The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Indiana and Miami advance to the National Championship Game & is the SEC reign officially over?

Episode Date: January 10, 2026

FOX Sports’ lead College Football analyst Joel Klatt reacts to Indiana and Miami advancing to face off in the National Championship Game.  He revels in #1 Indiana’s demolition of Oregon as Curt Cignetti’s group continues to roll through the Playoff, sparking a comparison to one of the best teams in recent memory. Klatt also breaks down the wild Semifinal between Miami and Ole Miss as Carson Beck & the Hurricanes stepped up in the biggest moment to return to knock off a valient Ole Miss team led by their QB Trinidad Chambliss. Following the Rebels' loss - which ensured a 3rd straight National Championship Game without an SEC team - Klatt examines the conversation around whether the SEC is still the best conference in College Football and how the sport would benefit from a shift in perspective.  0:00-1:46 Intro1:47-21:35 Indiana blows out Oregon to advance to National Championship21:36-38:58 Miami beats Ole Miss to advance to National Championship38:59-47:23 Has the SEC been dethroned as the best conference in college football? Use my code for $100 off your SeatGeek order to the College Football Playoff National Championship. https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/KLATT100 *Restrictions Apply Sponsored by SeatGeek Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I don't care that they're Indiana. The national championship goes through Indiana. Your head coach abandoned you right before the playoff, and you come out and you play with that level of detail. That shows me that there was a tremendous amount of quality leadership in that locker room. The data is telling us something very clearly about the strength of college football. It does not reside in the SEC. Day like today is why we love college.

football. Hey, welcome into the program. This is the Joel Glad Show, and it is brought to you by graduate by Hilton. We thank them for their support. As always, we have got a great program. We are going to react to those semifinal games. Obviously, the incredible game on Thursday night. Miami takes down Old Miss in a classic. That fourth quarter was everything that's great about college football. And then Indiana on Friday night just continues to roll along. They take down Oregon, 56, 22, we are going to talk about all of that. Both of those games, all four of those teams, and really break them down here on the program. Before we do that, just go over and subscribe to the YouTube.

If you would, you can hit the notification button as well. That would help out. And then you can follow us on social media. All of our content lives out there wherever you like to social media, Agile Clashio. That would be awesome as well. Let's get into it. Let's start with the Friday night game.

I just got done watching that game. We all just got done watching that game, even though you're listening to this. on Saturday morning over the weekend whenever you get to it. Indiana blows out Oregon. And it wasn't particularly close. 5622. They advanced to the national championship. And now here comes Indiana, 15 and 0. Sorry about that. Now, it was interesting because this last week, I don't know if it was an epiphany so much as like you're just sitting there and you're watching everybody in college football. And let's face it, like there's no one really perfect except for this like Indiana team. It's like, oh, yeah, yeah, you know, Indiana is really good. And then there was a lot of

rhetoric and, I think, discussion surrounding this final four as if it was wide open. And like, wow, look at all these upstarts. And wow, anybody can win the national championship. And I told you last week on the show that I was like, you know, that that didn't really ring true in my head. And to me, it was almost disrespectful to Indiana. Because if you really sit down and watch them, look at them, study what they've done, they were clearly the best team. Number one in the country for a reason. And I told you last week, it's like, listen, they're the ones that beat Oregon on the road.

They're the ones that beat Iowa on the road. They're the ones that came back against Penn State. They're the ones that beat Ohio State. They drilled Alabama. And it's like, you know, at some point, don't you have to just say like, I don't care that they're Indiana. This is not open for everybody. The championship, the national championship, goes through Indiana.

Somebody's going to have to beat that team. And I don't know if there is one. Miami will be the last one left, last one standing with a chance to beat the Hoosiers. But listen, I talked about it. This team does everything well. This is one of the great teams that I've ever seen. And it's not just because they're going to have like, oh, they've got 22 draft picks. No, they might not have that many draft picks, and they certainly don't have that many four and five star players.

And not that four and five stars are overrated or stars in general are overrated because I'm not in that camp. And I think that you know that. But there's something different about this team. And this team is one of the best teams that I've seen in a long time. They are so sound at everything that they do. And I think that we need to start putting them in that category. They're now 15 and 0. There's only been a select few teams.

I know Clemson went 15 and 0. I think Georgia may have gone 15 to 0 if I'm not mistaken or maybe they didn't. Michigan obviously went 15 and 0. And now Indiana is going to have a chance to go 16.0. I think they've got a great chance. They've got a great chance and more on that in a little. bit. But this team in particular, I was trying to figure out a way to put this into perspective, and there's really no way to put it into perspective. I saw this meme that I thought was pretty

appropriate. And I know that there are young people that won't know what this movie is or have never seen this movie. But in the movie trading places, the Eddie Murphy movie, there's these two, you know, characters, Mortimer and Randolph, as you know. And they come up with this genius scheme to replace the way. Anyways, you kind of understand that. I saw this meme that was Mortimer and Randolph, and they were like, Mortimer, I have a scheme. Why don't we replace the losingest team in history and just replace all the best teams in history with them? And it's like exactly what happened in trading places. That's what's happening with Indiana right now.

They are on the precipice of going 16 and 0 and riding one of the great seasons in the history of our sport. And they entered that season as the losingest program in history that is wild. Now, since they are not the losingest in history, now that obligation has fallen to Northwestern. But just trying to put it into perspective what has gone on and what has occurred, It's hard to do that. There are not many words that you can use.

And so comparison comes to mind. Well, what do you compare them to? What is this like? What college teams? What professional teams? And in reality, we just saw one of the great dynasties in the history of the NFL when New England for years was a fantastic football team. One seven Super Bowls, went to 10 Super Bowls,

was constantly in the AFC championship game. And then you start to think to yourself. of like, well, hold on a second. This organization, Kurt Signetti and Indiana and what they're doing this year, now granted, this is not over a decade plus, but this year, they do resemble the New England Patriots, the Belichick Brady New England Patriots, the Dynasty Patriots. Why? Well, because that wasn't always the most talented team in the National Football League,

but they did their job and they didn't make a lot of mistakes. And in a sport that more games are lost, rather than one. Nick Saban talks about that. Bill Belichick talks about that. Certainly at the college level, that's true. I would argue that it's 85% or higher. Maybe even 90% of games are actually, I would say,

lost rather than one. Now, we're talking about matchup games. There are games that you can go out there in obliterated team, and obviously those games are won. But I'm talking about matchup games. When talent is equated, when rankings are equated, when you get into the playoffs, you get into the top end of any of those conference games,

you know, more games are lost. It's generally mistakes. It's penalties. It's turnovers. And yet this team doesn't do that. They don't do that at all. They don't make mistakes. And they go out there and they force you to beat them.

And it's really difficult to do that. They also then have continuity. And that's something that New England had for a long time. They had continuity on their coaching staff. And I know guys came and went. And this Indiana team, though, they have a ton of continuity. I know that Signetti's only. been at Indiana two years, but the fact that Mike Shanahan is offensive coordinator,

Brian Haynes, his defensive coordinator, have been there for so long, with him for so long, I should say, not been there, been with him for so long. They've both been with him since Elon all the way back. And then they go to James Madison and now to Indiana. So they've been with him for a long time. And a lot of these players that transferred specifically on the defensive side, guys like Michael Camara, Aidan Fisher, DeAngelo Ponds. They've played for Brian Haynes for three seasons.

And so they understand what's going on schematically. You've got Sarat on the outside. He was a JMU guy, if I'm not mistaken. So there's continuity. And I think that helps. That helps a lot. And then you get to like, well, what takes a team from good to great? Well, good teams, really good teams.

You can, well, I shouldn't say it like this. You can become a very good team by doing. your job, doing the right things, not making mistakes, doing all the, you know, having continuity, being fundamentally sound, being detail oriented, all of those things can allow you to be a very good team. But the key ingredient to go from very good to great is that you've got to have a great quarterback. New England had that with Tom Brady and Indiana has that with Fernando Mendoza. And Mendoza, there's striking similarities, guys that are hyper-prosepherson. prepared, very accurate, willing to take whatever the defense gives, willing to do whatever it takes to

win. And Mendoza has been playing on an ungodly level in playoff games against some of the best competition that our sport has to offer. It's staggering. What is it now? Seven touchdowns and five incompletions in the playoff? That's wild. I mean, these are normally numbers that you reserve for the Cupcake Cupcake games in September. And he's doing this in the playoff. He's unbelievable. I should say, eight touchdowns and five incomplete passes.

Second straight game with more touchdowns than incomplete passes. Mendoza takes them from very good to great. And then you have a team that you're like, well, what in the world are we going to do with this team? The first thing that you have to do is play clean. And Oregon comes out in that ball game on Friday night, and they immediately spot a team that doesn't need any help whatsoever, and they spot them 21 points in the first half with short fields and turnovers.

One of them on the very first snap of the game when DeAngelo Pons picks it off and takes it back for six. I got to be honest, I know it was the first snap. I know that Oregon went down the field and they scored on the very next drive, which that was a tremendous answer from Dante Moore in Oregon, and they showed some heart in that first series. As soon as Pons picked that ball off and ran it back for a touchdown, I thought to myself, there is zero chance.

Oregon's going to come back and win this game because you're not going to beat that Indiana team when that Indiana team is given a defensive score. It's just not going to happen because they're too clean. They are ice cold, no mistakes. They are ice man flying with ungodly precision right now through the postseason. It's been outstanding. Kurt Signetti, Brian Haynes and Mike Shanahan, those three guys, their continuity, they are the best in the sport right now at game planning.

They have done an absolutely masterful job of breaking down their opponents and attacking their weaknesses. And you look up, they do not make mistakes. And I know that this gets said over and over and over again. Let me just put it to you this way. This sport, which is why I love it, this sport is about detail. Yes, it's about talent, explosiveness. There's a lot of, you know, physicality.

It's about detail. The teams, well, the quote goes, like, greatness is realized through the attention to detail. I actually think that that applies in life, and it certainly applies in football, and it certainly applies in college football. Greatness is realized through the attention to detail. And there is no team in America that plays with a greater amount of detail than Indiana. And it's not even close right now. It's not even close.

They are that good. You can tell on the defensive side. So when their defense is on the field, there's nowhere to throw the football. That's because of the detail they play within coverage. That's because of understanding the structure, understanding their responsibility and then doing it. And then they do it with extreme effort. It's an incredible technique and good fundamentals.

And all of a sudden you look up and it's like, well, that's what wins football games. It's tried and true since the end of time. Opposing quarterbacks have had nothing against this defense. Ohio State had nothing against them in the Big Ten championship. Alabama had nothing in the Rose Bowl. Oregon had very little in this Peach Bowl. They couldn't do anything. 10 points, Bama 3 points, Oregon, really 15 points when you really look at it before that late

score. Indiana has allowed 15 touchdowns and 15 games this season. Like, that's a staggering number. We talked about how good Ohio State's defense was, and by the way, I still believe that it was. I still believe that it was. Indiana was maybe they're equal. They just did it in a very different way and they didn't do it with four first rounders. I can tell you that. That's an incredible team and it's going to be very hard to beat them in the national championship. We should start thinking about this team as one of the better teams that we've seen in college football history. And the only reason that we're all apprehensive to do that is because it's Indiana

across the chest. We need to get over it. We need to get over it. That's our problem, not theirs. Ours, not theirs. What we should be doing is giving them all the credit that they deserve, which is at this point, one of the best teams that we've seen in college football. Oregon, on the other hand, man, really tough for this to happen two years in a row when they're basically out of the game

in the first half in the playoffs. This happened in the Rose Bowl last year. Remember, Ohio State just like juggernaut. They played as good of an offensive first half as I've seen in a long time. They were up 34-0 in that game. This one's probably worse and harder to swallow for Oregon because it's got to feel like they just handed it over to Indiana with that pick six early than Dante Moore has the fumble with the bad exchange on the RPO, gives him another short field. He gets strips-sacked again. There's another short field. You're talking about 21 points.

Games over. Games over. I know this is going to sound very stupid. Aside from those three turnovers, Oregon wasn't playing terrible in the first quarter and a half. That's the problem is that Indiana is suffocatingly good because you can be playing very well 95% of the time. but if the other 5% is catastrophic, Indiana is running away with it. Indiana is running away with it. The three first half turnovers led to the 21 points. So now Oregon is sitting there and they're 26 and three over the last two seasons. Their loss is to Ohio State last year, who eventually won the national championship, and now twice this year to Indiana,

who by the way, probably should go on to win the national championship. So Oregon is right there, even though it's got to feel like you're miles away. I don't think Oregon is miles away, but they do need to figure out what's going on in these big moments. Three years ago, they laid an egg in the Pac-12 championship game against Washington. I believe they were favored in that game. They did not play well against Ohio State early in that game in the Rose Bowl a year ago, and they certainly did not play well in this Peach Bowl in the national semifinal against Indiana. Now, one thing that you could say is that every single year, it's one step further.

maybe they're building something. Maybe this is just a slow boil. Maybe this is a slow process to get to the 212 degrees, to get to the boiling point where you can finally power a local motive because it was the Pac-12 championship game. They didn't make the playoff. And then they did make the playoff, but they lost after a buy in their first hour.

Now they get through the first round, and then they get through that quarterfinal round. And now in the semis, they kind of lay an egg. Maybe this is a process and a stepping stone, loss for Oregon and Dan Lannning. This is a very young team, but now their quarterback Dante Moore has a huge decision to make

as it relates to his NFL future, his future in general. Here's what I would say. I personally believe Dante Moore needs to come back to school. Not because I want him back in school, but yeah, I mean, selfishly, I think anyone that loves college football

would love to see Dante Moore play more college football. Having said that, though, I think that the biggest influence on your future NFL success is your experience in college football. And more specifically, your body of work and its size. So if you look at all the quarterbacks that have won Super Bowls basically since 2000, so this century, all the quarterbacks that have won Super Bowls, if you, average out their college career, what you get is a very experienced college quarterback. On average, all the guys that have won Super Bowl started about 30 plus games in college.

They've attempted well over a thousand passes in their college careers. In fact, if you look at who the least experienced guys were as it relates to their college career, the guy that's actually the least experienced from a rep's perspective was Tom Brady. which is wild, which is wild. Now, at the D1 level, you could throw Aaron Rogers in there as well, but he had Juko experience before getting to Cal. You know, these guys like Stafford and Mahomes and all of these guys that have had success at the top end in the NFL,

winning Super Bowls, they are very experienced. Look at the guys that are having success early in their careers right now. You know, Jaden Daniels goes right to an NFC championship. I know it didn't go great in his second year, but he had a lot of experience. Stroud's now been to the playoffs twice. He had a lot of experience. Bo Nix had more experience than anybody when he was coming out.

So I think experience pays off, which is why let's go back to Dante Moore and let's go back to Oregon. I think Dante Moore needs more time. And by the way, the evidence also sat in this semifinal game against Indiana. Like, those mistakes aren't going to win you any jobs in the National Football League.

And so they've got a young team that could come back and probably be best, better. I really believe that. I genuinely believe that they can be better next year. And more specifically, if Dante comes back. And that would only help him, I believe. Now, depending on where your draft stock is, I get it. You want to go out there. But I will tell you this, more experience at the college level is never going to hurt you. And he's a guy that's going to command a lot of money. And certainly he's going to get it if he wants to stay at Oregon. He's going to make four plus million dollars. It's not that much of a pay cut to stay in college, and you could raise your draft stock to potentially be

the number one pick in the draft if you were to stay. So we'll see what happens with Dante Moore. That's going to determine a lot of the way we view and think of and project what Oregon can be next year. But again, I'll just go to this. Highly disappointing the way that they've played. Dan Lannning is certainly going to take this and try to become better off of it. but every year off of these three very disappointing performances, Pack 12 Championship, they move up a little bit. Rose Bowl, they move up a little bit. Now the Peach Bowl in the semifinal,

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Let's talk about the Fiesta Bowl. So that was an amazing game. Miami beats Old Miss 3127 in what was an instant classic. That was so much fun

watching that game. College football bails itself out all the time. The players and teams, how hard they play, the passion, the bands, the sounds,

all of it. Like, it is undefeated in my eyes. I love this sport. You love this sport. This is why you're listening right now is because we love this sport, like so much. And on Thursday, in that fourth quarter specifically, that's like, perfect. It's like, yes, yes, that's it. That's what we love.

That was as fun as it gets. You had two really good teams playing really well. and guys making place. I loved it. I loved every second of it. If you start to actually then like, all right, let's dig into the game then. We get over all the hype of the,

how fun it was and some of the plays that were made and the Malachi Tony one-hand catch that wasn't a catch, but you wish it was a catch, even though his heel hit out of bounds, that one would have broke the internet. It almost broke the internet, and it was incomplete. That's how you know how good of a catch it was.

And then you start, to dig into the game and you very quickly realize, and certainly we all knew this watching the game and certainly, you know, Nick Saban touched on it at halftime during the halftime show. The only reason it was a close game and the only reason that Ole Miss really had a chance in that game is because of Miami's mistakes. Miami had 10 penalties. They had a lot of impatient possessions. I thought Shannon Dawson, yeah, why am I blanking out? I believe Dawson. I thought he was impatient as a play caller at times when they were running the ball so consistently and so well. And they were getting four and five and six and four and two and three and four and five.

And then all of a sudden is like, let's run a flea flicker. And it's like, wow, negative play, boom, punt the ball away. Impatient possessions hurt Miami at times during the course of the middle of that game. And then the dropped interceptions. They had what, four or five just flat dropped interceptions. they were totally in control that game for the majority of the game. They ran 88 plays. They had the ball for 41 minutes. They were able to control the line of scrimmage. And yet, they made so many mistakes that Ole Miss all of a sudden has the lead in the fourth quarter.

We'll get to Ole Miss because obviously, Ole Miss played great, shamblis played great, and it was a phenomenal game to watch. But now all of a sudden, after dominating the game and feeling like you probably should have had a multiple possession lead, you're down. You're down. And you've got to go the length of the field to score. And Beck rolls out there. Carson Beck. And he absolutely lit it up on that last series. Beck was sensational, guys. He was sensational. There was this idea. And partly, listen, I had it. And I know a lot of Miami fans had it. I know a lot of guys that are Miami fans. There are a few of them on our crew. and we talk about Miami all the time.

And here's the thing. We all knew they were a very good team, but there was this question. There was like this thing in the back of our heads. We were like, yeah, but are they going to Miami this thing? You know, is Christobal going to Christobal this thing? We wondered in November, was this going to fall apart when they had to go on the road?

They hadn't had a lot of history of success on the road in November. And we wondered like, well, is the other shoe going to drop from Miami? And it didn't. They played really well against Pitt. Remember that? I'll remember that. And then it was like, okay, you know, like A&M, are they really going to go to Kyle Field in the playoff and win a game? And they did. And then we're like, okay, you know, like it's Ohio

State. They're not going to play clean against Ohio State. And if they make mistakes, they're not going to win this game. And they did. And then all of a sudden they get into a game where they're kind of clearly the better team. And they just let Ole Miss hang around. And I'm like, oh my gosh, it's happening. Miami is going to Miami this thing. crystal ball is going to crystal ball this thing. They are going to mistake their way into a loss. And then their quarterback showed up and bailed them out in the last series. Carson Beck was sensational on that last series.

He was eluding the rush. He was delivering the ball on time. There were a few times when he stepped back there. And, man, he went from one side of the field on a read, and he got back to the middle field. And he was just ripping those in cuts, man. and they were on the frame, they were perfectly thrown. That was as good as I've seen Carson Beck play in a really long time.

There was a stretch at Georgia where he played really well a few years ago. Didn't play great last year. I thought that a lot of that was the drops for Georgia. And this year, he's been asked to me more of a game manager. Let's face it. He plays for a head coach who is an offensive line coach, essentially. And they want to control the game. They were able to do that in the other games.

and he was able to just manage and be good on third down, which he has been in the playoffs, and he was again against Ole Miss. But now he was asked to go out there and it's like, all right, buddy, like, you need to go bail us out. You need to go win the game. And Beck was able to go out there and win the game. This is what he had to say after the game in the press conference

about what he was telling his teammates before that last series. Yeah, obviously we're sitting there on the sideline. And I'm telling the guys to just, you know, stay in it, stay in it, even though we had just gone down and, you know, scored a touchdown, they obviously were able to respond and they scored as well. So I'm just telling all the guys, you know, stay in it, stay in it. And then they finally score and kind of looked at the guys on the sideline and said, man, this is what we work for, you know, like this is what we live for.

This is why you play the game of football. This is why you come to the University of Miami is for moments like this. To play in these big games, to play, have these big moments and are we going to respond or are we not? we're going to do? You know, I told him I love him. I told him whatever happens that I still love him. I'm proud of him. And I think just looking at the look in everybody's eyes, I kind of felt what was about to go happen. Man, if that's actually what he said, you know, I think that at the postgame podium, you know, it's not always verbatim what's said. And obviously you're going to

clean up, you know, maybe colorful language in there. But if that's what he said, that's like a master class and leadership. It really is. You get them excited and you offer them something like, hey, man, like, this is what we've always wanted. So it takes the pressure away. Not like, we have to do this. No, no, no, this is what we've always wanted. This is why we came here. This is why we chose this. I can't wait for this. So that's a different perspective. That's amazing leadership. And then he says, Hey, by the way, regardless of how this goes, I still love you. I mean, like, that's really good. High-level leadership from Carson Beck right there,

if that's exactly what went on before that last series. And by the way, he played as well as I've seen him play. 15 play drive. He did an amazing job getting the ball out. A lot of crucial third-down conversions. And Ole Miss just couldn't get off the field. They just could not get off the field. So Miami goes down and wins the game,

and now they're going to basically host a national championship. How about that? Those tickets are going to be very hard to get as they will be hosting the national championship in their home stadium. Although I do have a feeling Indiana is going to travel well. They traveled insanely well to the Rose Bowl. You heard that, by the way, in the Peach Bowl, they were, they're loud and strong in Atlanta. And I'm sure they're going to be down there in Miami as well. Okay, on the other side, Ole Miss.

Listen, I know that that's disappointing. and I know that is heartbreaking for Ole Miss and those players. But I have so much respect for that locker room. The respect that I gained for a lot of those players, now I wish I could have covered them. Obviously, I don't cover the SEC, but like, so I don't know those players personally. But just from afar, I can tell you that, like,

as a competitor and a former competitor, I have immense respect for what Ole Miss and those players have been able to do in the last month. I really do. This is a team, and, you know, I don't want to, I know the language is harsh, but like they were abandoned.

Their head coach abandoned them right before the biggest games that they're ever going to play in their life. And the reason that they were there in that room was because they committed to that coach. Like, that is, that is relationally a very hard thing to get over. And the trust is broken and fractured. And that's hard because a lot of team building is trust and a lot of chemistry within a team is built around and centers around trust.

And so who do they trust? What do they trust? Well, I'll tell you what they trust. Each other, each other. And that's what I have immense respect for. And obviously, Pete Golding did a great job. And so I don't want to, I certainly don't want to, you know, make this seem like Pete Golding had nothing to do with this. Because he did. Because he did. And he circled the wagons along with those players. But I will just tell you, having been in locker rooms and played and been around them now for my entire life, really, players own the locker room. Players own the culture. Okay. And the coaches can talk about it. But the players, own it. And in that locker room, you could tell there was a deep respect and love for one another because that's how they played. When you play that hard and that together and that prepared,

even though your coaches are like flying across the country and your head coach abandoned you right before the playoff, and you come out and you play with that level of detail and that level of execution and that level of effort, that shows me that there was. a tremendous amount of quality leadership in that locker room, and namely the quarterback, Trinidad Chambliss. Trinidad Chamblis was phenomenal in the playoffs, really all season long. He was terrific all season long,

and he showed an immense amount of ability on the field. And this guy is a fabulous player, and he's a big reason why, even though they were dominated, they were able to stay in that game and had a chance, even had the lead late in the game until Beck goes down and scores, and then ultimately got down to a position where they had a shot. at the end zone. He was incredible in the playoff.

Trinidad Chambliss, though, I will tell you this. My biggest compliment that I could pay him is that I think that the only thing that exceeded his immense talent on the field was his high character off of it, his strong leadership in the locker room. Because that team is going to follow someone. And if you like it, well, I don't know if you like it or not. but the leader of every team is going to be the quarterback. They just are.

And when a team plays that well under those circumstances, you can look at that guy and you can be like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That guy is a dog right there. That guy owns the locker room. That locker room will do anything for that man because he would do anything for them. And certainly that's the way that he played. And so listen, I just want to like,

I have so much respect for. Trinidad Chambliss. And by the way, Pete Golding does as well. This is Pete Golding after the game talking about Chambliss in his postgame presser. I mean, I've had a soft spot in my heart for him since he got here because he's a D2 boy. And, you know, I said from the very beginning for a guy like that to come with one year, you know, into the SEC, you know, with an offense that was already in place, you know, with a guy that had already signed to be the franchise guy, you know, it just showed his confidence in himself. And, you know, I said, lot of this, you know, to a lot of different people. When he first got here, you didn't even hear

him. You just saw him. And you saw him with his head down, working his ass off, right? And then you started seeing people start gravitating to him. And they wanted to be around them because he works his butt off and he was a good teammate. And he, you know, I mean, he celebrated with Austin and scrimmages when he threw good balls. I mean, it was just you wanted to be around him because of who he was. No, it's just awesome, you know, to see good things happen to good people. and for him to take a chance to come here with a guy in place and for it to work out the way it did for him, I couldn't be happier.

And, you know, he's kind of set a precedent here within one year. It's going to be pretty hard to match. Yeah, that's awesome. I love celebrating those types of stories and certainly going to celebrate Turner at Chambliss. And Pete Golding did a great job in his own right. There's no doubt. And so now Ole Miss will move on.

And I do think that they're in good hands with Pete Golding. Heck, I mean, he has two more playoff wins than his predecessor, which, you know, is something. And we'll see how that plays out moving forward. Now, Chambliss was denied the waiver. They were trying to get a waiver for him to stay and play an extra year and get more eligibility. That was denied. Pending whatever process they would have to continue to fight that, that means that he would move on. I will say this, I know he's not a huge guy, but he plays huge.

and his arm is every bit as strong as anybody else in the country. He's accurate. He's mobile. He makes plays. He made quality decisions. I think Trinidad Chamblis, granted, if he could come back, I would suggest that he did because he could get more experience, just like I'm suggesting with Dante more. But that being said, if he has to go to the NFL, like, I think that he is as good of a player as you're going to find at that position. Now, obviously not the number one pick.

and there needs to be some refinement in his game, but he's got the skill set to go on and succeed at the next level. And one of the things that they're going to look at is exactly what I was explaining earlier, which is what he's like in the locker room as a leader. If you needed him to be a franchise quarterback at some point in the NFL, he could be. He absolutely could be because he showed you that type of character, integrity, competitive will in this playoff and in this playoff run.

Last thing on that game before we go forward. Miami, they're playing great right now. There's no doubt. This is exactly how Mario wants to play, and now they're going to get a chance to play for a national championship in their backyard in their home stadium, if you will. They were great on third down against Ole Miss. I thought they were great in particular when they're in seven or less situations.

So, like, run the football. Be patient. Do those things. if they make mistakes, if they get impatient on series, if they play the way that they did against Ole Miss, they will be beat by that Indiana team, period. Indiana is too good. They are suffocatingly good.

Indiana has seen the best. They have beaten the best. They have beaten all the top five opponents that they have seen. Miami is playing great. There's no doubt. And they played clean against Ohio State. And they will have to mimic that game again. Bain and Mesidor, and we'll see how healthy Mesidor is,

obviously with that elbow brace that he had on during the course of the game, Fletcher's going to have to be great. Bain and Mesidor are going to have to be great. Everybody on Miami is going to have to contribute and they're going to have to play their best game if they want to beat Indiana. Because Indiana will not beat themselves. They just won't. They just won't.

The college football national championship game is officially set with Indiana and Miami matching up in Miami. That's why I need to tell you about my special hookup from today's sponsor. seat geek. Everyone can use my code, Clat 100, and get $100 off tickets on Seat Geek to the championship game, whether you're a new customer or not. Seat Geek rates on a scale of 1 to 10. So look for the green dots. Green means good, red means bad, keep looking. Plus, every ticket is backed by their buyer guarantee. So no matter how many times you've bought tickets using Seatgeek before, code Clat 100 is going to get you $100 off your tickets. So if you want to go to the National Championship,

take out your phone right now, open the Seatgeek app and add code Clat 100 to your account to help with those tickets. Thank you to Seatgeek for sponsoring today's show. All right, last thing before we get out of here. Um, you know, this is, and, and as you know, I have a, I have, and this is what sucks about the fact that certain networks have specific deals with conferences, is that if you work for those networks, then you get labeled as like, well, you're just a Big Ten guy, or you're just an SEC guy or so on and so forth. And so conference bias is something that's talked a lot about in college football circles. Heck, there's whole articles written about it.

You can go online and you can read about it. like, who's the most biased and towards which conference and so on and so forth? Part of that is because we live in silos in college football. That's not new information if you've listened to this show at all. But part of the issue is that when you live in silos, then you want your silo to be the best silo because that's our human nature. So the fact that we are fragmented in college football is not just bad for the overall structure the sport, although it has been. But it's also bad because everybody within the sport

competes for the top spot. So everyone wants to be perceived as the best silo, obviously. And so for a long time, there's been this unspoken and yet very public and spoken contest about who's the best conference, right? And for a long time in this century, in the last couple of decades, There was one conference that was pretty clearly the best conference. By every metric, they were dominating the other conferences in college football, and that was the SEC. It didn't matter if you measured their championships, players drafted, record against the other conferences,

in particular in postseason play. They were dominating. And the sport was centered in the South. It really was. And the SEC was the best conference. Now, that has obviously. shifted, and yet the narrative has not. The narrative has not, because those in that silo still want to retain that narrative desperately, desperately. Has to be. It's the gauntlet of the SEC.

It's the best conference in the world. Obvious. Look at what we do. Look at what we. Even though they're the conference that still just plays eight conference games, even though they're the conference that has not even participated in a national championship. game now for three straight years. And when you look at the metrics, the draft is changing, in particular in the first round. Look at the last few years. It is not as drastic as it used to be, and in fact, it's equating out. The record is where this thing actually goes off the rails for the SEC after making it to the title game in eight straight seasons. Again, dominant. It'll now be three straight without a team in the CFP Championship game.

The SEC went 1 and 8 versus non-SEC power four teams this postseason. One and 8. That's staggering. Since Georgia won their last title in 2022, that was a game over TCU here in L.A. and Sofa Stadium, the SEC is 2 and 7 in the college football playoff, versus other power four teams including Notre Dame, and they are 0 and 4 against the Big 10. So at this point, it's not even like, this is not an opinion.

The data is telling us something very clearly about the strength of college football in our country. And it's that it does not reside in the SEC. Those are the facts based on the data. championships, drafts, postseason record. There's nothing else we can go on because we can't just take your word for it. And if you will remember, I mean, there was a strong push from some in our sport and some networks with deep relationships with the SEC about, well, maybe there should be seven SEC teams in the college football playoff.

Well, that's a problem. That's a problem because it is clearly not the case that the strength resides in that conference. It's just not. The data bears that out. I'm not even arguing for another conference right now. I'm just arguing against this narrative that the SEC is a gauntlet, that it has to be rewarded and that it has to be given the benefit of the doubt. That narrative needs to die.

It needs to die a quick death. Now, I said that last year. I'm saying it again this year because it hurts the sport. we barely got Miami into this playoff, barely. I mean, barely got Miami into this playoff. Why? Because of narrative.

Because that conference had to have at least minimum five because it's the gauntlet. Well, listen, no, it's not. I'm sorry, it's not. The play on the field has been very clearly shifting for a long time. The Big Ten is better at the top

than the SEC, and that's not just me saying that. That's what the data tells us. That's what the records tell us. That's what the scoreboards tell us. What's clear is that the Big Ten has dominated when it's mattered. They're four and O in the playoff of the last three seasons. They're a game away from their third straight national championship.

And maybe, maybe, maybe, just maybe. What would be better for the sport is if we started to step outside of our silos and stop arguing about who's the best silo. because when we do that, all we do is point fingers and nobody looks at fixing the entirety of the sport. Nobody does. So as we argue for our silo to be so good, I want this conference, that conference. Well, guess what happens in the meantime? No one's looking out for the overarching product.

And we see that with the lack of a broken structure. We see, or with a broken structure, we see that with a broken calendar. We see that because we can't get a CBA done. We can't get Congress to give us antitrust exemptions. We can't do a lot of things. We're playing semi-final games on a Thursday and Friday night. Why? Because the structure of our sport is broken.

More on this next week, by the way. But what I'm telling you is that we can probably start to fix these things if we stop yelling about who's the best. We need to do that. And it needs to stop quickly. The gauntlet talk needs to go away. I don't want to hear it. SEC coaches who text me about the gauntlet, stop it.

Stop it. Iowa just dropped a 30 burger on your darling Vanderbilt. Get out of my face. And that'll do it for tonight's show. We're going to be back next Tuesday. We won't have a show on Monday. So you can listen to this one throughout the weekend. You can share it with your friends,

all this reaction to the semifinals. And then on Tuesday, we're going to be dropping another show here, a new Joel Clash show. I will be breaking down the entire portal news, NIL news, movement news, DeMond Williams, everything going on in the portal. I'm going to talk about it. That's coming out on Tuesday. So be back for that one. If you have not subscribed to the show, go ahead and subscribe so you know when we drop episodes. And then also, if you would, if you would leave us a review wherever you're listening, if you're an audio product, that would be great.

you can follow us on social media. You can do that at Joel Clashio. We'll be back on Tuesday. I cannot wait until then. And then we're going to crown a champion here in not too many days. What is it? Ten days from now, we're going to be crowning a champion on a Monday night because, of course, we would play a college national championship on a Monday night. We'll be back on Tuesday, everybody. I hope you have a great weekend.