock Bowers. Okay, fair enough. But the problem is, is I saw that Florida team get absolutely drilled by Utah,

and Utah was totally short-handed, and we saw what a short-handed Utah just did at home in that same building against Oregon. So again, it's just like it starts to fall apart. And I get it, there's always going to be a hint of the SEC bias. And I'm not mad at it. Georgia has earned that to a large degree with their win streak, their current win streak, with their back-to-back national championships, and their quality play over the last few weeks.

Carson Beck has looked outstanding. If you listen to Monday's podcast, you will know that I have no ill will towards Georgia and in fact love Georgia and love where they're sitting with their best player out. Because Beck is playing quietly, putting together a phenomenal season statistically. You look up like this guy is going to throw for a ton of yards. And he's doing it at least right now without Bowers out there. That's going to pay off huge for not only Beck, but for all of Georgia. Michigan doesn't get the benefit of the doubt.

It just, there's just no way that the, allegations against Michigan didn't influence that room. And I know that Ward Manual is in the room, the AD for Michigan. But when they're discussing Michigan, he's not in the room. Remember, he's got to recuse himself. That's how they do this, this whole operation where people are recusing and blah, blah, blah. It's a really bad system. They need to stop putting ADs on this, but I digress more on that in a little bit. Michigan is the most dominant team in the country. They are the most consistent team of the country, and yet they didn't get the benefit of the doubt in the top three. You cannot convince me that the allegations of sign stealing didn't at least influence, whether it was an outward conversation or an inward feeling from some of these committee members.

It absolutely influenced these rankings. If there's no allegations, Michigan might be number one, but most certainly would be number two, and now they fall to three, which in the grand scheme of things doesn't really matter. so there's no reason to get all bent out of shape about it. But you're starting to see, again, a little of the hypocrisy, and it starts to creep in. The more that you look at this, the more that you look at this, the more that you see that it's not always on the up and up. Now let's go on in this top six

and just look at the Florida State, Washington, and Oregon kind of positions. Because in my mind, there's the top three, and then there's the next three, which is Florida, State, Washington, and Oregon. Okay, two undefeated and a one loss. First off, Florida State at 4, that win against, excuse me, LSU is carrying a lot of water, and rightly so, even though Washington's win is technically better. Now, I know that, I know that Florida State won in a neutral site. I totally get that.

They killed them. I totally get that. But LSU is also a two-loss team, and they're not Oregon, which right now is kind of the apple of the eye of college football after what they did against Utah on Saturday. I'm certainly impressed with Oregon. I know a lot of other people in the country are impressed with what Oregon is doing right now. And yet Washington didn't get the benefit of the doubt in terms of that win over Florida State. To me, this is where the recency bias starts to creep in. I think that the committee looked at the way that Washington was playing over the last couple of weeks

and thought to themselves like, no, they're not better than Florida State. And we're going to put Florida State in there on the back of that win against LSU to open the season. So they did that. Now, Washington, they've looked, let's just face it, not great in the last couple of weeks, right? They needed the pick six against Arizona State. They needed basically a failed fourth down when Stanford drops the ball in order to escape against Stanford. But it's not like Florida State had been dominant in the entirety of the year. What if, let's just pose the question, they would have just escaped Boston College this last weekend.

You see, I think it would have been flipped. It happens more and more in this top 25. You see that the recency bias shows up. It shows up. And this was the first spot. Washington's last two games against Arizona State and Stanford are the reason why this is the way that it is. Because Washington's win is better than Florida states win. The resume is better.

The resume is better. Oregon clearly, by the way, is in great position. They lose on the road. in a game in which they outgained Washington by 100 yards. They end the wind streak that Utah had at home. They look really dominant and balanced everywhere, and they're the top one-loss team in the country. Oregon at 6 is in a great position, great position.

This is why a lot of us love Oregon right now, the way that they're built, their head coach, their quarterback. Bo Nix is playing outstanding football. He makes the game of football, which is a very complicated and hard sport to play in a hard position to play, and he's making it look really easy right now. Okay, so there's this quarterback and there's this team that is sitting there.

They are in such good position. They just control their own destiny. It's almost now they're a little bit behind the eight ball because they do have a loss and that loss is in conference. However, to me, they just control their own destiny. If they went out, they're going to go to the college football playoff. Oregon is in a great position. They've got Cal, they've got USC, they've got,

they've got Arizona State and they've got Oregon State. They're better than all of those teams. I'm not saying they're definitely going to win, but they're certainly going to be favored, and I'm going to pick them to win in every one of those games. They've got four left. And right now, the way that they played on Saturday, I don't know many teams in the country

that are beating Oregon if they play the way that they did on Saturday against Utah. Just full stop. That's the way that I feel about the ducks right now. Really, really good. Hey, before I go on, remember, it is my favorite time of year. It's football season. And as you know, I take it very seriously, especially when we get to the playoff rankings. So when I'm traveling on the road to watch my favorite teams, I can't risk calling the wrong play with where I stay. So wherever I go, I know that I can count on Hampton by Hilton. I can depend on their comfortable rooms and their warm, friendly service. Their free hot breakfast, you and I both know it's an absolute game changer and it's delicious. I love a hot cup of coffee and a nice fresh waffle and I get it at Hampton by Hill. Hilton. So whether you're cheering on your team from the stands or never leaving the tailgate, Hampton by Hilton will always give you that win. Okay, so I want to continue on in these rankings because the next thing that stood out to me after the top six is that we got basically

the path of least resistance from the committee. Okay, so if you look at the whole top 25, this is what you see. There's four blocks of teams. And they basically just said, here's all the unbeatens and then we'll rank them. And then here's all the one-lossed teams and then we'll rank them. And then here's all the two lost teams and then we'll rank them and here's two group of five teams at the end. That's all they did. This is why the composition of this committee is so flawed and so broken

to have people that are actually associated with the schools and directly tied to the monetization of the playoffs and what it means for the revenue of the schools, the athletic directors, like, what are we doing? And they all put on this show as if they're like, we're going to put our hats on the outside and then no one's going to have any bias. Come on.

And because of that, they don't want to have to walk around and answer questions to the other ADs, who are their peers. They don't want to have to answer hard questions from guys like me or fans like you. And so here's what you get from the committee. Because of its composition, because of who's on the committee.

And these are not bad people. They're really great people. I love a lot of these people. And they're really good at their jobs. But their jobs should not be to rank college football teams. Sorry, full stop. And the reason is because what you end up getting from this committee is the path of least resistance. Always.

It's always that way. And so you can't hold them to any one logic. with one team over another team. It's just going to be things like recency bias and the path of least resistance. What most people are saying, we're just going to go ahead and give you that so that we don't have a lot of people shouting

that this is rigged, wrong, whatever you want to call it. Okay? And that's what you get from the committee. I don't hate the rankings. I don't. I don't. But they kind of are what they are. When you have a committee made up of athletic direction, directors, this is what you get. The path of least resistance. Period. Period. And that's exactly what we have.

Five unbeatens. Well, and they kind of jump them up there. So then they throw it out there. And it was like, okay, resume for Ohio State. And they've been great. They've been great. But Florida State and Washington don't get the benefit of resume because, well, Georgia and Michigan have looked really good. But Georgia gets the benefit over Michigan, even though Michigan has looked better than Georgia on a more consistent basis. Make it make sense? It doesn't because it's the path of least resistance. So what do you do? You put Georgia who's one back-to-back national championships ahead of a team that's going through an alleged sign stealing allegation, investigation, whatever you want to call it. Don't you see what's going on? Don't we all see this for what it is? And again, I'm not mad about it. It just is what it is. Then you get all the one loss. teams and you group them together and then you rank them and then you get all the two lost

teams and you get them together and then you rank them and then you throw a couple of group of five teams in there so that everyone's not like hey where's the air force in two lane well here they are you throw them a bone it's it's so arrogant of the committee every time we get these rankings because the group of five teams never get any respect and i'm not saying that they deserve more respect with the schedules and the respective schedules that they play but let's face it Georgia and Michigan have played horrendous schedules with a far better talent gap than Tulane and Air Force. You see, what Tulane and Air Force are actually doing with their talent gap over what their schedules talent is, is actually maybe more impressive than what Georgia and Michigan are doing.

Georgia and Michigan are so vastly superior from a roster standpoint than all the teams that they're playing. Tulane and Air Force don't have the benefit of that roster disparity. And yet we just throw them a bone at the end. So that's what's happened. You see it. It's plain as day. Path of least resistance from this committee. Which brings me to that one loss group.

Because this is the one that I believe is probably the most egregious. How does head to head not matter? Now, full disclosure, their 7 through 9 is exactly. how I ranked 7 through 9. Now, I'm not the committee, and I reserve the right to say who I think would win this week. And maybe that's what they're doing here. But you can't use resume in one spot of the top 25. I test in another, recency bias in another, and then all of a sudden rank Oklahoma behind Texas.

They beat them on the field. Again, full disclosure, I have them ranked behind Texas. I don't love the way that they've played recently. And maybe that's what the committee is doing. But the precedent was already set that Ohio State, even though they had not looked better and they were not more dominant and they were not more consistent than Michigan or Georgia was going to get the benefit of the doubt because of who they beat.

So if who they beat mattered, why didn't it matter for Oklahoma? I'm sorry. Am I taking crazy pills? The answer is yes. Feel like Mugatu out here. You're telling me the files are in the computer? Blows my mind. 7-8-9 should just be OU-7, knocks Texas back to 8, Bama to 9. It's very easy. Oklahoma beat Texas, Texas beat Bama. Simple. Fixed it for you. Fixed it for you. If you have Ohio State at number one, then Oklahoma deserves to be number seven. It's plain as day. Plain as day. But it's not for this group because of recency bias. The recency bias was used because of Washington's spot and where Oklahoma is. They don't like how those two teams are playing currently.

Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. But like you rewarded Ohio State earlier. And again, if we're looking for this committee to be consistent, across the entire top 25. We're never going to get there. We're never going to get there. I've got to get to some sleepers. Let's get to some sleepers here because there are a couple. And sleeper picks today is sponsored by Hampton by Hilton. Hilton for the stay.

I've got two sleeper picks so far. Okay, so in this top 25, you've heard how this is all parsed out, right? You've heard, and there are two teams. And one of them might surprise you, but there are two teams that, I just look at, and they're not in the top 10 right now, but there is a path. There's a pretty clean and clear path for both of these teams. I'm going to start with Penn State. And, hey, I get it. Penn State didn't look great against Indiana. Their offense looked really bad against Ohio State, but they're still just a one-loss team. And if you look at what they have

in front of them, they still have Michigan. And Michigan, in a lot of people's eyes, has been the most dominant team in the country so far. If they can beat Michigan, that would be a massive resume builder. That game is not this weekend, but next weekend in State College. They've got Maryland as well. They've got Rutgers and they've got Michigan State. So a very manageable schedule outside of Michigan. That Michigan game becomes massive, massive.

And then there's a path. There's a path in two ways for Penn State to potentially get into this playoff, even though they're not in the top 10 right now in the first playoff rankings. Number one is you obviously beat Michigan and then you win the three, team tie break because you hope at that point that Michigan would beat Ohio State when Michigan is at home in the big house in the last week of the season. Then they would all be 11 and 1. They would all have one loss and it would go down to a tiebreaker. And the tiebreaker basically is you look at the three teams from the West Division and you total up their record.

And then that's the tie break. Can't make it up, by the way. Can't make it up. There are currently a game back of both Ohio State and Michigan in the tiebreak. So they're not in a good right now in the tie break. However, who knows how the West is going to play out? So there again is a path. There's a path. The other one is you take care of business against Michigan at home. And what I would assume is going to be one of the best environments that I've certainly seen maybe ever, but certainly this year in college football. You beat Michigan. Okay. Let's just say the Buckeyes with everything on the line, with everything that's gone on, with the signs, with the two straight losses. let's say the Buckeyes go in there and win, and they win in the big house.

Now, that doesn't put Penn State in the Big Ten championship game, but it does put them in that second position. And just as Ohio State last year was able to go to the playoff, even though they didn't win their division, maybe there's enough chaos where Penn State can crawl into the playoff. So again, two different ways that Penn State, with regardless of who wins that game in the Michigan-Ohio-State matchup, if they beat Michigan, there's at least a pass.

So there is a sleeper pick, even though they lost that game in Columbus. And then the next one, this one might be a little bit more out there because we've never seen a two-loss team in the playoff. However, if we're going to see it, it would be a team that would knock off the back-to-back defending national champion. My next sleeper is LSU. We've got to pay attention to LSU. this team has a path.

I know, even with two losses, and I know they didn't look great early. But if Florida State remains undefeated, and you can say like that game was all the way in the beginning of the year, like that doesn't look quite as bad if Florida State is as good as we think that they could be, and if they remain undefeated and win the ACC, then that would mean that LSU would go to Tuscaloosa and beat Alabama this week. It would also mean that they would get a win against presumably

Georgia in the SEC championship game, and Georgia hasn't even lost since the 2021 SEC championship game. So now all of a sudden, you're going to get huge momentum for LSU. You might need a couple of other things to go your way at that point. You might want Washington to remain undefeated in this scenario. You might need a little chaos in the Big 12, which, by the way, there's five teams tied at 4-1 right now in the Big 12. I'm just telling you right now, if there's going to be a two-loss team in the playoff, it's going to be out of the SEC because they're going to need that huge resume builder of beating the back-to-back defending national champion Georgia Bulldogs. So LSU still has a path in this thing. And if you look at their schedule, they've got Bama,

they've got Florida, Georgia State and a toughie, that tough November, that tough November in the SEC, it always gets to me, and Texas A&M. So they basically have a lot of, three games. One really, it's this week. If they can beat Alabama and then somehow beat Georgia and the SEC championship game, I'm not saying that this is likely. I'm just saying that it's a path. And if you're looking for two teams that aren't in the top 10 currently that could potentially go to the college football playoff, it's those teams. We've seen it a couple of times before. The first iteration of the playoff back in 14, Ohio State did it. I believe they were ranked like 16th in the country in the first playoff rankings. Oklahoma did it as well.

They weren't in the top 10, so it's happened twice. And then there was a third time Oklahoma was like ninth in the initial college football playoff rankings. There they are. If you're watching, you can see it now. 14, Ohio State, they were ranked 16th in the first rankings. In 2015, OU was ranked 15th in the first college football rankings. And in 2019, OU was ranked ninth.

So it's not out of the realm of the possibility for either of these teams, Penn State or LSU. And you look at their remaining schedules, and they certainly could be in that boat. That's going to do it. That's going to do it for this reaction. Remember, folks, it will all play out. These rankings do matter. Don't let somebody tell you that they don't matter because remember, coaches are hired and fired based on things like, how many weeks are you in the top 25? How many weeks are you not in the top 25? How many weeks are you in the top 10? How many weeks are you in the top five?

these are things and metrics that absolutely matter in our sport. Now, are we putting teams into the playoff today? No, that doesn't mean they don't matter. And don't let anybody tell you that they don't because they do. So they should be held accountable for these rankings, which means every single Wednesday will be right here, taking a look at what the playoff committee gives us and parsing it out and parsing it out. And that's what we're going to do for you, the college football fan.

Remember, follow us on any of the social. social medias at Joel Clat Show. You can follow me personally, by the way. I'm on Twitter. I don't like to say I'm on X because it just doesn't sound right. So I'm on Twitter at Joel Clatt. And you can always, please do so, subscribe to the show wherever you listen, subscribe to the show on YouTube. And if you would like to, send us an email at the Joel Clat Show mailbag at gmail.com. And we'll get to your questions throughout the season. Fun time of year. Fun time of year. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do because I love college football as much as you do. That's it for today.

We'll be back tomorrow. We're going to break down. Wait for it. We're previewing eight games tomorrow on the program. Make sure to come back and listen tomorrow because we're going to be on fire. Hair's on fire tomorrow. We're breaking down eight games. We'll see you then.