The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Is Alabama the best team ever?

Episode Date: November 9, 2018

Alabama's historic season, Oklahoma's dominant offense, Notre Dame's huge game vs. Syracuse at Yankee Stadium and Clemson standing out in a subpar ACC headline this week's Breaking the Huddle. Finally, Joel tells you why Preseason Rankings must go away next season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, hey, hey, what's going on? A lovely college football week as we get into November here. This is Breaking the Huddle. I'm Joel Clatt. This is sponsored by Dr. Pepper. Remember at every home gate and tailgate? It is the one that fans crave. So today what we're going to do is I'm going to give you my top 10 teams in the country

and I'm going to give you a little dissertation about how I arrived there and why I have some teams in this ranking as opposed to some other teams that are in the top 10 by the human polls, not with mine. Okay, there's also another thing I'm going to be talking about quite a lot today, and that is the margin between what the computers say about a team and what the committee is saying about a team. What you're going to see is there are some teams right now that are overrated by a wide margin. That's why I'm not going to have them in the top 10, and quite frankly, I wouldn't have them anywhere near the top 25, but we'll get to that in just a little bit. Let's start with the number 10 team in the country as I see it right now and it's LSU.

And I feel a little dirty about this one. I don't want to have LSU in my top 10, quite frankly, not after what they did last week. And honestly, they haven't been great all year long. Here's the problem. There's nobody else. I'm either leaving number 10 blank or LSU is number 10 because I don't believe in a lot of these teams that come in at like 11, 12, 13. You've got your Kentucky's of the world, your Syracuses of the world, your UCFs of the world. And candidly, while UCF is having a great season, I just don't think that they're a top 10 team.

I would probably put them somewhere around the 15 mark. You know, UCF loves to hate on me, and I get it, I understand it. You can call me a UCF hater. I don't think that I am. I think that UCF is one of the top two, if not the best group of five team in the country. That should land you right around number 15 in the country. So their official Twitter account can take all the shots that they want, but they're going to get slapped down because that's what happens. LSU, on the other hand, is at number 10.

And the reason is because they have played one of, if not the most difficult schedule in the country. And they're still just a two-loss team. Last week, they were awful. I mean, awful. And part of that is that Alabama is great. And part of that is that LSU is what we've thought they were all season. Remember, all season long, what have I been telling you about LSU's offense? They can't play very consistent football.

What did they not do last week? They did not play consistent football. They could not gain any yards. They could not sustain any drives. And Joe Burrow looked panicked most of the day, usually trying to run out of the pocket before he needed to and before he would get even past his first or second read. Getting shut out at home by any opponent is bad.

It's a little bit more understandable when it's Alabama, even though Alabama's defense is not quite as dominant as what we have seen in the past. So LSU stays in the top 10, mainly on the strength of their overall schedule and the fact that they're still just a two-loss team. That's why they're at number 10 right now. If I was basing this on the way that they played last week, obviously they wouldn't be in. All right, number nine, I've got Washington State. And I will give you a caveat that this is, the computers would suggest, one of the most overrated teams in the country. Their win-loss record puts them here.

The fact that they would be even higher if the officials could do their job more specifically the replay booth could do their job in that game against USC. Now all of a sudden is under the microscope. Having said that, listen, this team, they play really well in big moments. Okay, so their defense is better than you would expect. Tracy Clay's is their defensive coordinator. He was the head coach at Minnesota a couple of years ago. And Alex Scrinch moved on. He's an assistant now for Ohio State.

Clay's is doing a lot of the same things that Alex Grinch did last year to kind of revitalize the Washington State defense. So now they can play great defense. Not great, but they can play well on the defense aside. And then they've got Gardner-Minscher who's making plays in big moments. Hey, this guy's in the Heisman race. You got to love the stash, man. You got to love it. I love his swagger. I love what he's about. He's very accurate with the football. And here's the other thing that he does that in the first year being in this offense, I'm both jealous and very excited for him about. He makes quick decisions, man. You can tell he's letting it rip. That's a confident guy when it comes to the schematics of what he's doing on that side of the

football. However, I told you they were one of the most overrated teams as it relates to the computers. Let me give you that set of data. First of all, if you take the FPI, which is in the ESPN mark, the SAGRAN ratings, and the S&P Plus, three really respected computer rankings, what you'll get is that Washington State averages out between those three to be the 21st, 22nd ranked team in the country. That means that right now they are a plus 13. The committee put them 13 spots higher than the average of the three computer poles. I'm also putting them up there pretty high. I don't have them as high as the committee.

The committee has them at eight. I have them at nine. So I'm doing the exact same thing the committee is doing, which is overrating Washington State. Why? because I'm not putting Kentucky there. That would be crazy. Okay, now let's get into it, the meat of it. Ohio State is at number eight.

Okay, so Ohio State had a few glaring problems after that large loss to Purdue. One of them was the fact that they did not run the football very well for really, ever since the Oregon State game, then you go from the second game on to the Purdue loss. They could not run the football very effectively or very consistently. They were able to do that against Nebraska

after that off week. They did a nice job running it over 200 yards. J.K. Dobbins had a couple of big runs late in that ball game. They emphasized two things. Physicality and scheme. Okay, so they thought that their offensive line just needed a more physical mentality and through the bi-week, they emphasized that and they got it against Nebraska. They also wanted that physicality out of their running backs. Mike Webins and J.K. Dobbins, they were challenged to take the extra defender in the box and beat them. It's one-on-one. Beat them. Be more physical than they are. Be more elusive than they are. And they were

to do that. Some big runs late to run out that clock. It still was not perfect. A five-point win at home against a two-win team is not a solid look for the Ohio State Buckeyes. In particular, when you got Michigan on the horizon at the end of November. All right, that's a team that I'm going to see this week. We'll see if they can run the ball against Michigan State. We'll see if Duane Haskins can maybe continue to play at a high level, even though he threw a pick in the red zone last week, and we'll see if the defense can improve. Remember, far too many big plays, and they allowed some of those against Nebraska, in particular on some trick plays. Nebraska would roll out one way, throw back the other way,

and they would lose some coverage in those spots. They're getting healthier in the back end, so you're going to see a guy like Jeffrey Akuta back there, Isaiah Prior. They'll be more healthy in the back end, so we'll see how they can play this week. But Ohio State, they're going to stay at number eight because they're still a one-lost team, and they still can play their best football down the stretch. And that's something that I'd be concerned about if I was Michigan,

that that team can get right late in the season. All right, West Virginia, how about that win? What? Will Greer dropped a dime on Gary Jennings in the back end of the end zone, man. I tell you what. And how good was it? Hey, West Virginia fans, don't you want Gus Johnson calling all of your games? I do too, right?

I get to sit next to the guy. I was just sitting there admiring that call of that last touchdown. Really gutsy performance. And listen, I don't want to take anything away from Texas because I thought Texas played a great game offensively as well. Both defenses struggled at times. They got a few fourth down stops in the second half. But my goodness, man, you talk about coming up clutch when your best is needed.

Will Greer. You are legit. I think you should go to New York, man. That's just all I'm saying. Maybe not win the trophy. We'll see what happens down the stretch here, in particular when you faced another one of those favorites in Kyler Murray the last week of the season. But Will Greer, you and your brothers with your millions of Instagram followers, you are legit. That throw, there has not been many great throws like that.

Sam Darnold in the Rose Bowl two years ago against Penn State had a throw similar to that kind of down the middle of the field. Donald again did that to Texas on a fourth downplay in the Coliseum last year. You're talking about like these epic great throws. Mayfield has had a couple of those. Greer steps up. He's off balance, first of all, he's kind of off balance and he throws a ball directly over Gary Jennings' shoulder and drops it in the bucket at the back of the end zone. What? So good. I'm still so excited about it. Now the next part that I was so excited about, the two-point conversion. Gus looked at me like I had 18 heads in the booth when I said pretty quickly after the touchdown, I said, hey, you know Dana's going to go for two.

And he's like, what? He maybe didn't say it that way. But he looked at me like this and I was like, yeah, here we go. Here's the reason why. West Virginia fans, you are probably on the same page with Dana Holgerson, and you know that for two years you've been waiting for this group of players and for this stretch of games. You've been waiting for Greer to get more experience. You've been waiting for the defense to get more experience. You've been waiting for this group of wide receivers to play in November against this schedule on the road against Texas.

You've got TCU this week, and you've got Oklahoma State down the road. You've got Oklahoma at home in Morgantown. This is your chance to win the Big 12. So yeah, Dana was going for two. He's not going for a tie. He wanted the game in the hands of his best player, Will Greer, with options all around him. And here were the options. He had an empty set. He had three wide receivers on the far side of the field. And that was kind of a three receiver screen set. If he gets two defenders over that, he's going to throw the wide receiver screen out to that right side.

Then he's got a slot receiver just inside of those three on the outside. That slot receiver is called a stick route. It's kind of a little out. He can even come inside. depending on the defense's leverage. If he's got a one-on-one that he likes, he's going to throw that sticker out to the slot player on his right side. Then he's got his best receiver on the left side. Okay, that's David Sills. If he gets one-on-one right there, he's just going to throw a quick slant, which he did right before Tom Herman called the timeout. I had circled him. The defensive look was perfect. He had the match-up, boom, he hits him. Herman calls an unbelievable timeout.

That was a great timeout by Tom Herman. They come out, and all of a sudden they put another defender on that side. So now it's two on one over here. He's got one-on-one over the slot and he maybe can throw the screen, but really the defenders are playing solid leverage. So what does he do? Runs it in. I love it. By the way, Tom Herman and I think is a great coach and I really have liked meeting him and getting to know him in our meetings. Come on, man. Like you're looking for a celebration penalty because he stuck the ball out at the one yard line. I mean, that's a stretch. That's a stretch beyond stretches. And by the way, he was flagged for Horns Down,

which is what gave Texas the chance to potentially win the game after they got the ball at the 40 after the kickoff. They had the win. If Texas would have executed a play outside of the numbers, Ellinger held on to the ball for 12 seconds, and then all of a sudden they only had one second left. You got a chance to complete the ball, get out of bounds, and kick a field goal.

I thought the penalty on Will Greer gave Texas a shot to win the game. So it was called, and it did get. give you an advantage to some degree, Tom. That was a long dissertation to tell you. I've got West Virginia at number seven, and I loved that game. Loved it. All right, Georgia is going to be at number six. I really like Georgia. I think offensively, they're solid, in particular, running the football. And then here's what you have to pay attention to. I didn't think Fromm was playing his greatest early in the year. Now all of a sudden, I think he's getting back to what we saw late last season, in particular in that Rose Bowl against Oklahoma. He's

more consistent on third down. And Bulldog fans, I know you know what I'm talking about. When you watch from on third down, now what you're seeing is a high completion rate, you get a high conversion rate, and you're actually scoring touchdowns in those categories more so than not. I thought he was terrific in those areas. In fact, they scored, I believe it was three touchdowns on three, four touchdowns maybe, on three third down plays against Florida a couple weeks ago. Kentucky wasn't really a match for you. You and I both know it. Kentucky's not that grade of a football team. Solid defense, that's fine, but they're a one-handed team.

That team should not be in the top ten, probably not anywhere close to the top ten, one of the more overrated teams in the country. But you did what you needed to do, which was win your division and get yourself back to Atlanta. I hate to say this, but everybody in the country, outside of maybe your fan base and then like the core SEC fans are rooting against you. because the last thing any of us want to see from outside of the SEC footprint is Alabama lose the SEC championship game and then the committee just throw them in at number four and knock all the other teams out that just have one loss. So great year, but no one's rooting for you right now to win your back-to-back SEC title.

That's just the way it is. No one's rooting for you from this point on. Maybe not from this point on, but certainly in that game. Okay, at number five, I've got OU. OU offensively is dominant. Kyler Murray throwing a couple of interceptions early in that ball game against Tech. Even with Tech having a really solid offense, minus their quarterback per se, Oklahoma was still able to come out offensively and dominate the game. Their defense is suspect. What we saw against, what was it, the game that I did against Kansas State, the game against TCU, we thought their defense was

improving under Ruff and McNeil. That was more so a volume-based thing. Remember, they saw 55 snaps and 53 snaps in those ball games from their defense. And that's why the yardage was down. That defense did not improve last week. When you're faced with a team that can actually get on the outside, spread you out, and throw the ball around, they still struggled. So guess what? OU, your best chance is Notre Dame getting beat by Syracuse,

and then get into that top four, and then you're going to have to beat Alabama 62 to 60, because you're not stopping them. I'm sorry. I've tried for too long. Listen, I've put you at number three. You're at five. Your defense, you just can't do it on defense.

You just can't. All right, I got Michigan at number four. I really wanted to put them above Notre Dame because right now, Michigan's playing better than Notre Dame. The computers will tell you that, your eyes will tell you that, but the bottom line is you gotta give Notre Dame the credit for beating Michigan in week one. So that's why Michigan is number four.

This is the best defense in the country. Maybe by a wide margin. As good as Alabama is and separating themselves out, Michigan's defense is separating itself out. They are a great rush in the passer, stopping the run, great against the past, number one against the past for now the third straight year. They've got experienced veteran players out there that are going to be in the NFL, and they got their dude back. Yep, Roshan Gary was back on the field and that's scary because they were

dominating people without him. Now he gets on the field and they're even better. Look at what they did to Michigan State. I mean, they drilled Michigan State. Then they come back and drill Penn State. I mean, drilled Penn State. Well done right there. Notre Dame as an undefeated, the benefit of the doubt right there. Biggest game for them moving forward. I think Syracuse in a neutral side at Yankee Stadium that can be interesting even though I don't think Syracuse is all that good. Notre Dame continues to play these tight ball games and the more you do that, the more you have a chance of slipping up, turning the ball over at the wrong time and losing. They're not playing their best football, but they're undefeated and if they remain undefeated,

they're going to go to the playoff. Clemson is unreal right now. Their last four games, they're winning by an average of 51 points. They're outscoring their opponent on average 60 to 9 in their last four games. Partly, the ACC is hot garbage. The other part of that, Clemson's really good, defensively and offensively, probably the most balanced team of the country, fourth and scoring offense, fourth and scoring defense. They're great on the defensive line. In fact, they lead the country and rush yards against and rush yards four per play. Okay, so that's a good team. And all the models that you would give out, Clemson's the only one with a chance against Alabama, literally the only one.

Alabama beats everybody in the country by two touchdowns minimum, except for Clemson. And the models actually dictate that Clemson would be about a three-point game in that one. Alabama is number one. Why? Because they are dominant. Unless two gets hurt, unless Jerry Judy gets hurt, unless something happens where that offense can't score 50 points, they're probably going to win the national championship. pains me to say that this early because, listen, any given Saturday, that type of mentality. But the bottom line is this. Alabama is a dumb. dominant football team. And if they continue to play this way and they continue to win this way,

they will be considered the greatest team to ever be on the college football field. They've already got the greatest coach in the history of the game. They're in the midst of the greatest run that I've seen of dominance, a decade of dominance, and this one might be his best team. It's going to take a herculean effort for somebody. Michigan might have a one in 10 chance to beat them. If they held the ball for 40 minutes, got three turnovers and held them down, something like Army did to Oklahoma earlier in the year, Clemson would be about four out of ten. So that gives you an idea. I used to think Oklahoma, but like I said, they would have to beat them 62 to 60 because that defense ain't stopping anybody right now.

All right, so I have long held the opinion that we need to do away with preseason rankings. And I have got the reason why that has to happen ASAP, like next year. years. Why Miami is patient zero. They're affecting everything. All right now in the rankings, the committee is continuing to overrate the ACC by a staggering margin, by the way. And I included Clemson in this data, which brought the averages way down. Here we go. So I took the FPI, ESPN's FPI, the Sagan ratings, and the S&P Plus. Those are three computer models that rank teams. And then I averaged out what these teams are. the computer ranking. So you get a computer average about where you should sit in the national

ranking order of teams top to bottom, one to 130. Then I measured that number against where the committee ranks you. And I came up with where you're at in terms of a margin plus or minus from where the committee ranks you from where the computers rank you. Here's what the numbers suggest. that the ACC is overrated by about 17 spots. That's the entire ACC. That's including Clemson, which is right where all the computers have them. They're ranked number two by the committee and number two by all of the computers. Okay, so you take the next three teams, Syracuse, North Carolina, State, and Boston College.

And if you strip Clemson away, those teams are overrated by 23 spots on average, from where their computer models show to where the community. Mitty put them. Well, why is this? Why is this? It can't just be Frank Beamer is the loudest voice in the room, right? Right? Then I boiled it down. It's Miami. It's preseason rankings. Everyone always tells me they don't matter. Don't worry. It's this and that. Yes, they do. Our confirmation bias is staggering in college football and it's seeping into the college football playoff rankings. Look at this. If you just view Miami as patient zero, What will you find?

All of the teams that are overrated right now in the top 25 or most of them have a tie to Miami. How? Well, let's start with this. LSU continues to be overrated even after getting drilled at home by Alabama, getting shut out, outgained by almost 300 yards, and yet they're still in the top 10. Why? Well, their schedule has been so difficult. And they've got all those top 10 wins against ranked at teams.

One of them was Miami! Miami. In the first week of the season, Miami is a four-loss team right now that has losses to Duke, Virginia, LSU, and Boston College. Duke and Virginia, that Miami team is not very good, so LSU is overrated based on Miami. And then you get to the ACC portion of this, by the way. Here's where it starts. Boston College beats Miami. North Carolina State beats Boston College. Syracuse beats North Carolina State. It's the exact order that you see these teams in the rankings. Syracuse is 13, North Carolina State is 14, Boston College is 17. And where does it all go back to? Miami and the preseason rankings.

Tell me I'm wrong. I feel like I feel like I'm playing cards with my brother's kids right now. Can it be this simple that we continue to overrate teams in the preseason and then allow that to seep into our analysis during the course of the regular season? Because that's what it suggests here. The data bears out that some of the most overrated teams in the country are Syracuse, North Carolina State, and Boston College. They play eight conference games, which is a large reason why they only have two losses.

One of those teams, North Carolina State, had a game canceled against West Virginia, which would have certainly been their third loss of the season. Why are they rated so high? People can ask me or tell me all they want that it doesn't matter. It just matters what the top four is. Here's why that's wrong. When you go to turkey dinner and Thanksgiving dinner, what's the most important part of the meal? The gravy, right?

We all know it, and the gravy recipe is so important because it's not perfect every time, right? You can mix a little of this and you mix a little of that and how do you make it and what pan do you make it in and how much of the turkey fat do you cook it in and all of that is important, right? Well, if you change the recipe, you change the gravy. You change the most important part of the meal. The top four in the college football playoff committee rankings are the gravy. And we continually mess with the recipe down below it. That committee is messing with the recipe right now, folks.

And the seasoning is Miami.