The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - CFP Rankings Reax: Tennessee at 1, TCU & Michigan disrespected, path for the Pac-12

Episode Date: November 2, 2022

FOX Sports’ lead college football analyst Joel Klatt reacts to the first CFP Rankings of the 2022 season. TCU comes in at #7 in the first week of the poll and Joel believes this is unfair to the Horned Frogs based on their resume and the fact that they aren't a blue blood program.. Then, Joel discusses the fact the SEC has five teams in the top 11. He describes how he thinks the committee got to this point, and why it could give a team like Tennessee extra paths to the playoff. Next, Joel breaks down the path for a Pac-12 team to make the Playoff and explains why Michigan should have been ranked higher than Clemson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This guy today J.T. Tsui Moraw has come of age. He has turned into or from just a talented player and a great recruit to a game wrecker, a guy they can rely on that is instigating right now. Another short field for their offense. All right. Welcome to the Joel Clatt show. I am Joel Clatt and this is going to be a good one. Okay, so as you know, the college football playoff rankings came out last night, and here we are. And we're going to give you my unfiltered thoughts on those rankings that they gave us. First and foremost, though, just make sure, like, if you don't subscribe to the show yet, do that. Make sure to rate and review us, share it with a friend because college football is always better with a friend. And go back and download and listen to Monday's podcast. We had a lot of good stuff, including a long break.

down to that Ohio State-Penstate game. Okay, so let's get into it. The college football playoff rankings, the first edition on Tuesday night, the Made for TV event, and what did they give us? Well, this is what they gave us. Number one, Tennessee. This is something that I expected. If you follow me on social media, you know I expected this. Number two is Ohio State. Georgia is number three. Clemson is number four, Michigan five, and Alabama six. All right. So we'll focus more on kind of the top six because remember now, this is all in regards to a four-team subjective, you know, invitational, if you will. And so that's really the coveted spots and that's where it sits. I've got five distinct different thoughts on what they gave us last night in the

college football playoff rankings. I want to start, though, with a team that is not listed in those top six, but should be. All right. So let's start. with TCU, the horn frogs. TCU got absolutely hosed in the first playoff rankings. And there's a number of different ways that you can go about this, but I first want to state, before I go into any of the details about their actual resume or what they've done as a team on the field,

the simple fact is this. If TCU were Oklahoma or Texas with the same exact resume, they would be no worse than four. This is brand bias at its finest and it's hurt TCU. Let's just go through kind of what I think of them as a team and really what they have on their resume when you're looking at them from kind of a subjective standpoint. First and foremost, they have two better wins than any of the wins that let's say Clemson has who are in the top four because that Oklahoma State win is standing up and the Kansas State win is standing. up. Kansas State is at 13. Oklahoma State is at 18. Now, granted, you're going to get three

ranked wins from Clemson, but the problem is that they're all behind both Oklahoma State and Kansas State. So here's TCU as an undefeated, leading the Big 12, and they've got two better wins than any win Clemson has. So that's number one. They also did something in this season. I don't know how much that they actually looked at this, speaking of the committee, but remember, and I've told you on this podcast earlier in the year, they did something last month that has been done twice in college football history, which is pretty remarkable. So they beat in one calendar month a ranked opponent every single week out. It's only been done twice before, 2012, Stanford, 1960, Iowa. So they were doing things that were historic. That's the second thing.

Then you just look at what they are on the field. Well, this is a top five scoring offense and total offense in college football. It's an offense that, by the way, is the only offense in the sport that's averaging 300 passing yards and rushing for 200 yards a game, plus have 20 passing touchdowns and have 20 rushing touchdowns. So they are balanced on offense, very balanced. If you look at them just from a team perspective, you're going to look at the fact that they've got a better strength of record and strength of schedule than let's say Clemson, who's

in the top four right now. They've got a better quarterback than Clemson right now, in particular after a week in which Clemson had to bench their starter when they were down against Syracuse at home. Max Duggan is a Heisman Trophy candidate at this point going into November. So all of those things are better than, let's say, Clemson, who's three spots ahead of them at number four? It doesn't make much sense to me, except for the fact that Clemson is, right now, a blue blood. They've got a national championship on display. I think that carries the day.

I don't think it's right. I don't think it's right that we allow history to dictate how we view these teams specifically this year. I understand it can inform our decisions, but is that right? Is that right to judge Max Duggan against Trevor Lawrence? I don't think that that's right. Is it right to judge Sunny Dykes in his first year at TCU

against the Deshawn Watson Clemson team that won a national championship? I don't think that's right. But that's clearly what happened because this is blue blood bias. And the fact remains, as I said before, if Oklahoma or Texas from the Big 12 had the exact same schedule and resume and outcome as TCU, they'd be no worse than number four. This is brand biased at its finest. And the hard part for me is that you look at this now and like, TCU needs some help.

So, and I'll get to this later, but this matters. These rankings matter because it sets, it sets the stage. for everything that goes on the rest of the year. And so now you're looking at it, and I don't know if you can say that TCU controls their own destiny as an undefeated in the Power 5 in what I think is the deepest league in the country this year. They might not be the best league in the country, and I'm not arguing that they are the Big 12,

but I am arguing they're the deepest, and this team is undefeated. Okay? It's pretty clear to me that they need some help, even if they run the table, I think they desperately need Alabama to lose at some point, whether it's this week against LSU or maybe in the future in the SEC championship game, but I think TCU needs some help based on the way this committee is viewing them. And I don't think that that's right. And I think it has everything to do with their standing within the sport as far as being a blue blood or not a blue blood.

All right? The burden of proof is clearly on TCU. I thought they got jobbed more than anybody else. else in these first rankings. Next up, my next thought. I want to go to, basically, you go one through 11, and you're going to find five SEC teams, which, listen, I'm fine with that, but it's pretty clear that, like, hey, the coalition and that wall is built right now.

And so the SEC is dominating these rankings. And by the way, maybe rightly so. I think that that league this year is definitely the best league in the country. country. They're great at the top. They've got two other teams that I think are playing really good football in LSU and Ole Miss. And the coalition is there, five top teams, five teams in the top 11, I guess I should say. But what really stands out to me is this LSU at 10. So LSU at 10 is a bit of an outlier. The way that we have viewed these teams, even their resume all in all, because they're the highest rated two-loss team in the country.

Not Utah, which has been the highest-rated two-loss team for every other poll that we have. No, LSU, all of a sudden, four spots ahead of Utah. And it got me thinking a little bit that this LSU ranking is a huge deal because that LSU ranking at 10 basically builds up. wall behind Tennessee. Even if LSU loses, like let's say this week to Alabama, well, one, that's, you know, Alabama. And so are they going to drop that far? Probably not. Now, Texas is a three-loss team there at 24, but being at 10, if you lose to Alabama, and let's say it's even close, LSU's not getting past 20, right? They're not dropping 10

spots. That would be unprecedented in the college football playoff rankings. So they'd still be in there, which builds a wall behind Tennessee. Because if Tennessee loses to Georgia, well, Georgia's top three. And it would be on the road at Georgia. And Tennessee would still have that really good win, great win, best win in the country against Alabama. And they'd still have that what now looks to be maybe the second best win in the country going on the road and beating LSU soundly in their building. So now you've got Tennessee and they've got this backstop of LSU because of that win. Their strength of schedule is fantastic. They've got their 2-0 against the college football playoff top 25.

So everything is going right for Tennessee. I had heard from a lot of Tennessee fans and they were kind of like leery about like, man, we're going to have to beat Georgia, aren't we? Because we can't be a team that doesn't win the division and still go to the playoff. They probably still had a path to the playoff not beating Georgia before, but now they definitely have a path to the playoff even without beating Georgia because of the backstop of LSU. So how does LSU get ranked 10th?

Well, let's get into that for a moment, because you kind of have to understand how the sausage is made in the playoff committee. I believe that what happened with LSU is that they got stuck with Ole Miss. This committee valued Ole Miss, and by the way, rightly so, I think Ole Miss is a good football team. They really valued Ole Miss, but then that game, the last game that LSU played, LSU beats Ole Miss, and they do it fairly soundly. So here's kind of, and this is going to be hard to explain, but I'm going to try, and I hope I do a good job. at this. To understand what happened there, and then to also put that against the,

what seems to be the same situation with USC and Utah, and yet you see USC at 9 and Utah at 14. Well, okay, so they're clearly honoring head-to-head with LSU over Ole Miss, but not with Utah over USC, even though LSU is a two-loss team and Ole Miss is a one-loss team. You see what I'm saying? Like, it doesn't make much sense until you understand how these rankings are actually made. So let me try to do this quickly. Okay, so the first thing you have to know, every committee member comes in with their top 25 filled out,

and they hand it in. And then those are tabulated, and they put up, hey, here's the top 25 as you see them, like you would make any other AP poll any week of the season. Okay, so they put that up briefly, and then they take it down, and they say, okay, let's look at it in sections, and we're going to start at the top.

So let's take a look at the top. top four teams and they put them up there. And remember, that's just kind of an aggregate of what everyone's ballot was when they walked into the room. So then they would ask the question like, are we okay with this? And anybody that has an objection could raise an objection. They would put up resumes next to each other. They would maybe watch some film and they go through it and they pour over the data. But only with that section of teams up and against one another. Okay. And so then what happens is they would give you another ballot. At that point, the ballot would have six spots. So you've been talking about four teams so far, and then there's six spots on the ballot.

And they say, rank your top six. Now, this is where it gets interesting, is that you rank your top six, and then once those get tabulated and go up on the board, then they say, like, okay, are we okay with the top two? Are we good with this? And they say, okay, yes. Tennessee, Ohio State, you are one and two, and they put them up there then in stone. So now those are out of deliberation at that point, and you move down. So it's always this window of four or five teams that you're talking about and arguing about, right, and comparing against one another. And it kind of starts to slide down.

So then that same process occurs with the next four or five teams, and then you solidify the third and fourth team and maybe the fifth team and the window slides down. And then teams are added based on those new ballots that are then thrown in there. And that's what eventually builds the top 25. Well, then you can see that USC got included before Utah was up for deliberation. That's how Utah is that many spots behind USC. whereas LSU and Ole Miss are clearly put up right next to each other on the resume, and there's a head-to-head win right there that they've got to honor.

So how are you not honoring Utah's win over USC, but you are honoring LSU's win over Ole Miss? It's about the process. Now, you can say it's flawed. I'm just telling you like, I did the exercise. That's how it's done. And I probably didn't even explain it all that well. I'm just telling you that I highly doubt Utah was,

up on the board of four teams or five teams against USC. They were never deliberated against one another, whereas LSU and Ole Miss absolutely were. Therefore, they honored LSU's win and not Utah's win. So that's how that happens. So then you've got LSU at 10 as a clear outlier, and now they are an absolute backstop for Tennessee. So all this tells me is there's a ripe scenario for three,

SEC teams in the college football playoff. Absolutely. Not a doubt in my mind. Those rankings right there in this first iteration, five SEC teams in the top 11, there could absolutely be three SEC teams in the playoff this year. And it wouldn't take that much, by the way. It wouldn't take that much at all. Georgia beats Tennessee this week in a really good game in Athens. Then Alabama beats Georgia in Atlanta. in the SEC championship game in a thriller. And let's say Clemson were to lose somehow, TCU were to lose somehow.

Ohio State and Michigan are each going to play each other, so one of them would have a loss. And now all of a sudden, even with a one-loss Pack 12 team up there, you would be deliberating basically for one or two spots, and there would be three SEC teams just sitting there with great resumes and only one loss. So that's why that's important. What you need to know, the second thing from last night's playoff ranking,

the SEC Coalition is strong. And that wall is strong for Tennessee. All right. My next thought on this is another conference. And my initial thought on this conference was like, oh, man, they're getting no respect. But then I just kept looking at it and looking at it. And there's a sneaky path for the Pack 12.

I haven't seen this conference in the playoff very often, what, Oregon and Washington, the only times. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, okay, Oregon at number eight, they respect them. USC at number nine, they really respect them. And I would have UCLA higher, but I get it. Like at 12, that's not bad right there. The only one that I thought that they kind of like disrespected, if you will, is Utah, in particular. with the LSU ranking, but I just explain that to you how something like that would happen. To me, it's going to take some help, but there is a pretty clear path right now for the PAC 12.

They have to avoid what inevitably happens in that conference, which is that they beat each other up, but right now, Oregon is sitting there and if they were to win out, you can see a scenario where they would go to the college football playoff. Now, in that scenario, they better hope that Georgia also wins out, but then USC is sitting there. If they went out, they might have a really strong argument to go to the college football playoff, in particular if a TCU were to lose, if Alabama were to lose another game. And then again, Ohio State of Michigan going to play each other. So there you are with like that Pack 12, 8, 9, Oregon and USC, I kind of like it.

I kind of like their path. I'm not saying that it's easy and I'm not saying that they control their own destiny. But what I am trying to tell you is that there is a scenario. There is a good scenario for the PAC 12 to go to this playoff. Now, the one thing that I think is interesting in this is the following scenario. And you're going to love it, I think. And you probably may say to yourself, like, this is super obvious. But here you go.

Let's just say that Georgia beats Tennessee. and then Georgia loses to Alabama. So in that case, like, SEC champ in Alabama, you're in. Let's say the Big Ten is an undefeated champ. Let's just say, for sake of argument, well, I'm not even going to do that. Michigan or Ohio State. Other would be kind of, you know, by the wayside, if you will. So now there's two spots.

Let's even give Clemson, like, go ahead. They're undefeated. That's the third spot. Okay. And now, let's say TCU loses, and it's Oregon, a one-loss Georgia, a one-loss Tennessee, and a one-loss Big Ten team up for that lost spot. So basically, you're getting to Georgia, Oregon, up for that last spot. And we're just going to go back to week one.

And we're going to say, well, sorry, Oregon, you got thumped by Georgia. there is a really clear path to the last two teams being up for the fourth spot in the playoff are Georgia and Oregon. And you know what? I think that would be almost funny, almost comical in some regard. My next thought on this is another conference, and it's more specific to one team. I thought Michigan would be in the top four. They weren't. Clemson's overranked. It just is what it is. Like you, you, you have to be a ridiculous Clemson, you know, Homer to think that this is an appropriate ranking for Clemson. I don't know what the committee was doing, quite frankly, until you look at

what's going on in the back end of the rankings, and it's like, oh, there you go, they cooked the books for Clemson by stashing Syracuse, Wake Forest, and North Carolina State back there in the back end, 2021, and 22. So then you can say, well, Clemson's, the only team in the country that has three wins against CFP top 25 teams. Okay, good for them. They don't have the strength of record nor the strength of schedule of even a TCU. You can't even come close to putting on the film and saying that they've been as dominant as Michigan.

Not even close, by the way. Do you know that only 5% of Michigan snaps all season long have been with a deficit? So they've been playing with the lead. They've been totally dominant, totally dominant. What they did to Penn State was light years better than whatever Clemson has done in any single game that they have played. And so Michigan, you know, they should be number four. Clemson is not better than Michigan. I said in a tweet, like, I kind of get it because, listen, like, their non-conference was really bad.

And the reason that you have to look at their non-conference is because they only have one win against CFP top 25 teams, not the three that Clemson has. So then if you're going to compare them next to each other, yeah, they both have horrific non-conference schedules, and I don't include Notre Dame in the non-conference for Clemson. I'm looking at their, what is it? It's their firm and law tech, as opposed to Yukon, Hawaii, and CSU for Michigan. Both of them are awful, non-conference slates, awful. And I think they would even admit that. Now, the problem is, for me, at least, is that this committee is supposed to have football people on it. I know some of them on this committee. And there are, like, I respect a lot of the people on this committee. And apparently they didn't turn on the video between Michigan and Clemson.

Because these two teams have not been even close at all, at all. Like, all you got to do is turn on the film and you would see that Michigan is a much better team. I do think that the lack of quality mid-tier Big Ten teams is hurting Michigan in this sense. The fact that like a Michigan State is not having a good year, this is hurting them. But they will have a chance against two more CFP ranked teams, Illinois, next to the last game of the season. And then Ohio State obviously in the last game of the season. The reason like, you know, the Michigan thing, it's like, hey, does it really matter? Not really for Michigan because they clearly control their.

own destiny. They've got those two games against CFP top 25 teams coming up, including Ohio State. You're not going to beat Ohio State, go on a feed, and win the Big Ten and not go to the playoff. So Michigan clearly, clearly controls their own destiny. Now, having said that, this playoff committee showed themselves to be lacking, lacking in judgment. The Clemson rank at four is a bit of a joke ahead of Michigan. The TCU rank is a bit of a joke. And they got caught kind of with that LSU at 10, like I was saying. So it leads me to my last point. Number five. And that is, everyone's going to tell you on social media that these rankings don't matter. And I couldn't disagree more. Really? They absolutely matter. I don't quite understand. That's

saying the first quarter of a game doesn't matter. I'm sorry what? Yeah, I know we're not rewarding a win or a loss, but we're building towards it. Like what are you what are you talking about? They don't matter. These absolutely matter for a number of different reasons. Let me just go through a couple. One is resume building. You know, when we're trying to build a resume as a program, any program, you do that through wins against teams that are included in this list. So when you are clearly valuing a team like an LSU, way higher than you are other teams, maybe with two losses, then yeah, it's going to matter because you're building a resume. And then that resume is all that gets put up in front of that committee on that last day.

What are you on the board? So of course it matters. And I feel like that almost goes without saying. But then there's some deeper things in this. And I think that these also matter in the grand scheme of college football. Perception matters a great deal in this sport, in particular in a sport in which we crown our champion in a subjective way, which we're going through that exercise right now, but also when we gather talent via the perception of our program. This is not a draft. this is recruiting. So it matters a great deal the way people in general view our program, any program.

And because of that, when there is clearly a bias or a glass ceiling above your program, that directly impacts globally, the perception of your program and it will impact your recruiting. If I'm a recruit and I get a letter from TCU, from Oklahoma, from Clemson, from Tennessee, and from Utah,

my perception of those programs will impact the way that I view those letters. And when there seems to be a glass ceiling based on the way that team achieves and the way they are perceived when it comes to the subjective four-team invitational that we have at the end of the season, that will impact what I think as that player or recruit in terms of where I want to go. There is a burden of proof on teams like Utah and TCU. There is that glass ceiling. There is not a burden of proof on a team like Alabama that can lose a game and still be ranked ahead of an undefeated TCU. They can go on the road to Texas and barely win by a point.

They can play a horrendous Texas A&M team and have A&M have a snap to win the game at the end of the game. Like all of these things are true. And yet it doesn't matter because the burden of proof is not on Alabama. They get the best players. They have the most money. They've got the best coach. and the burden of proof is on the little guy.

TCU. It's on you, TCU, to prove to us the keepers of the sport that you can be ranked ahead of Alabama even when Alabama loses a game. And when we're asked about it, guess what we're going to say? Well, we just felt like they fell behind in some games. Oh, you know, like when Alabama fell behind, when the clock struck zero, I remember that too.

I remember that too. How about when they were behind for the majority of the game against Texas? How about when Clemson was behind at home to Syracuse and had to, you know, pull their quarterback in order to come back and win that game with a 17 to nothing run? By the way, that was a week before Notre Dame went up and just thumped that Syracuse team. But, you know, hey, who am I to say? There is a burden of proof on TCU that impacts the perception of the way everyone views that program and that is a real thing. So that's why these rankings matter. You cannot just say that the rankings don't matter. You build your resume based off these rankings and you build your

perception based off these rankings. And those are the only two things that matter when it comes to recruiting talent and making it to the playoff. So that's why these things matter and they're going to continue to matter for the rest of the season, which is why every single Wednesday right here on the Joel Clat Show, this is what we're going to be talking about, is these CFP, top 25 rankings. Now, in the coming weeks, I'm going to take a closer look at what a 12-team playoff is going to look like when that starts to come of age in the coming years, which I think is going to be really exciting. And when we do that, by the way, I'm going to give you a little bit of a snapshot of how many games across the country in the month of November are going to matter.

And I think that's going to be great for college football. I think it's going to be fabulous for college football, and much needed, by the way. Because right now, we're limiting the number of games that are actually meaningful in the month of November, and we need to increase that. And I think that we can when the playoff expands. All right, that's going to do it for this show. Remember, go and download and then subscribe to the show, share it with a friend. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

So if you want to hit me up on social media, you can hit me up on Twitter at Joel Clatt. You can hit me up on Instagram at Joel underscore Clat. or you can follow us here at the show at Joel Clatt Show on any of those social media platforms. We will be back tomorrow on Thursday. I've got my preview and picks for the six best games in college football. I can't wait for that. So tune in for that. That'll do it for today's show.

I'm Joel Clatt. This is the Joel Clatt Show. Enjoy your day.