The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - How to fix the College Football Playoff

Episode Date: November 30, 2018

Is Clemson not getting enough credit? Why should you be rooting for Alabama this weekend? Is expansion bad for the College Football Playoff? Klatt breaks it all down in this week's Breaking the Huddle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's going on, everybody? Really excited for this week's edition of Breaking the Huddled. I'm Joel Klat, and as always, we are sponsored by Dr. Pepper at every homegate and tailgate. It is the one that fans crave. Kind of the same drill as usual, but from a different angle, because remember now, we are T-minus now, what is it, four days away from the final college football playoff rankings on Sunday night, or Sunday afternoon, I should say. and I will, by the way, have reaction for you in real time. So I will be with you online.

Check us out at college football on Fox, on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, wherever you get all your stuff. And I will have live reaction right after the rankings are released on Sunday. So be prepared and ready for that. I'm sure it's going to go totally smoothly. That always does. I'm sure I won't have any opinions whatsoever. But today's the top 10, I'm going to start to stay. I'm going to stop just giving you my thoughts on the teams and start to talk about how each team affects the other in the playoff race, their path to the playoffs, so on and so forth, in my own estimation.

So let's get started. Here we go. My number 10 team in the country is Texas. Texas has done a remarkable job turning themselves around under Tom Herman. We obviously know that. The reason I've got Texas in the top 10 is I just flat think that they are a better team than teams like Florida and LSU. I watched the entire LSU game, that seven overtime thriller with Texas A&M, and Texas is better than LSU. LSU is not very good offensively.

They scored 70 points, yeah, and it took him 18 hours to do so. This is a team right now with Sam Ellinger at quarterback that is balanced. They're finding some run game, and defensively, I feel like they play very strong. They've also got one of the most impressive wins in the entire country. They beat Oklahoma. So I know LSU beat Georgia at this point. I've got Texas ahead of LSU, and those are the reasons why. All right, so here we go.

Number nine. I've got Washington in at number nine. I think it's absolutely absurd that Washington would be behind some teams like the committee has them right now, like LSU and Florida. And I don't know exactly where the committee. I think the committee maybe has them at six or seven, so I could be wrong on that. But here's real quickly when I talk about Washington. Remember now, there's just a couple snaps of the football away from being an undefeated team.

That impressive performance last week in the Apple Cup was staggering. Defensively, they were sensational. I think Washington is a really good football team that, quite frankly, could be more in the thick of things, save for a couple of snaps. The Auburn game was unfortunate to start the year, but this is a team that I do believe should and probably will be. Utah and ultimately represent the Pact 12 in the Rose Bowl, which would be a huge end-of-the-career kind of hoopla, if you will, and a send-off for a guy like Jake Browning and several of their other stars. So I've got them in at number nine.

Where are they in the rankings, by the way? Totally blinking my mind. They're 11. They're 11? LSU 10, Florida, 9. Come on. Come on. Come on.

That's just irresponsible. That's just irresponsible. It really is. That's just irresponsible. Committee, give me a break. All right, Michigan's at number eight. That's still just a two-loss team. Now their only two losses are to Ohio State, ahead of them in the rankings. Notre Dame, ahead of them in the rankings. So if you're looking for the best two-loss team of the country, you've got to go with Michigan. They were overmatched against Ohio State, in particular, Ohio State's speed,

and they've got to find the ability to be two-dimensional on offense. You cannot just be a running team and have that allow you to have success in the passing game. If you can't sit up there and get into the pocket and throw the football as an offense schematically, you're going to have trouble. And in the two games that that was taken away from them against Notre Dame and against Ohio State, they ended up struggling. The other biggest part of this, and everyone's hounding on Harbaugh and the offense and, oh, it's the offense and the offense. And they weren't, you know, there was no ingenuity and this and that.

They did score 39 points on the road against the top 10 team, and it was more the lack of ability to get to the passer. Their man coverage on defense requires that you've got to affect the passer immediately. Any type of man cover. It was like, oh, they're too slow in the back end. No, no, no, no. They were too slow up front. If you can't get to Dwayne Haskins, he's going to pick you apart in man coverage.

He's got too much speed at his disposal. So the game was won and lost for Michigan in their inability to get a pass rush. Roshan Gary didn't get close to Dwayne Haskins. Chase Winnevich didn't get close to Dwayne Haskins. Devin Bush didn't get close to Dwayne Haskins. Josh Uche did not get close to Dwayne Haskins. They didn't get close with the blitz. And guess what happened?

They were exposed in the back end and that's why they ended up losing the game. Even more so than their offense being one-dimensional, even though, yes, they are one-dimensional. There are some things that they can fix. I think namely what they've got to fix is their pass rush against an elite team like Ohio State. How about this for Hug It Out? Oh, my goodness. I tell you what. You're welcome.

You're welcome. I am heartbroken from McKinsey Millington. Absolutely heartbroken. I mean, you talk about there are some players around the country, and we see them every year, right, that are just like the heart and soul of the program. More so than the head coach. more so than the athletic director. This team loses their head coach, Scott Frost in the offseason, retain their quarterback, get Josh Heppel in,

and what's the constant? McKinsey Milton. He is the heartbeat of UCF football. He is the program. To see that happen was gut-wrenching. My thoughts, McKenzie, are with you, been praying for you so that you can get well and heal. I know that you're going to continue to be the leader that you have been your entire career.

I've already heard and read articles about you getting into the film study, trying to help your team beat Memphis this week in their conference championship game. I expect nothing less from you. You are an elite person, much less player, and my heart is broken that your career at UCF ended this way. It really is. It shouldn't have ended that way. I'm hoping for your team's sake and for your sake they can still beat Memphis without you on the

field. You're a tremendous loss as a player, even more of a loss in terms of a leader on the sideline and as a person, man. My heartfelt thanks to you what you've done the last couple of years. You've been fantastic. UCF for me is at number seven. I don't see a path to the playoff though. Unfortunately, because of that injury, the committee is going to take that under consideration and they're just not going to put UCF in. Even if there's a total doomsday scenario in all these conference championship games and I'll get to that in a little bit. So UCF, Playing for the right to go to a New Year 6 game. You're playing for a right to do that for a second straight year.

Chin up, you can do it. Now I'm rooting for you. Candidly, earlier in the season, I might not have been, but we hugged it out. Now I am rooting for UCF as they face Memphis. At number six, I've got Ohio State. So very similar to what the committee and the AP poll have. Yeah, I see. I see the flaws.

I see the flaws with Ohio State. I think that they played as good of a game as they've played in quite some time. last week. I think if you were just rating them on that game, they showed against Michigan that they, for 60 minutes, were a better team potentially than Oklahoma or some of these teams up here. But body of work and resume style, they're still going to be six because of the loss to Purdue. That loss is going to continue to hurt them unless Texas can knock off Oklahoma. And we'll talk about that in a little bit. I love Dwayne Haskins. This guy's got to go to New York folks. He's put together the greatest single passing season in Big Ten

history. He passed Curtis Painter and Drew Brees on the passing yardage list in a single season, passing touchdowns in a single season of Big Ten history. He's been phenomenal. At times, he's carried that team. And oh, by the way, he took the number one defense and he took the number one passing defense in the country, and he took them behind the woodshed and stomped him out last week. Stomped them out! It was incredible. Incredible performance from Dwayne Haskins. Defense is getting a little bit better. They put pressure on Shea Patterson. That's one of the reasons why they were successful on defense. Their back end is still struggling. They had too many pass interference calls. The tackling's still been an issue

in the second theory, but overall, the front seven is getting much better. And what Ohio State is proving to the committee is that they are fixing their flaws, which is not what the number five team in the country is doing. Oklahoma. And you know I love me some Oklahoma. I really do. I love Oklahoma. And I love Ohio State. I argued vehemently for Ohio State last year to be included into the college football playoff because I thought conference championships should win the day. Oklahoma, you know how I feel about the fact that I think you are the best offense in the country by a wide margin, even with all the numbers that Alabama has put up. What you're doing is even more impressive. In fact, it might be the most impressive offensive season I've ever seen.

Yards per play would back me up on that. You've got the most yards per play in the history of the sport right now going into the conference championship game. Kyler Murray is doing things that we've never seen done before. He's averaging over 300 passing yards and over 70 rushing yards per game. No one's even gone 360. This dude's going 370. He is quick as a hiccup, terrific thrower of the football. He can change speeds.

He can go layering with the ball. He can throw it hard. He can go deep. I mean, what Marquis Brown did last week against West Virginia, who are you going to stop? There's not a defense in the sport that holds Oklahoma under 45. Oklahoma does not have a defense that holds an offense in the sport under 45. There's the problem, right? I mean, Oklahoma's defense is so bad.

If you were to ask me, which team has proven that they could potentially fix their flaws? It's Ohio State with the way that they beat Michigan last week. The problem is their loss to Purdue puts them at six versus Oklahoma's lost to Texas. Texas. Here's another problem for Ohio State. Oklahoma has a chance to avenge their only loss of the season. Very similar to what Georgia did last year in the SEC championship games, which means they will have beaten, quote, unquote, everybody on their schedule. That would be a huge feather in the cap for Oklahoma. I will say this, though, a couple of numbers that will just drive you insane. If you're a Sooners fan, I feel your pain. I mean, this month of defense might be, no, no, no, it's not might. It's the worst defense ever played by a great team.

Period. This month of defense has been some of the most atrocious stuff I've ever seen. Just take you through a few of the numbers. In the month of November, Oklahoma has given up 47 points per game. 47 points per game. That's 125th in college football over that stretch. They give up 585 yards of offense per game. That's 128 out of 130.

And they give up 395 yards passing per game. That is, wait for it, dead last in college football. I mean, at points, you have to wonder, like, would the opposing offenses be doing this if they were going against eight guys? Nine guys? About the same. It's awful. You've got to have at least some semblance of defense to go to the playoff. Let's paint the scenario right now before we get into the top four.

These two teams likely are going to be vying for that fourth spot into the college football playoff. If they show that they have not fixed anything on the defensive side and they give up 45 or more points, and Ohio State wins by 25 or more over Northwestern, I think Ohio State's going to go to the playoff. or should go to the playoff. I'm going to stop. They should. I don't know what this committee is going to do because the committee is a joke.

I think Ohio State should go to the playoff because they will have proven that they've fixed their problems, right? That their potential is higher than a team that might be playing some of their worst football of the season. If you can fix your defensive woes. So basically what I'm telling you is, Kyler Murray and that offense have nothing to do with the outcome of their playoffs except for the fact

that you gotta help them win the game. If they can beat Texas and prove that their defense is just okay, they're probably going to get that fourth spot. They're probably going to get that fourth spot. But up until this point, man, I've got to tell you. Did you know that in the last month, Oklahoma has given up more points? I think 189 is the number than Alabama has in the calendar year. So you can take Alabama's playoffs last year and their entire season this year, and it's only five more points than what Oklahoma has given up this month. I think I said that. Yes, that's right. That's right. That's

194 to 189. Alabama has given up 194 points in the calendar year. Oklahoma has given up 189 in November. Yikes! Clats stat. How do you like me now? Oh, that was a little Toby Keith. You don't like me now, apparently, right, Toby? Okay, Georgia is at number four. I really think Georgia's got a better chance to beat Alabama than people are giving them credit for. Swift is healthy, he's back. What that run game does for them with Holyfield and Swift is that it allows Fromm to be more efficient. Fromm last week, four touchdowns, only three in completions. He's becoming the player that we saw late last year, which is very dangerous for everybody else.

And when you couple that with the fact that Oklahoma was tied, or excuse me, Alabama, was tied with the Citadel at halftime. And then they were only up three at half in the Iron Bowl, 1714, I believe, going into that third quarter. Georgia's likely to be right in this ball game. You know, everyone's saying like, oh, you know, Alabama, double-digit favor, this or that. I think Georgia's got a great shot in the SEC championship game. There's only been three snaps of the football that Alabama has played offensively without the lead. You never know how they'll react if Georgia gets the lead. So that's just something to pay attention to.

All right, Notre Dame, there's not much to talk about with your team. You're 12 and 0. congratulations. Ian Book. I think you're a really, really good player. Brian Kelly, kudos to you, what you did from two years ago until building now the changes you made on your staff and within your program to get to the point where you're now in the playoff. Well done. Brian Kelly, I think you are the coach of the year in college football. It's been phenomenal. Now, my next take, join a conference. Okay, because, I mean, what are we doing? You know, we're leaving everybody out. And all these people have the honor, if you will,

or maybe you should say the onus to go play a conference championship game. So now the burden of proof is on them, but not you because you're not in a conference. Join a conference. Brady Quinn vehemently disagrees with me on this, but join a conference. It would be better for college football. I'm growing kind of tired of it. I get it, tradition, blah, blah, blah. Join a conference.

Tired of this. Tired of this. Wouldn't you rather see Notre Dame playing Clemson this weekend? I would. Okay, here we go. Clemson, number two. Clemson is insanely, insanely good. I think people don't view them how they should

because Alabama's been so brilliant during the course of the season. They did give up too many points to South Carolina, but beat Pitt and you're in. And quite frankly, you're going to be favored by a lot. I think Clemson's likely to beat Notre Dame pretty handily. We'll get to that later. And then Alabama is number one for all the reasons that you know and love because Alabama has been dominant.

Now let's get to the conversation. real quick about the scenarios and how they play out. Everybody here really should want Bama to win, because the last thing you want to do is just leave your fate into the hands of the committee members, right? If Alabama wins, then you're going to have these three, and then you get to the discussion about Ohio State and Oklahoma. Let me start by saying, the discussion for the fourth spot in the playoff is messy, and quite frankly, there are no good answers. If Bama loses an Ohio State and Oklahoma win, everyone's arguing, it's like, who should go, who? They're all flawed at that point. It's the same reason last year I said there was no good choice for number four.

A two-win, a two-loss conference champion Ohio State and a one-loss non-champion Alabama, I didn't think there was a great choice. don't you realize that this is the reason to not expand? You see, when you're arguing between three and two, you can make compelling arguments almost every single year. Some years better than others, but compelling, to say the least, arguments of why the third team deserves at least access to the national championship. But the further that you move down, the less compelling the arguments are. You see, it's a counterbalance. So as you go down now, now between four, five, and six, the less compelling and more flawed the resumes become.

So everyone wanted to solve the two and three discussion by saying, expand! Great. We expanded, and now the discussion is messier and less compelling. And do we really believe that a non-conference champ, Alabama, a fatally flawed Oklahoma, and a fatally flawed Ohio State deserve a chance at the national? championship, I would argue that they don't, which is one of the reasons why I would be the ones that be one of the ones that say do not expand. Because folks, look at this. Take it to eight. Now I put the line here. Do you really want to have that argument? Include Florida, LSU, Washington State. Nobody cares about that argument. At least now you can make somewhat of

a case that the arguments are compelling. I would say that the resumes are not, but at least the arguments are decent. People can get heated. Oh, Ohio State, Oklahoma, better loss, better win. Who cares if they don't win the SEC, blah, blah, blah, and people get passionate about it. Are you really passionate about this argument? I'm not. I think that's a terrible line, right? You come down here and you're like, oh, who's better? Three lost Washington, three Lost Texas, two lost Michigan, two lost Washington State, or the three loss LSU and Florida team. Nobody cares. And I would go a step further. None of them deserve access to the national championship. This is not ribbons for everybody. These are unintended consequences

for your greed. College football fan. You want eight? You're going to get a bunch of crap. A bunch of crap. It's very easy to fix this whole thing by just saying you've got to win your conference in order to go. Not an automatic birth, but in order to go. As soon as that happens, now these games this weekend, they mean everything. You're still throwing one out, so you retain the importance of the non-conference. You get rid of divisions, put the top two seeds against each other in the conference championship games, and now you've got a pseudo playoff on the conference championship game weekends, and yet you're not having some dopey argument between three lost teams. Nobody wants that. Nobody wants that. Do you really care? You really care.

when we get to March Madness about the argument of the 60 whatever team versus the 63rd, 64, 65, 6th, who cares? Do you really care? I don't. I don't. And I don't want to turn college football into that either. So be careful what you ask for. All of you expansion guys out there, and there are tons of them, be careful what you ask for. Sadly, with the conversations that I've had so far with the power of business.

brokers in college football, it's coming. I'm going to fight against it tooth and nail. I think it ruins the regular season. It devalues conference championships. It starts to devalue in particular the month of November. And quite frankly, I think it makes the sport worse if you expand the playoff. I might be in the minority, but I'm just telling you the unintended consequences are there. That's why I don't think that we should move. At least now we have an argument between some Blue Bloods that have actually, you could argue, have earned their right to compete for the national championship. No one in their right mind would say, hey, these teams down here, they've earned the right to compete for the national championship. That's not college football, nor should

it be ever. So there you go. There's some thoughts on the top 10 in the playoff and the expansion of the playoff. All right, folks, can we just pump the brakes and stop with the whole narrative that this 13-person committee is the best way to rank college football teams? It's clear I won't even go into the data right now of why I think Team X should be ahead of Team Y. There's clearly differences of opinion in that. Let's just talk about the makeup and overall nature and policy of this committee. First of all, you know that it's 13 people and they're wildly respected and the character and integrity of these individuals really is impressive. You've got people like Frank Beamer, former football coach Ronnie Lotz on the committee right now.

You've got some ADs out there. Listen, there's a huge flaw. So one, I've always said that acting athletic directors should never be involved on this committee. Well, and lo and behold, there's a huge conflict of interest that's happening this year, which is messing with the math. Ohio State and Oklahoma are really vying for that fourth spot. Maybe it'll be in a conversation with Alabama after a loss. Maybe it'll be just between those two. But you need to know that the athletic director at Ohio State Gene Smith

and the athletic director at Oklahoma, Joe Castiglione, are on the committee. Now, the committee's policy in these situations is that you are recused from speaking about the team that you are directly involved with. So if you have a monetary tie either yourself or someone in your immediate family, then you are removed from the conversation about that team. So these people step out of the room when the conversation is being. had about either Ohio State or Oklahoma. Well, there's a third and maybe even more influential name that is also stepping out of the room. Frank Beamer is also stepping out of the room. Why, you ask? His son, Shane Beamer, is an offensive assistant, or excuse me, is an assistant coach with the Oklahoma Sooners. That's a problem. Frank had to step out of the room last year

when they were discussing Georgia. Why, Shane Beamer was an assistant coach for the Georgia Bulldogs last year. So now all of a sudden there are three people that are stepping out of the room when these teams are discussed individually. If you take that a step further, did you also know that when those teams are being directly compared, those individuals have to recuse themselves as well? So, we get this right. When we're actually debating for the fourth spot in the playoff, pretty important, I've been told, three of the 13 people have to recuse themselves from the conversation, further diluting the equation and the 13 variables of the equation. down to 10? You thought I had a problem with the statistical variance of a 13 variable equation?

What do you think I'm going to have a problem with when it comes to a 10 variable equation and its statistical variance? It is wild to think that this is the way that we rank teams in college football. We really think that these individuals are going to do a bang-up job, even in their most ardent attempt, it's going to be difficult for them. Because 10 people are you going to be difficult for them because 10 people agreeing on anything is going to be very difficult. That's why I've always argued there should be more inputs, either more people on the committee or more committees. Because right now, this is absurd, absolutely absurd.

We charge this committee of 13 with essentially governing and directing our sport. It is the rudder of college football, this committee. It shapes how we schedule in the offseason. it shapes how we view teams, it shapes how we view schedules, it shapes how we view performances throughout the year. And you're telling me that that rudder sometimes is partly missing. Other times it's full and other times this part is missing. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? If everybody's input of the 13 member committee is important, then none of them should ever step out, which is why athletic directors should never be on the committee. This is wild, folks. This is wild that

we're in this situation right now. I'm going to say something that's quite unpopular. The only problem with the BCS was the number of teams that it put into the championship game. The BCS equation was far greater, far greater than 13 people in a room, in particular when some of them have to recuse themselves. Bring back the BCS equation

and just give us the four teams that it spits out. I think all of us would much rather that than the charade that is happening right now with these 13 individuals. I'm Joel Klatte. This has been Breaking the Huddle. We've got a lot coming down the pike for you. We're going to have a special Friday edition of Breaking the Huddle live from Indianapolis. So make sure to tune into that. I'll have that Sunday edition of Breaking the Huddle live reacts to the final playoff rankings. We'll see those playoff matchups. I've got some other videos coming. Stay tuned to at college football on Fox on Facebook and Twitter tomorrow and Friday. As those drop, I'll have more thoughts on everything going on in college football.

So again, thank you very much. Thanks to Dr. Pepper. Remember, at every home gate and tailgate, it is the one that fans crave. See you, about.