The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Coach Prime does it again, the NCAA comes after Michigan while Florida’s NIL Collective deal falls apart and Klatt’s Top 5 Most Interesting Transfers for 2023

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

Fox Sports’ lead college football analyst Joel Klatt dives into the latest 5-star signing by Deion Sanders at Colorado and why he believes the Buffaloes will be a playoff contender in just two years. Next, Joel breaks down the week at Michigan that saw Jim Harbaugh announce his return but also the firing of their co-offensive coordinator and what it means for the team next season. Then, Joel details his problem with the NCAA’s decision to investigate the Wolverine program for minor infractions while the NIL collective at Florida has a $13 Million deal with 5-star QB Jadan Rashada fall through without penalty. And finally, Klatt gives his Top 5 Most Interesting Transfers for this upcoming season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everybody. Welcome into the show. This is the Joel Clatt Show. I am Joel Clatt, and I am really excited about this show for you. Okay, we've got a lot to get into, but first and foremost, remember, we're going to be here all offseason. I'll start to get into some draft content. And I want to thank you for being a part of the show already. It's been a wild success during the course of our first fall in college football. You can follow us on any social media at Joel Clatt Show. All the drops, everything that we've got videos during the the week. You can find them there. You can find me on social media on Twitter at Joel Clatt, on Instagram at Joel underscore Clat. And I've been told that I need to expand my social media and maybe get onto some other platforms. I don't know if that's going to happen. Definitely old dog, new tricks, not totally sure. A little life update, by the way, had kidney stones this week. Pretty much the worst thing of all time. Not joking. Any of you that have had kidney stones. Sidney Stones, hit me up on social media, please, and let me know what you got relief from, if you got any relief, because, oh, my gosh, that's like death warmed up.

Okay, here we go. Let's get into some college football news, because there's been actually quite a bit of college football news and some exciting college football news during the course of the week. So let's get into it right away. And let's start in Boulder, Colorado, because Dion Sanders is pretty clearly building something that has some staying power in Boulder. So before he even coaches a game or even coaches a practice, by the way, hasn't even had a spring practice. This guy is making major splashes on the recruiting trail. And he is able to flip the number one corner in the country, Cormani McLean, flips to Colorado. Five-star recruit, one of the highest rated recruits that Colorado has ever gotten.

And here Dion is doing it for the second straight year, by the way, with the number one corner in the country. He gets Travis Hunter a year ago to flip to Jackson State. now he gets Corrima McLean to flip from Miami and go to Colorado. And this is, by the way, on the heels of Travis Hunter transferring to Colorado. So what does this mean? Well, it means Colorado is getting an excellent player. We know that, right? We understand what a great corner can do in particular early in his career.

Think of what Derek Stingley was able to do early in his career as a freshman, and maybe even more of the best players in all of college football that year. Think of last year, late in the year, what Will Johnson was able to do for Michigan. Right, like these guys can come in and play and impact the game right away, these highly rated corner recruits. I think people in Boulder and all over the Pack 12 are expecting Cormani McLean to be that type of player. And now he's going to be opposite of Travis Hunter. And so now, think of it for a moment.

In the span of a few months, Colorado went from basically a non-existent Power 5 team, one and 11, probably in the basement of all of the Power 5, Now to a team that everybody's talking about, number one, everybody wants to consume anything and everything about them. You look at what's going on on on social media and everyone consuming the videos about Dion Sanders' first meeting, so on and so forth, all the chatter. And now every single recruit in the country, regardless of how high level they are, Colorado's in the top five list. You know, every time they drop that list. And now they get Coramani McLean and now he's going to be opposite Travis Hunter. and these two guys are about to be one of the best duos in all of college football right away.

I'm excited to see it. I think most people are excited to see it. And isn't it smart, by the way? It's one thing to just go out and nab stars. And listen, there are schools that do that and coaches that do that, kind of to save their butt in particular late in a recruiting class. This is something different, though, and I think that we all can understand that because of who's coming back,

at the quarterback position, not corner, but quarterback position in that conference. I think most of us believe, and rightly so, that the PAC 12 is going to be the best quarterback conference in college football next year. Look at the guys that they've got coming back. I mean, Caleb Williams, for one, we know how all of us feel about Caleb Williams. Michael Pennix at Washington, guy that probably should have gotten consideration to go to New York as a Heisman finalist. Bo Nix at Oregon, he's back, highly productive, had a terrific year.

If he can duplicate that and play as well and as efficient next year, that should be a very good team. Cam Rising back at Utah, you go down the list and, you start thinking about the best teams in this conference, and you're like, okay, there's going to be some players. By the way, a quiet 10-win team, Oregon State gets a former five-star player in DJU, DJ Uyonga Lele, is now all of a sudden in Oregon State Beaver. And I understand that it didn't work at Clemson for him. And that's all well and good.

Number one, there were flashes of brilliance, namely this year on the road against Wake Forest and a win, really kind of the middle part of the season. And that's a team that doesn't need spectacular quarterback play to become much better because of what they can do, run to the ball and the toughness and the physical aspect of what they have there under Jonathan. Smith. So this is one of the best quarterback conferences in the country, if not the best. Well, what are you going to do if you're

Colorado? You better put some guys that can cover out there, and now all of a sudden you're going to have Travis Hunter opposite of Coramani McLean, and that could be the best duo in all of college football. It speaks to this point. This sport is about talent acquisition. First and

foremost, you've got to have the players in order to win games. Kirby Smart always talks about it. Nick Sabin always talks about it and rightly so. you look at the best programs in the country and what do they do they recruit at the highest level. And so now here's what Colorado has done on the heels of a one and 11 year in which most of us thought that they were the worst Power 5 program in the country. And they just pulled in a top 30 high school class in terms of recruiting. Top 30, that's pretty damn good.

And then you look at what they did in the transfer portal, the number four transfer class in the entire country. Well, now you're transforming your roster. Now you're transforming into tangible wins the next season. And we saw that a year ago, right? This transfer portal is the quickest way to turn your program around. We saw it at Washington. We saw it at USC. We saw it at TCU.

Those programs turned themselves around in large part because of the transfer portal, filling holes in areas of need. They're doing that. Number four in the country in the transfer portal, which means that when you can, combine their ranking, 29 in their high school recruiting class and four in the transfer portal, their composite ranking right now overall is 19. They're a top 20 class in terms of recruiting. After a one and 11 year, Dion Sanders is doing exactly what they intended him to do, which was make

the program relevant and get into every living room you can in America. And he's doing that. He's doing exactly what the blueprint was when they laid it out to hire Dion Sanders. So now you look at that top 20 class overall, 19 in the country. You start to think to yourself, okay, well, if you were in the SEC and you finish 19th, where would you be? Well, probably middle of the pack or even lower, because that conference as a whole, as we know, recruits at a much higher level. But in the PAC 12, where do you land? Well, in the PAC 12, they would actually land third. So USC, as far as a combined class, is ninth in the country.

Oregon, 11th in the country. And number three on that list, Colorado. Okay, so now we know a few things. Let's back up all this. Number one, to compete in the conference, in particular next year, you better have corners. They've got that with Cormonnie McLean and Travis Hunter. Okay, and to compete overall in this sport,

you better acquire talent and you better do it right now. Well, they did that both in the high school recruiting class, top 30, and in the transfer portal, top four class in the country, which means now all of a sudden they did as well as anybody in the conference. And you start to just peer over that railing, just one year. Think about this. Next year, it's going to be very difficult with all the quarterbacks in the PAC 12. Can they get over the four and a half that Vegas has set for them as a win-loss total? probably. I would say over. I think Colorado can and probably will go to a bowl game. The standard that their setting is incredibly high within the building. It's not just, you know, social media and

recruiting. They're doing some work in the building. And I think it's going to pay off in wins. But it's not what it pays off next year in wins that really interests me. It's actually the year after. Why is that? Well, they're going to get a whole other year of recruiting. And they're probably going to have numbers that are much higher than what they just did in the last, what, two or three weeks when they're able to pull in the 19th best combined class in the country. I expect that to go up. When that goes up, now you've got more of your players, another round of transfer. They're going to flip this roster to the tune of 60, 65 new players in two years from what

they had before Dion Sanders was hired. And it's the year that USC and UCLA leave to go to the Big Ten. And it's the year that the playoff expands. And basically you win the Backpack 12 and you're going to have almost a guaranteed spot in the playoff. You see where I'm headed with this. I fully expect in year two under Dion Sanders at Colorado that they are competing as a top two or three program in the conference. which means they're competing for the conference crown, which means they're competing for a chance to go to the college football playoff.

I think it can go that quick. You might think that I'm totally crazy, and maybe you think I'm a homer. But when you lay it out like that and you think of the fact that they're going to have 40 new players this year and they're going to have 60, 65 new players by year two from what they had before Dion Sanders was hired as their head coach, you look at the level of player that they're bringing in, guys like Carmony McLean, guys like Travis Hunter,

Shador Sanders, a four-star quarterback is going to be, you know, they're flipping four-star running backs from Notre Dame. Their talent is going to be a top three talent roster in the conference in 2024, which means you should compete for the conference. And if you're competing for the conference, you're competing for a chance to go to the 12-team playoff. I think you can go that quickly. Again, I'll just put it to you this way.

Dion Sanders at Colorado, likely, in my opinion, will compete. Pete for a playoff spot in year two in 2024. Let's move on to a more sobering subject, albeit, but Michigan, as we take a look at Michigan and what's going on in this program, it's not great news right now. Let's just run down what we've got going on. First and foremost, Jim Harbaugh officially announces that he is going to return as the Michigan head coach. That's good news.

What's not good news is how it had to happen because there was some dirty laundry aired, even it wasn't publicly, it was implied between he and Ward Manuel, the athletic director. Now, we've been over that, and that's not even the worst thing that's happened so far in this offseason. There's other things that are going on, namely this week, their co-offensive coordinator, Matt Weiss, was fired abruptly after there was an investigation into basically, computer issues and access issues. And so Matt Weiss is in some trouble. Now, I'm not going to get into like any of the details of that. We should all just say like, you know what? We wish Matt, well, I hope it's not as serious as what it kind of alludes to being. And we'll just let the legal

process play out. He's not going to be at Michigan anymore. So that leads you to believe like, well, where does this offense go? He's the co-offensive coordinator. Does that leave a hole on this football staff? And to be honest with you, and not to sound insensitive, but I don't believe that it does. Really because Sharon Moore, the other co-offensive coordinator, really was the guy that should have had the reins as the play caller all the way.

And to be honest with you, probably did most of the time. as we got into the back half of the season. Sharon Moore is an absolute superstar. I think he's one of the best young coaches in all of college football. I know who he cut his teeth under. I know he learned the game incredibly well. He's very bright. I enjoy my conversations with him.

And as far as the offense goes, I just don't sense that they're going to miss a beat because they're missing Matt Weiss. Now it goes into like this Harbaugh NFL drama. the fan base started getting very upset with the athletic director Ward Manual. And I understand why, because it seemed like there was a little bit of a tug-of-war between Jim Harbaugh and Ward Manual in terms of, is he going to stay? Is he not going to stay? And Jim ultimately won that tug-of-war with the president getting involved and him staying.

And to be quite honest with you, I felt like this was somewhat obvious. I've been one for, you know, the majority of the last month saying, no, I believe Jim Harbaugh is going to be back at Michigan. Really two reasons. Number one is, I believe him. And he told me that right to my face. Now, fool me once, you know, shame on me, whatever. Show me twice.

Shame on whatever. You understand the story. It wouldn't be the first coach that lied to me. But Jim seems like an authentic guy. And he told me that he wanted to be at Michigan. I believed him. Number two is, if you really wanted to be a head. head coach in the National Football League, like apparently the sources were saying,

wouldn't you take the interview in person? I know I would. Like if I really, if Jim Harbaugh really wanted to be the Denver Bronco head coach, wouldn't he go interview in person? Why would you do a Zoom? Why would you do a Zoom? Any of us, if we're looking at a job that we desperately want, we would do anything to be there, face to face in order to impress, in order to make the best impression and potentially get the job

and hopefully get the job. I know I did it. Quick story. The year that TCU was in the Rose Bowl back with Red Rocket Andy Dalton, Red Rifle, whatever they called him, I had a buddy of mine. He went to TCU and we decided, hey, let's go to the game. And in my mind, I was like, I've always wanted to meet a few of the executives at Fox in person. And I had never really done it, like the big wigs at Fox. And there was one guy in particular that I wanted to meet face to face. And he said to me, Joel, I tell you what, I'm going to be producing, executive producing a basketball game at Pauly Pavilion on the UCLA campus the day before the Rose Bowl. Like, if you can get there by 7 a.m. that morning, like, we can meet and we'll have a coffee. And I was like, done.

Got it. Well, the plan was I was going to fly to Phoenix and then connect into, connect because I didn't have any money at the time. We're going to connect into like L.A. and get in there the night before and then everything was going to be set. Well, the connection through Phoenix all the sudden evaporates. Whether we miss it and there's no flights. There's no flights. And I'm thinking to myself, what in the world are we going to do? Well, a one-way rental car was just too expensive all the way to Phoenix. I conjured up this idea that, you know, okay, we can get a one-way rental to Palm Springs,

and then we can rent from Palm Springs, and then we can fly out of Palm Springs coming, so then that will be just a regular rental. Long story short, we had to drive through the night to Palm Springs, dump a car off, get a new car, and then drive to Polly Pavilion the next day. I ended up getting a speeding ticket right when I crossed the California border because it went from 70 to 60, I assumed to make some money. The grill of the first rental car fell off. ended up costing me all sorts of money.

I tried to stay and sleep in a motel six for like an hour before the meeting. I ended up trying to shave. I cut my chin, threw a big band-aid on my chin. Why do I tell you this story? Because I was desperate to meet in person. If Jim Harbaugh wanted the job in the NFL, he would have interviewed in person. And I think that all of us that were looking at that knew

that this was the likely scenario that he was going to come back and eventually land at Michigan, which he did. Now, the more serious issue at Michigan right now, and the one that I'm hearing more chatter about, is this whole notice of allegations from the NCAA. Again, it ain't been a very good week at Michigan. This notice of allegations from the NCAA seems serious. You know, four violations. There's a level one violation, level two violation. Basically, if you haven't read about it, first of all, go and read about it. I'll try to boil it all down. There's a couple of very moderate violations, one that was self-reported.

The other was like a contact issue during what was supposedly like a COVID dead period, which was a different dead period than the normal dead periods because of COVID. And then once the NCAA was investigating some of these things, there was an analyst that maybe like went out on the field and practiced or was coaching and you're not supposed to do that. And so like, reported themselves. And then during the investigation, some hard-up investigator says, like, well, I don't feel like Harbaugh is being forthright. And so here comes the NCAA and they're

trying to like, oh, well, you're under investigation. I believe that you had contact during a dead period for COVID. Like, what? Wait, wait, wait. What? So number one, let me get this straight. The NCAA still exists? All right. Well, news to a lot of us based on what's going on in the world of intercollegiate athletics that the NCAA is going to step up and like, thankfully protect those kids from getting what, a text message, a five guys burger during a COVID dead period. Because man, I just don't know if I could live if I knew players were being contacted during the COVID dead period. My goodness. Because that's, that COVID dead period, you know, all of us were just so busy during that dead period,

sitting in our sweatpants, trying to look at the 8 millionth Zoom of whatever we enjoyed. I was watching golf swings out the Yazoo. I was desperate for someone to text me or call me during the COVID dead period. Now you're going to, I digress. I digress. So the NCAA apparently is still out there. Hey, how about that? And like, for this?

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. For a COVID-dead period violation? So every article that I read that is like Harbaugh is facing a penalty, a level one investigation, notice of infraction, it all sounds so official. It all sounds like so serious. What did they do? Oh my gosh. Are they going to have to vacate wins? Is you going to be suspended?

What's going on? COVID dead period? What are we talking about? And what an analyst was like coaching a player impermissible? I'm sorry. Like, what are we doing? Have you not looked around college football? Because I have. And I can tell you from 2005 to 2023, this has gone completely nuclear as far as what the staff sizes around college football are. all over college football. Basically, like, the biggest programs in the country in like 2005, if you looked at their team pictures, they'd have like 25 staff people.

You know, it's like, everyone takes their team picture. You know, some guys are like mean mugging it like this. You know, you have the serious mean muggers. But then you got all the guys that are just the staff shirts, like the white shirts, and they're all smiling. You know, they all have the comb over. They're all, and they're all smiling like this, right? You know, in the old days, they had the bike coaches shorts, but now, not the bike coach's shorts.

Now they're just like, and usually like khakis. Everyone wears khakis and they just smile, right? And there was like 20, 25, 26 staff members at like the biggest programs in the country. Now, just go flip through the internet and go look at like team pictures for the best programs, the biggest programs in the country, and just count all the white shirts. Count the white shirts, the staff people. For instance, and again, this is not a knock, but like I went and counted the Alabama team picture,

the white shirts and their team picture in 2022. There were 61 white shirts. The staffs are enormous in college football. And the NCAA is going to be hard up because one of the analysts like coached a player when he shouldn't have. I'm like, aren't we there for the players benefit anyways? I thought the NCAA, main goal was to be there for the benefit of the student athlete. But now you're telling me that these

people that have an expertise in their field, you can't talk to the student athlete. You can't help them out. What are we doing? And this is what the NCAA is going to get upset about? Okay, okay. You know what? Hold that thought. Let's move on. What else happened in college football? Well, how about the Florida fiasco? And yeah, this was a fiasco. So Jaden Rashada, five-star quarterback, good player, good player. Some places had him as a four-star. He was the number 56 overall recruit.

Huge story. Basically was promised an NIL deal or package. from Florida that was in the, wait for it, $13 million range, $13 million of NIL. Okay, okay. I hadn't stepped foot on the campus. All right, all right. So that's the deal. Now, turns out, like something goes south in the deal.

And apparently the collective is basically saying, like, we can't do it. They send a notice of termination. and so now he's like, well, I want out of my letter of intent. I'm sorry I'm laughing because this sounds so crazy, because it is. It is. And first of all, this is not Jaden Rashada's fault. This is not his fault whatsoever. And I'm not even going to sit here and like hammer away at Florida.

Okay? Like, this isn't necessarily Florida's fault either. Let's run through this. Let's try to get our arms around this. This is a mess born out of a vacuum. Okay, that vacuum right now is allowing a lot of things to take place. And here's what's taking place. And it's a process.

Okay, so the vacuum that, well, let's face it, the NCAA created by not putting parameters around NIL, by then going in there and just like opening the doors to the transfer portal while opening the doors to NIL, with no parameters without fixing the calendar. So now all of a sudden, the NCAA has created this scenario where every school has to make a choice. And here's the process that takes place. Number one is that as a university, a program more specifically, an athletic department, you've got to decide whether you're going to play ball or not. You have to decide.

I've given this analogy before, but we are at a point, an evolution of the sport, a point, an inflection point in the sport where like the year 2000 to 2005, 2008, that was an arms race and you were either in or you were not. You played ball or you didn't. And we saw teams get passed by that were historically great teams that didn't get involved in the arms race. They didn't start hiring extra staff people. They didn't invest in their building. They didn't invest in their program overall, the things like size of coaching contracts, size of assistant coaching contracts, and length of contracts. All these different investments that were made. There was an arms race.

Some people played in that game and got much better. And other people didn't. People didn't. And they relied on their brand and they got passed. All right. We don't have to go over it much more than that. You kind of know where that's at. We're at another inflection point.

You got to decide as a school. as a program as an athletic department, whether you want to play ball or not in the NIL space. And guess what? If you don't, you will lose. You will lose. What is that, Iron Man 2 or 3? You will lose.

They're going to lose. They've got no choice but to evolve and to be aggressive. Okay. So once you're at that point, now what do you do? Well, in a normal society, if you will, in a normal organization, there would be a blueprint like there was with the arms race. Okay, you can do these things. You can hire these amount of people. You can do these types of contracts.

And you can do that. And there's a roadmap. There's a blueprint. And there are parameters around what you can do. But this is a total vacuum. So now there's no roadmap. And so without a roadmap, schools are trying to be both aggressive and aggressive. cautious all at the same time. Okay, so we want to play ball, but we don't really want to like be

totally involved with it. So what are we going to do? Well, we're going to make a collective because it's technically legal to make a collective, but we don't really want to be involved with it. So guess who gets to be involved with it? People that aren't involved in the program. All right. So, like, they can be involved in the program, but not like on an official basis. And so you get these ancillary characters that don't understand the rules, the regulations, the whatever is going on in college football. They just know we want to be aggressive and we want to play ball. And they're dealing in an irrational market. There's no marketplace for this thing. Jaden Roshada should never get offered a $13 million NIL deal.

He hasn't won, taking a snap. And number two, he's not even the top quarterback in the class. Nothing against him, but that's a totally irrational market. Somebody at Florida pops off, runs their mouth and says, we got to steal that kid from Miami. I hear he's getting $9 million down there, so let's offer him $13. And guess what? Your mouth writes checks that your actual checkbook can't cover.

And that seems to be what's happening. But it all stems from the process that evolved into a vacuum. See, the biggest problem is not what happened at Florida. It's that it was allowed to happen at Florida. Let's just back up for one more little moment, okay? You're telling me that the NCAA is going to throw a fit and a notice of allegations because Jim Harbaugh had contact with a recruit or a prospective student athlete during the COVID dead period and an analyst possibly coached a player when he shouldn't have. And they're under full investigation. But down in Florida, a player, a student athlete can get promised $13 million from someone that's not really

part of the program. That deal can fall apart to the point where that player wants out of Florida and the NCAA's got nothing to say about it. Nothing. We're good. Working perfectly, guys. Boy, I'm glad we made that NIL legal. Aren't you, Fred? Yeah, sure am, Jimmy.

What? What's happening? What's happening? Can the adults enter the room, please, at some point? At some point. We've got, I mean, poor Jaden Rashada. Where's he going to play? I don't know.

I don't know. Is he ever going to make his 13 million back? I've got no idea. Not his fault. Not even really Florida's fault. You know, was it shady of maybe their collective and some people? Yeah, probably. Probably.

Okay. Was there some fault somewhere along the lines? Yes. Where was the ultimate fault? The ultimate fault lays at the feet of the people that created the vacuum in the first place. You create a vacuum. This process is going to happen. And yet that same group that created this vacuum and this mess at Florida wants to get involved at Michigan for impermissible contact during the COVID dead period?

Pound sand. Get out of my life. At some point, these programs are going to just say to themselves, we don't want anything to do with the NCAA. They've created our problems. Then they create more problems with their oversight into areas that we don't want them in the oversight business of. So they're going to leave. They're going to leave. What makes Michigan or any other school want to stay a member of the NCAA?

And you could maybe say, maybe. You can argue like, well, they want to be a part of the NCAA basketball tournament. I'll just tell you this right now. Major college football schools, major college football schools, the Power 5 schools, the Autonomous 5 schools, they could end the NCAA basketball tournament tomorrow. Tomorrow. by just saying we don't want any part of the NCAA.

You created all of our problems, both in oversight and without oversight. And because of that, we want no part of you. And the NCAA basketball tournament, as you know it and as I know it, would cease to exist. And that might come true in the next 10, 15 years. If I was a betting man, I would bet money that the NCAA basketball basketball ball tournament as we know it will not be the same because of what I'm talking to you about. You can't lay the hammer on these things that are trivial and yet wash your hands of a situation where there's millions of dollars at stake and possibly fraudulent deals.

And you got nothing to say about that? Give me a break. Give me a break. Okay, so I didn't want to end on that negative note in this podcast. So here's what I wanted to do. Everybody loves lists. So I wanted to give you a nice little list here as we exit here in the offseason. These are going to be my five most interesting transfer players.

Okay, so the transfer portal window opened up and now it's closed, this first one. And we've got all these players and we can kind of evaluate who we think are going to be the most impactful or important or interesting transfers in college football. So right now I'm going to give you my five most interesting college football transfers for next season. Five to one, here we go, and I'll go through these fairly quick. Number five is going to be Dorian Singer, the wide receiver from Arizona, who transfers to USC. Now, this is pretty obvious to me, but when you're replacing Addison, this makes you interesting because because USC doesn't seem to have improved themselves all that dramatically through

recruiting or the transfer portal on the defensive side. So what does that mean? Well, it means that Jordan Addison got to be replaced on the outside. And it looks like that replacement is Dorian Singer, an excellent player from Arizona. Makes him incredibly important for the incumbent Heisman Trophy winner, Caleb Williams. And he's a guy that's going to have to have a big year if USC wants to go where they want to go. All right, number four, Cade McNamara, quarterback from Michigan, going to Iowa. This one's

also pretty self-explanatory, but if you're having trouble, you know, figuring out like, well, why is Kate McNamara interesting as a transfer? Because he's going to Iowa. And Iowa, if they get just average quarterback

play at some point, at some point, average offensive play, their immediately a top 15 team in college football. Immediately. And this is a conference that's going to be sticking with divisions for another year, which means that Iowa lands themselves in the much easier side of the bracket. They could easily find themselves competing for a Big Ten championship against the winner of the East. And it starts with, do you get some quality quarterback play? So Cade McNamara for me is so interesting because of what Iowa does defensively.

This is one of the best defenses in the country every single year. And if he can play well at all, Iowa is going to be a really good team. Number three, a guy that not a lot of people know about, Deson McCullough. He is a defensive end. He left Indiana and he's going to Oklahoma. Got a chance to cover him a couple of times this year at Indiana. He was Indiana's highest rated recruit that ever signed with him. And a legacy guy, you know, he's got.

family members all over college football. His dad's a coach, brothers play college football. And this dude can absolutely play. Watched him in both of those games, and I was thoroughly impressed. And now he's going to Oklahoma. And Oklahoma is a team, if you've listened to this podcast at all, you know that I think Oklahoma is a team that can really flip next year. And they could be the one that is competing for that playoff spot

or maybe even making a run in the playoff after being, let's face it, kind of an average team this year. All the close losses that they had, well, what do you need to do to flip close losses into close wins or even big wins? Well, better health. Yeah, that'll help. But then it's usually just steal a possession here or there. Rush the quarterback a little bit better.

And this guy can rush the quarterback. He might be able to steal a possession by getting a turnover. So Desaun McCalla, for me, as an edge player at Oklahoma, is very interesting. Number two, Sam Hartman. Quarterback at Wake Forest, highly productive, one of the most productive players really in the history of college football, and certainly in the history of the ACC Conference, is now headed over to Notre Dame. And that's interesting to me because Notre Dame was similar to Iowa. In that last year, I felt like if they got any quality quarterback play, then they were going to be in games and possibly winning games. I think Marcus Freeman has done a heck of a job in recruiting.

This is a team that I think has been built really well at the line of scrimmage, offensive line and defensive line. So if you can get a guy like Sam Hartman, he very well might be the best transfer quarterback of this class and could turn Notre Dame around. And we saw exactly what that meant for teams last year. Think of Caleb Williams at USC, Michael Pennix at Washington. Maybe Sam Hartman can be that type of catalyst for Notre Dame next season. And then number one, call me a home.

if you want. Travis Hunter, the corner going from Jackson State to Colorado. Well, why is this so interesting? Well, because he was the first Domino. And what Dion is building at Colorado, go back to my initial conversation of this entire show, what Dion is building at Colorado could pay dividends way quicker than all of us expect. But only because he's been able to acquire the talent in a quick fashion. And a huge part of that has, has been getting that commitment, that transfer, Travis Hunter. As soon as he committed, everybody around the country realized like, okay, this is real.

All right, Dion's real at Colorado. This is going to be something that we've got to contend with, and this is going to be a team that can be very good. Other players thought to themselves, I want to go there. Something's going on there. It's very special. So now Travis Hunter is going to be on one side. Cormoni McLean is going to be on the other,

and this is going to be considered one of the best, cornerback duos in all of college football playing in a conference that is the best quarterback conference in all of college football next year. And that to me is wildly interesting. That'll do it for me today. Thank you for listening to the show. Remember to subscribe, rate, review us. Follow the show on social media at Joel Klatt show. Any of the social media is, follow me on Twitter at Joel Klad on Twitter and on Instagram at Joel underscore Kla. Have a great day, everybody.