The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Georgia rallies to beat Ohio State, TCU stuns Michigan

Episode Date: January 2, 2023

FOX Sports’ lead college football analyst Joel Klatt shares his thoughts on the epic CFP semifinal matchups between Ohio State-Georgia and TCU-Michigan. First, Joel talks through the Peach Bowl and breaks down how Georgia was able to come back to defeat Ohio State 42-41 and why Kirby Smart’s timeout to prevent Ohio State from converting on a fake punt and Marvin Harrison Jr.’s injury were so crucial to the Bulldogs' victory. Then, Joel discusses the Fiesta Bowl and explains what went wrong for Michigan in their stunning loss to TCU. Finally, Joel explains why even Georgia needs an offense capable of winning a game in which your defense give up 40+ points to win a Championship in today's college football, and gives his solution for fixing the problems with targeting and instant replay in the sport. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, welcome into the show, everybody. It is the Joel Clatt show, and I am Joel Clatt. And what a weekend it was in college football. I tell you what, those were easily without any shadow of a doubt. The best combination of semifinal games that we've had in the playoff era. You know, we've had some great games singularly, but not back to back like that. That was unbelievable, suspense, drama, great plays, mistakes, all of it. It was phenomenal.

It was one of the best stretches of football I can remember watching in a really long time. So we're going to go over these, and we're going to talk about each of these games and where these teams are. Listen, I know that you've heard a lot about all of these things, but I wanted to make sure that those of you that have found a home here at the Joel Clat Show certainly get your fill of everything that I thought about those games here at the end of the season. So I'm going to start with the Peach Bowl, move to the Fiesin Bowl, and then I've got a couple of over. overarching thoughts as well on the day and just college football in general. Let me start with that Peach Bowl in Atlanta because it was an absolute classic. First of all, didn't you feel after the first game and how unbelievable the first game was, I just thought to myself like, there's no way that this is going to live up to it.

There's no way that we're about to get something equal to what we saw on the first game. and then it was its equal and then some. That was a phenomenal football game. And that's where I want to start is that at some point, and I understand if you're a diehard of Georgia or you're a diehard Buckeye, I totally understand the bitterness if you were a losing fan and the elation, right, and everything. And I understand being mad at certain aspects of the game.

But if we want to just pull ourselves out for a moment, okay, and just go 30,000 foot view, that was a phenomenal football. game. And college football in general is the big winner because there were some great performances, both individually and from the teams. Each coaching staff performed unbelievably well in big moments and in critical moments. And I just wanted to acknowledge that before I get into kind of the nitty gritty of this game, is that that was a phenomenal football game. And I'm absolutely here for it. And I think college football was the big winner. All right. So where do we start with the Peach Bowl?

There are so many places to start. You can start at the end. You can start overarching, all these things. Let me just start with this. Georgia rose to the occasion when their best was absolutely needed. That team has been the best team in college football for the last 18 months, and their back was squarely against the wall. You're down double digits inside a 10 minutes in the fourth quarter.

And they rose to the occasion. Okay. And we'll talk through some of the things that happened, in particular in that fourth quarter. or even late in the third quarter. But there has to be an acknowledgement to the championship medal that the Georgia Bulldogs have because this is a team that clearly has that championship medal. They had to make massive plays and a number of them in order to come back and complete that comeback and win the game and they were able to do it.

So kudos to them. And I just want to acknowledge a few of the things that they were able to do. First and foremost, the fourth quarter execution on offense. was stellar. It was fantastic. Now, were there a couple of little mistakes? Yes, the lateral. Did Bennett play his best game?

No. But they made critical plays. Fourth down conversions. I mean, Brock Bowers, keeping himself up and not hitting the out of bounds, the chalk there, and getting the line to gain, phenomenal stuff. The route, AD runs in the corner.

Phenomenal. they were able to call plays and get to an attacking mode and make the plays necessary. That's a championship team. Just plain and simple, yes, they've got great players. And I think too often in college football, we just sit there and like, well, they're just better. You got to go prove it at some point. And those two teams were fairly equal, you know, all game long. And that was an absolute slug fest and a heavyweight fight.

And that team made a lot of plays late in the game. Bennett was outstanding when his best was needed. Was he outstanding the whole night? No. Was his line probably better than the way that he played? Yes. Did his coach absolutely eviscerate him in the postgame interview? Yes.

And by the way, I was chuckling to myself because I'm like, man, that's what playing for Kirby Smart is all about. I mean, the standard that they have for themselves is so high. You win a semi-final game. He threw for, you know, shoot, almost 200 yards in that fourth quarter, it felt like. He was almost perfect. You look at what he's done against top 15 teams. You know, in his last six games against top 15 teams, this guy has been outstanding. 71 percent, 16 touchdowns, I think only one pick.

Like, he's been outstanding. And Kirby Smart was like, all quarterback's got to play better. We just ask him to do one thing, just play within the system. He eviscerated him. And he made some critical plays. in that fourth quarter. So when his best was needed, regardless of how the game had panned out up into that point, he played really well. And then the coaching staff, the coaching staff was, they were fantastic. And this is going to get lost a little bit. But the fact of the matter is,

is that they made a few adjustments as that game was going along that really paid huge dividends. Couple that I want to point out to you. And this is the George, of coaching staff. Okay, number one would be as soon as Marvin Harrison, Jr. was knocked out of the game, and I'll have more thoughts on that in a little bit. But as soon as he was knocked out of the game, their defensive game plan changed. And it was so smart because what they had done is that they were starting to double team and use a lot of resources against Marvin Harrison after he was getting loose in the first half. That's why he had somewhat of a quiet third quarter. But because of that, other things were open. Did you notice

Emeka Abuka and Julian Fleming and Xavier Johnson having space to operate in one-on-once and favorable matchups? That was in large part due to the fact that Georgia was, they were committing a lot of resources to Marvin Harrison and they needed to because he was

doing what James and Williams was doing early in the national championship game a year ago. He was doing what Williams and METI did in the SEC championship game a year ago. This is exactly what I talked about all week leading up to this game is that you have to have guys that win one-on-one matchups on the outside in order to beat Georgia and Ohio State was doing that with Marvin Harrison.

That's a huge reason why they had a double-digit lead when they did. But when he's knocked out of the game, they were able to immediately change their philosophy and they started playing a lot safer coverage, getting eyes in the backfield. their rush, they were, I would say, mixing the right type of pressures and blitzes at the right time. And because of that, they got to Stroud a couple of times. They were able to cover up guys. They didn't let Ohio State get deep. And it just became harder for Ohio State to move the football.

So that was great. And then the second coach's thing, I guess you could say, or action during the game, was the timeout. Kirby Smart's timeout on the fake punt was. Brilliant. I mean, it wins the game for them. Or it saves, you know what? I shouldn't say wins the game because you got to go make plays after that. It saves the game for them. If Ohio State converts that fourth down, that fake punt, they probably win. It's easily another two minutes off the clock if they use it right. They got more momentum. You get the defense even more tired. That timeout was incredible. And I don't think it gets even enough love, even with people

saying like, hey, that might be the best timeout of all time. Well, you have to also kind of go inside the mind of a coach. Kirby Smart is down double digits. So timeouts are gold, right? Like, there is nothing he wants to do. Well, how should I put this? I'm putting in a poor way. There is no way he wants to burn a timeout on a special team's play. Last thing he wants to do in the world. They're down 11. There's 858 left. Down 11. By the way, it's on the Ohio State 34-yard line, right? So not there's no way he wants to burn that time out. So you have to go inside, and I've been on headsets on the sideline before, someone with huge stones had to be screaming from the box like,

time out. We have to call a time out. You have to call a time out. Time out. You can tell Kirby kind of like, hears it the first time and he kind of like signals for it. And then he's like, wait, I don't want to use a timeout. You can see the whole mental gymnastics going on in his head.

And then he starts kind of moving down to the linesman. And he's like, no, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. And somebody on that headset screamed. call a timeout now and he does it and I'm talking about like was it late maybe are they going to give it to him yes you know oh my gosh remember they're going to give it to him whether he yells it or signals for it so as soon as he's yelling for a time out he's going to get the time out and and I'm telling you that that took an immense amount of courage from him because he doesn't

want to do that they're down 11 there's 858 left he thinks he's going to need all of those on his offense for his offense in order to extend drives, maybe call a time out before a crucial third down or a fourth down on his offense. They are gold. He doesn't want to use that. And he did. And good thing he did because it saved the game for Georgia. So that was a wild sequence.

I was beyond impressed that they were able to get that time out. And so Kirby Smart, the coaching staff did a great jet. They played great in the fourth quarter. Bennett was outstanding when they needed it most. And then the coaches did a great job. Okay. Now let's move to the end of the third quarter, okay? Because we can't talk about every single thing in this game,

but when we talk about the end of the third quarter, that game completely changed. And to be quite fair, Georgia had a glimmer of hope only once Marvin Harrison was knocked out of the game. There's not a doubt in my mind. If he stays in the game, I think that the fourth quarter is different.

Now, that has nothing to do with the actual targeting. I'm just saying like the fact that he was knocked out of the game changed everything, everything. Ohio State probably wins if he stays on the field. Now, let's go to the targeting call. You know exactly how I feel about targeting. I've made it very known. Targeting is broken. It's I hate it.

It's one of the worst things in college football. one of the reasons that I hate it is not because of the penalty and the ejection and that it's it's that it's subjective and you cannot fairly officiate a subjective rule like that okay and and the other penalties just aren't quite as as egregious as that one but the the targeting foul the fact that we can't define it right now and that everybody gets in a room and we watch a clip and then like 50% say targeting, 50% say it's not targeting. Like that's a problem. We are far too far.

We are far along enough in this targeting kind of lifespan that we should have a much more clear definition. And we don't. Okay. So that being said, the flag comes out. Once the flag comes out and they go to replay, it's not like a normal replay. Okay. So you have to understand it.

they are going to go into replay during targeting, and they're trying to confirm all aspects of targeting in order to keep it on. So what they're trying to do is take the targeting off. Now, with that being said, do I think that that was targeting? Let's just put it this way. I do not believe that Marvin Harrison had a whiplash concussion, nor do I believe his head hit the ground. So how in the world is he knocked out or stunned for a moment unless there's forcible contact to his head? That doesn't make any sense to me. Do I believe that the foul should have stayed on? Yes. If it stays on in replay, does that game change? Absolutely. They have to settle for a field goal. If they don't, do they knock it in? I don't know. But let's call it

a four-point swing there. And that changes everything. That changes everything. That changes about that game. So is that the biggest moment of the game? Yes, it is. Did the officials get it right? Probably not. And I'm somebody that hates targeting. I hate targeting. But if you're going to have it in the rulebook, and if you're going to throw the flag, I didn't see anything in that replay that I was like, you know what? That definitely wasn't targeting. There was not forcible. You would have to tell me, like, there was not forcible contact to his head. clearly was forcible contact to his head. So that's a blown replay.

And I'll get to replay in a moment. So yes, it was targeting. They faced a much different defense after that because of the adjustments, I already went over that. And then because they were facing a different style of defense and the adjustments for Georgia were really sound, they couldn't punch it in anymore, right? They didn't have the ability to create the matchups and create the space to punch it in. So what they have to do is settle for field goals.

They settle for field goal on that drive. Then they settle for a field goal on another possession in the fourth quarter. And ultimately that last possession, what were they doing? Settling for a field goal in large part because they didn't have the matchups to move the ball. They were trying and Stroud was fighting like hell, but they didn't have the matchups to move the ball. So that was the biggest moment in the game. Did the officials get it right? Probably not.

Probably not. Let's get into some Ohio State takeaways from this. Since their season's done, we'll obviously talk. about Georgia moving into next week as they'll face TCU in the national championship game. So as we kind of button up Ohio State season, what do we take away from this game for them? Well, I think in large part you have to understand what they were facing both across from them in the game, in the Peach Bowl, as well as the sentiment after the Michigan game. Listen, it was, I mean, the vitriol was out, right? The pitchforks were out for C. J. Stroud for Ryan Day, for the program overall of like, they're soft, they can't do it,

they're not nearly good enough. That's why like there was some worry out there. Like if they get blown out against Georgia, that could spiral in a big way. And they didn't. And it wasn't, it wasn't even that they like, oh, they held on until the end. They should have won the game. Even, by the way, I'm not saying that as like a guy that does Ohio State games. Kirby Smart said that after the game. I'm stealing his words. Those are not my words. Those are his words. So now what do we take away for this team, this coaching staff after this season? Is it a disappointing season? Yes. Wildly disappointing. Can you easily say that this was one of the two, three best teams in the country? Absolutely. And they just took the best team in the

country in Georgia, who has been the best team for 18 months and just won the national title last year and is undefeated again this year. And they took them to the absolute brink. Think of what Georgia had to do, the plays that they had to make in order to beat Ohio State. So I don't know how you can be a Buckeyes fan and not at least come away impressed with your own team. That team is absolutely on the top echelon of college football. And Ryan Day's game. And Ryan Day's game plan was outstanding. Like he had them ready. He was emotional. They were attacking. He called the fake punt. He had it. He was being aggressive. He was being aggressive with guys on the field that you know he didn't want to be aggressive with. How about the seam route to Xavier Johnson? Like,

the game plan from Ryan Day was outstanding. The play from C.J. Stroud, outstanding. The line play on the offensive line was terrific. That was one area where I heard a lot of people say, Georgia's going to blow them up. You know, like, oh, they don't have the offensive or defensive line to hold up with Georgia. And they did. And they did. And they did for the better part of that entire game. Where were their liabilities?

Well, the liabilities came in with depth issues, mainly because all of their starters on the skill positions were out, except for Fleming and Abuka. So you're missing Cade Stover. You're missing Travion-Henderson. You're missing May and Williams. You're missing Jackson, Smith, and Jigba. and you're missing Marvin Harrison Jr. That's tough, that's a tough 15 minutes of football when you're staring at Jalen Carter and the Georgia Bulldogs, right? Let's just call a spade a spade.

So they struggle with depth. And then they struggle in the secondary. This is a secondary that has been average in the last year or two. And part of the issue is that they've lost some recruiting battles. They've had guys get flipped on them late in recruiting cycles. and then they had a lot of transfers so they just don't have a ton of depth. And those guys played poorly for the most part in big moments, giving up huge plays to Michigan and then huge plays to Georgia.

You can't fall down. I hate that for all those kids, but they've got to get better in the secondary. I don't know how quick that fix is, but they've got to get better in the secondary. And then the last thing for Ohio State is they can struggle converting red zone trips into touchdowns. You get into some of those big moments. They struggled against Oregon last year and lost the game. They struggled against Michigan last year and lost the game. Then they struggled against Michigan against this year, again this year, lost the game.

And then they struggled again on Saturday night and ended up losing the game. So the fact that in the fourth quarter, Georgia could convert. their scoring opportunities to touchdowns in Ohio State couldn't, that ended up being the difference in the game after Harrison exited, getting knocked out. So that's the way I feel about that. And the last thing I would say about this team is that there's two individuals that received far too much criticism, at least in my view,

after the Michigan game. And that was C.J. Stroud and Ryan Day. Those two guys were phenomenal on Saturday night. Ryan Day called a fake punt against Michigan. Would have changed the entire game. Snapper didn't snap it to the upback. Called another fake punt in this game in the semifinal. Would it totally change the dynamic of that game?

8.58 up 11, you get a free first down right there. Changes that game totally. And so I don't want to hear it from Ohio State fans like, he's too conservative. Too conservative. Like pound sand, get out of here. He called two fake punts. They didn't work out.

That's not his fault. It's really not. Kudos to Kirby Smart for that time out. I thought Ryan Day's performance was outstanding. I thought George's coaching staff was outstanding. Again, it was a great game. C.J. Stroud now, let's talk about him. Phenomenal effort.

He's sitting out there with a makeshift skill group. I'm sorry, you can say that's a knock, but it's true. It's true. From what they thought they were going to have in the preseason to what they were playing with in that fourth quarter, wasn't even in the same hemisphere. And Stroud is just pulling them down the field. great run after great run, good throws, good decisions, and it didn't work out for him.

Okay? It didn't work out for him. And then real last thing, I don't want to hear anything about Noah Ruggles. Any college kicker trying to kick a field goal from 50 yards, I'm sorry, that's just not a high percentage kick. I would be more surprised if he makes it. So save it. If you're throwing out any social media hate towards Noah Ruggles, then, well, there's a special place and you know where. you. So let's move on. Let's go to the next game now because, again, they were equally fantastic. The Fiesta Bowl. The Fiesta Bowl was wild. Wild. TCU beats Michigan. Not many people picking TCU before this game, right? Not after Michigan had gone through that regular season undefeated, not after the way that they played against Ohio State, not with winning the Joe Moore Award for the second straight year, not with their defense being statistically.

better than they were a year ago. And TCU came out and flat handed it to them. TCU was terrific. I think all year long we have underestimated two things for TCU. Their toughness and their speed.

And I think both of those showed up in the Fiesta Bowl. Their toughness and their speed. They did not shy away from any moment whatsoever. Yeah, you can say like, hey, did Michigan gain a lot of yards? Yeah. Okay. You know, and guess what?

Everyone gained a lot of yards in both of those games. So it's like they were going to have to sit there and trade them toe to toe to. And they did it. They did it. And it was really fun to watch. And then the speed. Okay. In order to beat a team as good as Michigan, what do you have to do?

You've got to capitalize. When there are opportunities, you got to capitalize. When they get too aggressive on defense, you got to capitalize. And they had it. They have the requisite speed. All right. That's why people saying like, oh, George is going to just run them out of the building. Yeah, they might.

They might. I think TCU is way better than we still give them credit for because they're fast and they are tough. They're tough at the line of scrimmage. They're a veteran on their offensive line. The defensive line did an outstanding job against Michigan's run game. By the way, Michigan, the two backs, Edwards and Bullinks, three yards per carry after that first long run from Donovan Edwards. They had the first play of the game, boom, right down the seam. And then after that, that TCU defense was outstanding.

They got the two pick sixes, speed, explosiveness. They were tough against the run. Those backs only had three yards per carry after that first rush. They did everything they needed to do. They did everything they needed to do. And then on the offensive side, they are fast. Even without their best back, Kendry Miller. They were able to do enough, make enough plays.

Duggan, I'm just always so impressed with him. When he gets pressure in his face, he makes a play. So TCU, like, absolutely earned this. There's no doubt about it. They scored 51 points against Michigan in the national semifinal. Tip of the cap to TCU and Sunny Dikes. The other thing that they were able to do, because they were able to play from the lead, and this is exactly what I talked to you about before the game,

all week long I talked about, hey, TCU, what is their biggest key? They've got to play from in front on their terms, and they did that. And at least I thought it was very clear that, that Michigan was totally ill-prepared and uncomfortable playing a game that was not played on their terms. So you saw McCarthy panic and make some throws that we haven't seen all year long, forcing the football to pick sixes. You saw the defense panic a little bit, in particular in the third quarter, and start blitzing more than what we've seen Michigan do, in particular off the edge almost exclusively. what do you have to do when you blitz off the edge? You remove your levels of defense,

and then all you've got to do as an offense is get one crease. So that is a high-risk, high-reward style of defensive call, and it burned Michigan because TCU was able to take advantage of it. Those were all uncharacteristic for this Wolverine's team. They generally did not turn the ball over it. Then they did it in this semifinal. They generally were able to rely on their run game. They couldn't.

They generally played safe. defensive concepts on first and second down, got themselves to third down, and then got aggressive. They got aggressive on first and second down. They panicked a little bit. That leads me to my next point. I think Michigan's coaching staff is going to be sick with not only their game plan, but a lot of their play calls and their overall preparedness for this game. They looked totally overconfident and inexperienced. Really good coaches on this staff. And good young players. All right.

This is going to be a really good team next year again. But it was pretty clear to me that they panicked a little bit in this game. Of the four coaching staffs in the semifinal, I think Michigan's did the, I don't want to say the poorest job, but they made the most mistakes from a coaching perspective. I talked about a couple there in that dialogue about TCU. You know, Jesse Minter is a fabulous defensive coordinator. He really is. He's smart. He's a guy that has a really bright future, a really bright future. I thought that they got way too aggressive in the third quarter in particular.

And while they were trying to mount this comeback, you got the sense that he was trying to like lay these death blows and like get the ball back right away. But by doing that, he left himself exposed and the defense exposed and TCU took advantage. And that's why they were able to just sit there and kind of trade blows through the third quarter. I thought that was a mistake. Then we go to the offensive side. The offensive game plan inside the 10-yard line was not anywhere close to adequate. I'm sorry, like, the run game in general was way too vanilla for Michigan. They did not get to their bread and butter, which I thought is like their gap schemes, pin and pull schemes.

That's when you're pulling guards, pulling tackles. When they get into their gap schemes and man schemes and they get downhill, they're really dangerous, really dangerous. And they just kept running kind of just like regular zone out of the shotgun and TCU was stopping them. And there wasn't any creativity. We didn't see a lot of zone reads out of McCarthy. I thought we were going to see him run a little bit more.

We did in the second half, which kind of started to get them back into the game. They started running some more of those concept, pin and pull, pulling guard, pulling tight end. In the second half, it got their run game going a little bit. But in the first half, they were very vanilla. It was not a team that I felt like was prepared on base downs. Therefore, what you ended up seeing is a lot of first and second down kind of me calls on run plays. And then J.J. McCarthy would try to have to make a play on third down.

And that led to mistakes. Huge mistakes. One of them was a pick six. And then in the red zone, the play calling in the red zone and inside the five, they're going to kick themselves for this. And listen, earlier in the year, and this is nothing again, like, listen, this sounds like a big knock on their coaching staff. This coaching staff is really good. Jim Harbaugh is really good. He's one of the best coaches in college football.

These young cats as coordinators are really good coordinator. Sharon Moore is outstanding. You talk about a bright future. got a huge future. Matt Weiss, bright future. Jesse Mentor, bright future. But, you know, these are young guys facing situations for the first time in their career. And I thought that the lack of rhythm showed back up, you know, the dual play calling on the offensive side. All of a sudden, you know, you had to call timeout a couple of times inside the five-yard line. Then after the review of the touchdown, I'll get to that in a little bit and they take the

touchdown off the board, fullback dive to a guy that was a linebacker until the Ohio State week? Like, I, you know, I'm sorry, I hate the play call. And like, I know that that's firm. I really do. But in a day and age in which you can push the quarterback, you should never not run quarterback sneak inside the one yard line if you've got a first and goal. I mean, so what if they stop you once? Are they going to stop you four? times running quarterback sneak. Meanwhile, if you're trying to run an under center fullback dive, just the entire ball handling of that is precarious with a guy that was a linebacker until the Ohio State Week, you know, I didn't love that play call at all. And that was a huge turning

point in the game. And then they try to run Philly Special and this is the last, you know, this is what I would say about that Philly Special. We saw Nick Foles. They did it against New England. Unless you've got a corner that's in a man technique and he's going to get drawn across the formation and leave that area of the field completely open, that play is not going to work. And we've seen it snuffed out several times now as it's been run a million times. So if you're going to have some motion in your set, then there better be a check if they're not running man coverage. If that corner is just sitting out there with eyes in the backfield and he's just a contain

player, that play is not going to work. So you can't call it. You have to have a check out of Philly Special. if you're going to try to run Philly Special because it's totally dependent on that corner being out of position, following his man across the formation. If he's just a zone player in contain with his eyes in the backfield, that play will not work. And it didn't.

And so they got no points in that. In fact, they had three trips inside the 10, goal to go situations and came away with three total points in those trips. So you're going to lose. You're going to lose. and more on that red zone offense in a little bit. They're going to learn from this. They're going to learn from this.

The hard part is that you've got to take your learning lessons in a semi-final. It would almost been better if you learn those lessons against Illinois. And like you lose that game and you learn the lesson inside the five. You get better with your entire play calling mechanism inside the 10-yard line. And you learn those lessons. and then you don't repeat that mistake later. But they did not have to learn those lessons. And then here they are learning them

when all the chips are in the middle of the table. Meanwhile, like TCU, they could have told it. Garrett Riley, the offensive coordinator for TCU, he could have walked over and told Sharon Moore and Matt Weiss like, hey, fullback dive probably is not the call. Like, you should just sneak it first and goal

or even third in goal from inside the one. Because he learned that lesson against Kansas State in the Big 12 championship game. But it didn't come back to haunt TCU and here they are in the national title game. All right. Now we've got to get to more overarching, like, topics. And they're specific to the games, obviously, as well.

Okay, so I touched on one of them, the officiating. But before I get into that, I want to just, there was one issue in both games that killed each of the losers, Michigan and Ohio State. And that was their inability to convert red zone trips into touchdowns. And now it's starting to become one of the most important factors in CFP games. When you look at the last 23 CFP games, 21 of the last 23 CFP games have been won by the team that either wins or ties the Red Zone touchdown percentage. Okay, so can you convert red zone not into scores with a field goal, but touchdowns?

What is your touchdown percentage in red zone trips? So again, 21 of the last 23 college football playoff games, 21 of those winners of the red zone touchdown percentage goes on to win the games, winning or tying that number. You know, that's pretty telling. That's pretty telling. And you look at both of these teams, what do they do? They had to settle for field goals. goals at time. They got stoned on fourth down. They turned it over in Michigan's case inside the

five. You rarely come back from those types of moments and win the game because it's just too hard of a hill to climb up because you're facing a really good team. It doesn't matter as much when you're playing a bad conference opponent or a non-conference opponent. In fact, it probably doesn't matter at all because you're just so much better than them. But when you finally get on equal footing and you're playing in a college football playoff game, that team's going to take advantage of those mistakes. And these teams very rarely get put into that position. And here they are in that position. And then ultimately, both of those teams lost, I think in large part due to the fact that they weren't able to punch it in some of those trips.

Okay. Next thing is this whole notion about like, okay, defense or offense, what do you have to have? Can Lincoln Riley win a national championship or Ryan Day win a national championship? or Ryan Day win a national championship, if they don't play good enough defense, oh, clearly Georgia is going to win because they've got a great defense in Michigan. Maybe it's a defensive-oriented game now, isn't it?

Well, I think it's both. Isn't it safe to say that it's both? If we're viewing this fairly, and we're really evaluating what takes place during the course of a season, can you dominate for huge sections of the season with a dominant offense? Yes.

can you dominate huge sections of the season with a dominant defense? Yes, you can. You can put yourself into the playoff with one or the other. But it's becoming clear in order to win in these games, you've got to have the ability to have both at times. Every single team can score points once you get up to this level and they've got this amount of talent. and every single team, even if they've got a great defense, at some point, is going to have that day where they give up 40 or more. In fact, if you look at each of the last four national champions, and that's going to include this year, because both TCU and Georgia are in this boat, have at some point during the course of those seasons given up 40 or more points.

okay this is this is something that we've known for a while but i think we fall into the trap of just saying like well they're not going to do that against Georgia or they're not going to do that against Michigan the bottom line is is that if you can get a team like georgia or michigan who wants to rely on the run game and rely on the defense and you can play on your terms and not theirs you're going to get them into a position where they've got to win a shootout and generally that happens at some point in the season for every single team for every single team for every single single team. And so, like, I don't think you can have just a defense or just an offense because at some point you're going to have to win 45-42. To win the national championship in college football,

you will have to win a game, probably in the playoff, 45-42 or somewhere around there, where each team is scoring over 40 points. You've got to find the stop here or there. You've got to convert red zone trips into touchdowns. You can't settle for field goals. 38's not going to cut it. So you're going to have to have an aggressive game plan. You're going to have to create big plays. There are moments when your defense, even though they're not being relied on completely in those games, has to come up with a stop, which is exactly what Georgia did in the course of the last 15 plus minutes. Did Ohio State score some points?

Yes, six of them, six points. Why? Because they held them to field goals. They got some stops. So at some point, you need both. You need both. And that's something that's becoming very apparent. in particular when we see these teams that have relied on defense their entire season

and they get into a game in which, you know what, Katie Bar of the Door, here we go, we got to score a bunch of points. So you better be able to do both. Last point on those playoff games that I'll make. Officiating in college football is broken and we really need to fix it. And maybe more importantly or specifically, replay is broken. replay is is oh man it's very frustrating it's very frustrating to do a game as a broadcaster and watch replay fumble around for way too long to get a call wrong that is clear on video it is frustrating

that there is not a more coherent national standard for every single officiating base and the Bottom line is, as great as those games were on Saturday, part of me hates the fact that officiating played such a huge part in it. If they leave the targeting call on Georgia against Marvin Harrison, Jr., does that change the outcome of the game? Probably. And then in the Michigan game, there is no way that you can overturn that touchdown. there's just not.

There was not anywhere close to indisputable video evidence to overturn that touchdown. You can't do that. You're not there to re-officiate the play. And replay is totally broken because in some conferences, you've got replay that I think is overzealous. And the reason is because the people that are in charge of those conferences and those officiating bases, they influence.

emphasize and teach and scrutinize their officials in a little bit different ways than other conferences. So you have massive differences or what end up being massive differences in the way a replay official will view his rule, a role in the game from conference to conference. And for that official in the replay booth to get involved, find you want to stop the play. there was not one look that makes you take a touchdown off the board in a national playoff game. Like, I'm sorry, but that's just, that's egregious. The targeting at the end was also clearly targeting. There's no way you can review that.

Watch him literally spear the kid and say that's not a targeting. Now, were there other calls that were made and missed in Michigan's favor or TCU's favor? Yes. Yes. So I'm not sitting here saying like, oh, Michigan should have won, blah, blah, blah. No, I'm saying that as a college football fan, replay is broken when they get involved in any play that's clearly a touchdown, and they call it not a touchdown. That's not your role. That's not your role.

So why is it his role and maybe not somebody else? Why do we not have consistency? Well, one, because we have different officiating bases in every single conference. We need to do away with that. If nothing else, let's say that there's no bias. whatsoever. Okay, fine. You know what? I really respect officials. They do a heck of a job, and generally the guys on the field do an outstanding job. Now, if you're going to tell me, like, there's no bias, you're barking up the wrong tree. Fine. Well, at least when you're operating with this system,

there can be the illusion of bias. There can be at least the suspicion of bias. Do we want that? No. Well, we can take that out right away. How? National officiating bodies. No one conference should have their officials. It should be a national officiating base. I've heard from several coaches during the course of the last couple of days, and they agree with me. I don't think that there's any reason why we should be emphasizing certain rules in one conference more than another, just based on who their supervisor is and how they're teaching them. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Every official should be rated and graded by one entity, a national body of officials. Then we should then disperse and have national officials all over. And then guess what? No one would ever ask in a college football playoff game, well, where are these officials from? Nobody.

Nobody. There's no reason for that not to happen. And we do need to fix replay. And part of that will be to nationalize replay. And then tell every single replay booth operator, do not get involved until you see it with your eyes for goodness sakes. Okay. to do it for us today. I know that there was probably a lot more that we could have gotten into.

But listen, time is of the essence. I will be back later this week. Wednesday, I believe Wednesday, I'll have an episode out, and we're going to preview the national championship game. TCU and Georgia and SoFi Stadium. It's going to be fantastic. And we've got to take a deep dive, by the way. We're going to have to at least acknowledge or talk about, think about TCU, unranked to start the season being in the national championship game, has the transfer portal really affected college football that quickly? And I think it has. And I think we might have just missed it. I don't think we view or rate teams properly, in particular in the preseason, but certainly even during the course of the season. We give teams the benefit of the doubt based on stars where guys were in high

school. Why not rate them where they are now as transfers? Again, I digress. We'll get into that later as TCU is the fly in the ointment in college football in the national championship game. They'll face Georgia on next Monday night. Thank you for watching the show. You can find me on social media on Twitter at Joel Klatt. You can find me the show on Twitter and all the socials. At Joel Klatt show. And we'll be back on Wednesday for the preview of that national championship game. Thanks for listening to everybody. See you soon.