The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Coach Prime & Colorado live up to the hype, Ohio State struggles & Florida State makes a statement

Episode Date: September 4, 2023

FOX Sports’ lead college football analyst Joel Klatt reacts to Coach Prime and Colorado’s stunning upset of #17 TCU. He breaks down how their performance managed to somehow exceed the hype. Klatt dissects the performances of QB Shedeur Sanders and two-way star Travis Hunter before cautioning against looking past Nebraska this week. Klatt gives his evaluations of the QB debuts at Alabama, Georgia and Penn State before breaking down what he saw from an Ohio State offense that struggled vs Indiana. Finally, he gives Florida State their due after an emphatic Week 1 win over #5 LSU. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today on the Joel Clat Show, we actually have a full week of games to react to. And I guess, well, do you believe 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 one of those days where you fall in love with the sport all over again. Welcome in to the Joel Clad show presented by Hampton by Hilton.

I am your host, Joel Clat. come in. It's finally week one of the college football season. We finally get to react to a whole slate of games and I'm thankful for that. I hope you enjoyed the weekend because I sure did. Remember, uh, folks, whether you're listening on audio or watching on YouTube, go ahead and subscribe to the show. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcast. You can also follow us on social media, wherever you participate in social media at Joel Clatt Show. If you want to follow me personally, I'm on Twitter, primarily at Joel Clat. Wow, what a weekend it was. Really thankful for my job all the time,

but certainly on days like that, when the best game of the week falls into your lap and it's the most exciting thing and you can tell the entire country is watching, that's a special, special feeling. And that's exactly what happened on Saturday when Gus and I got to call that absolutely amazing game between TCU and Colorado. And guess what? Dion Sanders wasn't lying. He was coming. My goodness. And he says, hey, do you believe now? Well, I guess we all believe now. And there are so many different angles that we can take when we talk about this game. But let me start with the one that for me is the most like a 30,000 foot view. In sports, whether it's in individual sport or team sports,

I think one of the most rare things that happens in sport, again, any sport, is when hype, hyperbole, and potential are matched by performance. It's an incredibly rare thing. That's what we got to witness on Saturday. The hype surrounding Colorado and Coach Prime and that team was, I mean, let's face it, Like, to some, it was too much.

It was too high, which is what led to, you know, like, Vegas didn't believe it. Nobody believed it. And this guy just kept preaching. He's like, why? Why? We're going out there to dominate. I'm bringing my baggage in.

It's Louis. You know, like my luggage in, it's Louis. We're going to be, I got Heisman type players on my team, all this stuff. And everyone's like, oh, man, I don't, I don't know. And then even his son Shudor chimes in out there on, on social media. believe now. And guess what? I will admit, and you know this because you watched the show, I have been preaching that I felt like Colorado was going to be drastically improved, in particular at the skill position, that they were going to win at least one of the first two.

I felt like I was in the minority in that thought. From day one, I felt like this was an incredible hire by Colorado because of what they needed in terms of the energy and the exposure, which obviously Dion provided, they needed a guy that could go out there and acquire talent. Guess what? He acquired talent. And that was put on display on Saturday. But again, when you match expectations, when you match hype, it's quite incredible. And by the way, even more than that, it was also something that we've never seen before in the history of the sport. Totally unprecedented what Colorado and Coach Prime had done during the offseason revamping that lineup. They had 68 new scholarship players.

That's insane. It's a brand new team. It's an all-star team, if you will. And they went out there and they won the game. And they beat TCU, a team that just went to the national championship game, just went to the Big 12 championship game and was favored by 20 points. Colorado hadn't won a game in which it was that large of an underd since I believe 2009, I want to say.

They hadn't beat a ranked team on the road like that. Shoot, man. I think my freshman year we did it. I want to say we beat UCLA on the road. That might have been the last time that that happened. It was quite remarkable. Upset went over TCU and just an absolutely barn-burning, exciting game. Now let's get into the actual game because there's a lot to get into.

as far as the game goes. Let's start with, like, what I felt like was the biggest story coming out of Saturday. There's a lot of them, but the biggest one, Shador Sanders. Shador Sanders was the best quarterback in the country on Saturday. Now, I don't know if he will be for the entire season, but on Saturday, he played better than anybody else in the country. That was an incredible performance by Shador Sanders. he's been a winner everywhere that he's been as a starting quarterback,

every level that he's played quarterback. He's been a winner. He's been efficient. He's been accurate. And I tell you, he put on a show on Saturday as good of a performance from a quarterback wearing that uniform as I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot.

I was born in 1982. I've been a college football fan since I can remember. I was, what, five years old, six years old. My dad took me to my first game at Folsom Field. I grew up just south of Boulder. I've seen a lot of Colorado games, a lot. Played in a lot of them myself. And that is absolutely the best quarterback performance.

I've seen great quarterback moments, you know, that may be like rival or equal or even top that. Cordels, obviously, the Merrickle in Michigan. I saw Charles Johnson come in as a backup and win the national championship game 10 to 9. I saw Bobby Pesivino what he did in that game winning 62 to 36 over Nebraska. I saw Coy Dettmer and saw him play. I saw John Hessler play and Mike Machete play and all of them, right? I've seen all the great performances. New Bobby Anderson really well. That was it. Like obviously school record passing yards. That was the best performance I've seen a quarterback

having that uniform in my life. Kudos to Shudor Sanders. Now I want to walk through what made it so great. Now, let's talk, let's get into the nitty gritty here. This is why you listen to this show. You want to know why. Why was it the best performance that you've ever seen in a Colorado uniform? Well, every single quarterback goes out there,

and you've really got three things that you control, if you will. the operation of the system, your intelligence level, your preparation level, and then your performance. Okay. I'm going to take a quick drink here so I can get through all this. Okay. So let's go through these. Operation. This takes no talent. It just takes the willingness to be a really good leader and dive into what the operation of the system is. Now, this also takes a great plan and a good offensive coordinator. And this is where Sean Lewis enters the conversation, the offensive coordinator. He was the Kent State head coach, and then he leaves a head coaching position to join Coach Prime and be the offensive coordinator for Colorado.

His plan was exceptional. The preparation of that offense was exceptional. Shudor's operation of that offense was exceptional. It was shockingly clean for a brand new team cobbled together in the transfer. for a portal and then thrown out there with very few practices under their belt. Okay. Shockingly good, shockingly clean. The next part of this is the intelligence level, the preparation.

Early in the game, I said that because Colorado was going to be somewhat deficient on the offensive line, that the game was going to have to be played through Shador's mind. This is what I meant by that. The ball had to go to the most opportune place at every moment. They were never going to just hand the football off against a loaded run box and gain a bunch of yards because their offensive line was better than the defensive front. They were never going to be able to just say like, you know what, you know, like nondescript tank play, like, go ahead, just, you know, let it rip here or there.

The ball always had to go to the right leverage, the right ratio. And that's stressful as a quarterback. I've been in those moments where every single play, you're having to make a decision, whether it's a run or a pass, you're checking into that play. What you're doing with the protection. So you can make sure you're in the most advantageous protection. You're making a decision where the ball is going to go right or left, which concept you're going to read based on coverage.

Everything has to be read. And so the game is played through the filter of his mind. And the ball went to the right spot all the time. The entire game, the ball was going to the correct spot. And it was going there on time. And that's where we get into the performance aspect of this. If you really boil it down and you've listened to this show and you've listened to me for any amount of time, you'll know that quarterback play really when it's all said and done.

Now, obviously not the intangibles, but when it's all said and done, it's really about timing and ball placement. Or better and more easily put, is the ball on target and on time? That's really all that matters when you're a quarterback. Like, let's face it, is the ball on target and on time? And let me tell you, it was. He never held onto it for too long. It was to the right spot and it was generally very accurately thrown. You don't complete that many passes for that high a percentage when you're throwing that many times unless you're throwing the ball very accurately.

And he was doing that. And when you accompany all three of those things, operation and intelligence and performance, and you accompany that with great players on the outside and really good talent on the outside, guess what? You get an explosion of offense. And that's what we saw from Colorado. So then a quarterback is playing at that level and distributing the ball at that level, on time, on target. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, balls out. Now I've got to hold it, get the override, boom, balls out. Got a one-on-one, take a deep, boom, balls out. Didn't shy away from any throw at any moment. Third downs, fourth downs didn't matter. He was on time and he was on target.

And then you couple that with the fact that he had guys out there that were fast, could catch, could create space. Jimmy Horn, Edwards, Dylan Edwards, Xavier Weaver, Travis Hunter, Harrison, the Tide End. Like, these guys can play out there. These guys can play. Four guys go over 100 yards. He's distributing the ball all over the place. One of them is a back and a true freshman in his first game for Edwards.

looked amazing. It's like, how does a back go for 100 yards? Because the quarterback knows when he's supposed to get the ball. He knows the coverage. He knows the timing and he gets the ball there on time and on target. The last thing that I would just say, and then I alluded to it a little bit right there was the mark of a great quarterback. Like you can be a good player and do all the things that I was just saying. There were, you know, and every quarterback has moments when you hit on all three of those things, operations, intelligence, and performance, and talent. But it still takes something else in your heart and in your mind as far as the confidence goes. When you're really playing well, you don't shy away from any throw.

You want that moment. You want it. You want fourth down. You want third down. You want to make the big throw. Shadur had that on Saturday. Third and 16 to Travis Hunter. Bam, takes the fade.

Fourth down to Dylan Edwards. Bam, hits him in the flat. Touchdown. Exceptional, exceptional performance. Shador Sanders, I'll say it again. Hands down, best quarterback performance in college football so far. Hands down. Now, we'll see if that can continue, but that's the way I feel so far.

Let me get to the next part of this game. which I think was like the story of the game. First, they match the hype. We never see that. It's so rare to actually match the hype. The quarterback, Scherer Sanders, one of the best performances I've ever seen. I walked through exactly what was so good and so clean about that.

And then you've got to have stars. And boy, we got ourselves a new superstar in college football. Travis Hunter is, to steal Dion's term, him. Travis Hunter is him. I'm going to stutter a lot during this section, because there is no precedent for what I saw on Saturday from Travis Hunter. There's very little for me to draw on to analyze. I've never seen anything like that before whatsoever.

I've never seen a player walk onto the field and be the most elite player on the field on both sides of the ball. I've never seen that before. Maybe in high school, maybe. Maybe Vince Young should have played some safety or something when I played him because maybe he would have been amazing too. But man, Travis Hunter was unbelievable. Let's just walk through a little bit of this. He was the most impactful defender for either team.

And he made some of the biggest catches of anybody on the field. You know, they weren't like necessarily, like, Ed, I know Edwards, you're going to everyone say, like, well, Dylan Edwards had the touchdowns. No, I get that. I understand that. Dylan Edwards scored some of those touchdowns. One was a running play. Three were, I believe, receiving touchdowns. A couple of them, though, they're just designed and based on the coverage, he's going to have a huge open route.

Travis Hunter's catches were just wins one-on-one. Travis Hunter's defense was one-on-one against wide receivers. And he did it by playing 147 snaps of college football at the highest level against a ranked team on the road in 100 degree heat. Absurd. It's absolutely absurd what this guy did on Saturday. And quite frankly, I don't think it's a question at all right now. The best non-quarterback player in college football so far in 2023 is Travis Hunter. I like sorry don't don't at me I don't know what to tell you about it and I think a great

picture of that was what happened in the third quarter TCU started to get their run game going okay and you could you could sense the momentum like TCU was starting to figure it out because I still think that that's a good football team now yeah they got some deficiencies and they'll have to come back from those but TCU is a good football team One of their backs, Amani Bailey had it going. Had it going. If they would have given him the ball more and more on that a little bit, like they could have been even more dangerous. He popped a big run after Colorado Penn TCU inside the five yard line with a great punt.

Amani Bailey has a big run and it looks like he's going to the house. He's a fast player. He's going to the house. Guess who chases him down from the opposite side of the field? Him, Travis Hunter, chases him down, prevents a touchdown. Okay, good for him. But they're still rolling. They're still rolling.

And now same series. It's third down, inside the five, and this happens. Third down, Morris. Intercepted. Wow. Travis Hunter. Unbelievable. Hunter just plucks it out of the air.

Are you kidding me right now? That was wide open from the booth. A hundred times out of 100. I see that action from up here. That's a touchdown. They had the back wide open, major Everhart number 22. And out of nowhere, Hunter comes off of his route and dives for the interception. Holy cow, primetime player playing for coach prime here today.

Man, that was ridiculous. He's not responsible for that route. This is what people don't understand. It's like, oh, you know, he picked off a flat route. What do you do? He's not responsible for that. He's in man coverage on the wide receiver running a slant. He sees the formation.

He sees the action, comes off of his route and goes to a different man and picks the ball off. Full extension, rolls over so that he doesn't bobble it onto the ground. What? I don't think people realize what an amazing play that was. Again, that's not zone defense that he's like stepping in front of an out route. No, no, no, no. He's on man coverage against a different player, comes off the route and falls into the interception. Dives, excuse me, I should say, for the interception. Absurd. It's absurd. It's the best interception of the week. Absurd. In the moment, third down, inside the five, and I'm sure TCU fans, and if you're listening, listen, I feel for you. Because I'm sure you're sitting there yelling at the TV, run the ball, run the ball. And they should have.

little bit of the Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl right there. Little Malcolm Butler right there. I get it. But they don't. They throw it. The guy falls off of his route. And that's what I meant by falls off. He falls off.

He's covering a slant. He falls off of that route just because of the action recognizes it and picks it off. Stupid. If that was the only thing he did, it would have been amazing. But it wasn't. But it wasn't. Later in that quarter, what happens? Well, they've got third and 16.

Okay. excuse me, in the fourth quarter, I should say. In the fourth quarter, they've got third and 16. They punt right there. Colorado loses. Colorado loses. And Shudor goes to Travis Hunter. So the biggest play of the game in the fourth quarter, and now he's easy 120 snaps deep into 100 degree heat. He gets one-on-one in the slot. They throw him a fade. He comes down with it. I mean, like, come on. Come on. And in fact, for as good as everybody else played offensively for Colorado. Horn played great. Edwards played great.

Weaver played great. Harrison the tight end had a couple of good catches. The offensive line played way better than I thought that they would play. And who was getting the ball in the fourth quarter when they needed the most, when they needed the yards the most, when they needed conversions the most, who were they actually

targeting Travis Hunter? And he's 120, 130 snaps deep in 100 degree heat. Ridiculous. It's ridiculous. He was at his best at the end. Incredible. Incredible.

Now, last thing for Colorado. This can seem a lot like an arrival point, right? Like there's been so much hype. There's been so much talk. And all of a sudden Saturday happens. And it can feel kind of like, we did it. We did it. in fact like even coach prime after the game there was a hint of that here it is i'm loving these kids

rick george will give me this opportunity man this is a blessing everybody both nation who supported us in all the hood that had my back i think y'all god this is good what can you tell me about your defense and the way they came up huge with that stop to get this way they surrender some big plays throughout the game and we always kept teaching was just a We need one stop, one stop. What about the offense? How did they respond? How do these guys respond?

I don't know how many snaps he played, but we're going to put a hot tub on the plane for him to make sure he's straight. Hey, we're excited because we are heading to visit your home next week, Folsom Field. What is your message to the fans of what we can expect from Colorado? We told you, we're coming. We told you, we come. You thought we was joking.

And guess what? We keep receipts. God bless you, America. I mean, his interviews are amazing. I wanted to play the halftime interview. It didn't get to what he said. like, oh, the Heismans at his, at his crib, chilling. He's amazing. But you can see, you can see the emotion there of that win. And this can feel like an arrival point for

Colorado. Well, guess what? Now you've got to film a game of film out there. And other teams won't make the mistakes that TCU made. They're going to have to fix some things. I've got, I mean, my phone, first of all, I haven't had this many text messages in a long time. and everyone thinking like, oh man, I can't wait to go beat Nebraska. Well, okay. Yeah, they got really good skill. Colorado's got really good skill. But it's going to be incredibly hard for Dion and his coaching staff to get his players

to focus and work at the same level that they have previous to Saturday. Why? Human nature. Human nature sets in. And so they're going to have to try to fight complacency, which is inevitable in a lot of respects. Their biggest challenge is going to walk into the locker room, walk into team meetings, and walk out to the practice field and get the same level of intensity from those players. They just saw Nebraska not play great in a loss against Minnesota, even though they should have won that game. right? So there's going to be this air of like, oh, man, we can win this game. Well, guess what? You better buckle it up because the special teams for Colorado were terrible. They got a field goal block. They gave up a big kick return, a long kick return in that game. Their run defense was was suspicious at best. I mean, suspicious. I'd suspect maybe I don't. It wasn't very good. It wasn't very good

in the second half. And it's not one of those things that I thought that the defense was going to be great. I thought that the defense was going to have trouble at times, in particular with being so light up front. But I will guarantee you this. After watching that film, Matt Rule and his staff will not make the same mistake that TCU made. And I do think TCU made a mistake. TCU threw that ball over 40 times. And that's the strength of the Colorado defense. is the past defense. If TCU ran the ball over 40 times and threw it under 30 times, that would have played right into their hands.

One, you can keep Colorado's offense off the field. And two, you're going to wear them out. I don't know if Colorado can stop that. I don't know. So that's what you're going to get a heavy dose of in front of your home fans. That defense for Colorado is going to be tested. Now, having said that, I will tell you. you this. I watched both of those teams. Nebraska is going to have a really hard time

stopping Colorado. If they play anywhere near to the same level offensively, in particular from quarterback and those wide receivers, Nebraska is going to have a hard time stopping them. So you may be right back in the middle of the same type of game that you were in against TCU where it's the last team that has the ball that's going to have a chance to win. Let me tell you this. I love the fact that we're going to be there. Gus and I and Jr. are going to be there. Big noon kickoff is going to be there. 10 a.m. local, for those of you in Denver, noon eastern, obviously, big noon is coming and I can't wait. Last thing I will say about Colorado, and this is going to be Dion's Challenge this week. There's an old adage in coaching,

and if you're a coach of any level, please write this down. You treat winners like losers and losers like winners, because winners always need to go back to the grindstone, and they've got to get back to work while losers need confidence. So you always treat winners like losers and losers like winners when you're a coach. And that's what they're going to have to do in Colorado. All right. Before we get to the rest of my reaction from week one, remember, it's my favorite time of year. And it's football season. And as you know, I take it seriously. So when I'm traveling on the road to watch my favorite teams, I can't risk calling the wrong play with where I day. 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. And their free hot breakfast is a game changer. Waffles, love them. Whether you're cheering on your team from the stands or never leaving the tailgate, Hampton by Hilton will always give you that win. All right, let's move on to some of the big questions around the country. Let me start with some quarterback debuts. Georgia, Ohio State, Alabama, and Penn State. They all have new quarterbacks. I was interested to see how those quarterback debuts would go. Now, we saw some of these guys at times last year. So it wasn't brand new, but, you know, this is a bit of a new era, at least in all of those places. Hard to really judge the Georgia and Alabama debuts only because of the level of the competition. We'll find out in due

time. Maybe not for Georgia. Georgia doesn't even really have a real game until like November, which is ridiculous. Their second. true road game isn't even until November. So I don't know if we're going to be even wondering about Georgia for a long time during the course of this season. So let's throw that out. Bama. Level of competition. Listen, did Millrow play okay? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. We're going to know everything we need to know. The questions will be answered this Saturday when they take on Texas. Okay. So from that aspect, I'm not all that concerned. We'll get into that and when we talk about that matchup later in the week here on the Joel Clachio.

So let's get to the two Big Ten debuts and big ones at that. Let me start with Penn State. Drew Aller looks really good. He looked comfortable. I really loved what I saw from Penn State. They're fast. They're athletic. Really kind of what I expected to see out of them.

I thought Drew Aller would improve their team. All due respect to Sean Clifford. And I think he has. I think that this team is better than the 11 and 2 Rose Bowl champion team from a year ago. I believe that they will compete more in a more prominent way against Michigan and Ohio State this year in that Big Ten East. And I have zero hesitation after that first start. I'm like, okay, yep, that's what I expected to see. I like Drew Aller a lot.

I think he's going to continue to get better and he's already really good. That one was easy. That one was easy. He was terrific. I actually texted with Todd Blackledge a little bit about the game. He called the game for NBC. And he was impressed. I was impressed.

Saw some highlights. Haven't gotten to that film because I spent most of my time watching the film of Ohio State. So I went back as soon as I saw. Trust me. I was like, hold on. Like Ohio State is really struggling with Indiana, and I did not expect much from Indiana this year. And granted, it's a league game on the road, you know, and people in the SEC will fall all over themselves telling you how hard any league game is on the road. But I'm not going to do that because Ohio State should handle Indiana. And I guess in a sense they did, but boy, it was sluggish on offense.

It was very sluggish on offense. So I wanted to see, not the TV copy, I wanted to see the coaches film. So I went back today and I pulled it up and I started watching the coaches film. And I thought to myself like, you know what, it's never as bad as you think. And it's probably never as good as you think. So like, you know, let's see. I watched every play of that game and I come away pretty darn concerned for Ohio State. State. I did not see, if you're just thinking about it from a quarterback perspective, I did not

see either of these guys, you know, whether it's Kyle McCord, who started the game, Devin Brown, like either of these guys show anything that would suggest like, oh, yeah, he's the guy. That's the last thing you wanted if you're an Ohio State fan, the last thing you wanted, some sort of drawn-out quarterback battle. And now, like, I don't know where they're going to go from this. I would assume that they're going to try to continue to allow Kyle McCord every opportunity to go win this job. He did not play very well. Watching that tape, there were throws to be had against Indiana that he did not make.

Now, they would have been difficult at times, but he didn't make them. There were three in particular where I'm watching the play progress and I'm thinking to myself, I'm always kind of keeping the clock in my head and I'm like ball out and he's holding the ball. And I'm like, that's a problem. That's a problem. Okay. Having said that, I will say this for Kamakor and Devon Brown, who didn't really play meaningful snaps, I'll say. Kyle McCord, for all intents and purposes, was the starter.

Basically, he didn't play one series when the game, you know, in terms of like what I would call meaningful snaps. I did not think that the offensive line played very well at all. Now, did they pop some runs? Yeah, there was a couple of runs here and there that they were able to pop, mainly because of the ability and athleticism from their running backs. where there are a couple of throws that were able to be made. Yeah, yeah, a couple of them formationally.

They got a tight end down the seam on one of them, beautiful little motion that opens up the middle of the field. So, yeah, some good stuff there. Generally speaking, though, the offensive line did not play well. The run game was, I didn't think, very good. Ohio State is not great. zone blocking. They ran a couple of other, they tried a power, they ran a little GT play early in the game that popped for a big run, didn't see him come back to that, which I was

interested. I kept waiting for them to get back to that concept and it didn't happen. I don't know exactly who's calling the place. Obviously, in previous years, it was Ryan. They've been vague about that, obviously with the new coordinator switch with Brian Hartline. I'm sure that they're trying to have more of a collaborative effort now. But I will just say, like, I just didn't think that the offensive line played all that well. There was pressure on McCord at times when he wanted to release a deep shot and he couldn't get to it. It was not a great performance offensively from Ohio State. There is a lot to fix there.

So if you're a Buckeye fan, it's good. going to be real easy to just be like, oh, quarterback. Ma! Wasn't just the quarterback. Okay. They, the Ohio State offensive line has to play better than what they played on Saturday. It was not a very good performance against a team that they were much better than. Not to take anything away from Indiana, but a team that they were much better than.

QB is a rep's position. So the longer that this controversy, this two-man system, the longer that this kind of goes along, then that's reps out of the back pocket of whoever has to go play against Notre Dame or Penn State or Michigan. And they need every rep that they can possibly get. So quick drink here. So that's my thoughts on those debuts. Last thing before we get out of here is LSU, FSU, a game that we all had our attention. on. This is how it played out.

Empty backfield, Travis takes a chest-high snap over the middle. Coleman, breaks a tackle to the 25. Coleman, he's open free. Shunt in there, baby. Cut down Florida State. How about Florida State? How about Florida State? Now, you can count me as a doubter, and I'll wear that.

And I think Florida State fans probably will because FSU Twitter is the worst. I had them at number 10. I had LSU hire just like the AP. I thought LSU would come out and play much better, which they did early and didn't capitalize on all of these situations that they, I mean, they could have had a big lead. That could have been a very different game, obviously, but it wasn't.

And credit Florida State for making the plays necessary and the stops necessary to keep themselves in the game in the first half. Because then in the second half, they made the better adjustments. Their coaching staff outcoached LSU. Mike Norville did a great job. Jordan Travis played well. and then you got to see the talent of Keon Coleman. And now I'm coming out of week one thinking to myself like,

well, if you want to get good in college football, guess what? It's all about talent acquisition. And that talent acquisition has to happen in the transfer portal. Because Florida State's got the biggest win of week of week one along with Colorado. Those two teams did the best in the transfer portal last year, right? Namely Keon Coleman, he looked fantastic, by the way. You know, Mel Tucker crying a little bit up there at Michigan State for letting that guy go, because, boy, like, that's a talented player.

And Florida State can play some defense as well. They're fast. They're physical. I mean, now I can't wait for their matchup against Clemson. And I can't wait to see what we have with Clemson. And so all of a sudden at the end of week one, I'm sitting here and I'm like, okay, hold on. The PAC 12 is 13 and O so far this year. And the ACC has like kind of the biggest win of the year.

years so far with Florida State over LSU. So after that summer of conference realignment, when the PAC 12 basically was shot and left for dead behind the shed and the ACC is kind of on life support and Florida State wants to leave and everyone wants to leave and they're grabbing, you know, Stanford and Cal and SMU, who has the biggest wins? Pac-12, ACCC. Isn't college football beautiful? Isn't college football beautiful?

Great win for Florida State. That's a team that certainly, certainly has playoff aspirations after that win over LSU in the opener. And that one, by the way, will be huge for the ACC, whether it's Clemson or Florida State. By the way, North Carolina looks great. They get a win over South Carolina, Drake May. And so now all of a sudden the ACC, they've got a few teams where it's like, all right, if you win the ACC, maybe you're going to get the nod over that second place SEC team based on some of these results. So that's why these games are so important.

even this early in the season. Thanks for watching, everybody, and listening. We've got more coming up. Remember, on Wednesday, we'll have another episode of the Joel Clatch Show. On Thursday, we'll have another episode of the Joel Clat Show. And this Saturday, Big Noon Saturday is going to be in Boulder. Gus and I and Jenny will be in Colorado for that Nebraska-Colorado game. Big Noon Kickoff will be there as well.

You can follow me on social. You can follow the show on social. And remember, you can, subscribe whether you're listening or watching this show wherever you're at. Thanks to my whole team here at the Joel Clatt Show. They work tireless hours to put this show on. So you know who you are. Thank you very much. And we will see you on Wednesday, everybody. Have a great week.