The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - J.J. McCarthy’s rise, Nabers vs Harrison Jr, evaluating Michael Penix Jr & more with Daniel Jeremiah

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

Fox Sports’ lead college football analyst Joel Klatt welcomes NFL Network Draft Analyst Daniel Jeremiah to discuss the top players in the upcoming NFL Draft. The pair discuss how Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy has risen up draft boards. They also give their evaluations of Washington’s Michael Penix Jr and discuss where he could land on Draft night. They discuss the battle for the top Wide Receiver spot as LSU’s Malik Nabers and Washington’s Rome Odunze look to overtake Ohio State’s Marvin Harrison Jr. Both analysts provide potential Day 2 prospects that have impressed them in the evaluation process. Later, Klatt makes a big announcement regarding the Ohio State and Michigan Spring Football games next month before concluding the podcast by giving the results of the show's bench press weightlifting challenge. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If I wanted to pick one spot where I think he would immediately not only make them better but flourish, I cannot stop thinking about Miami. Oh, gosh. I cannot stop thinking about Miami. You're going to get, oh, man, the two of folks are kind of after you. I know, and they have. College football has never been better. Interest has never been higher.

Believe that we are at the dawn of the golden age of college football. It was an epic day of college football. It was one of those days where you fall. in love with the sport all over again. Hey, everybody, welcome into the show. This is the Joel Clatt show. I am Joel Clatt. I am super excited for this episode because we have a huge episode for you today.

We're going to have Daniel Jeremiah on, and I've got two major announcements, major announcements after our conversation at the end of the show that I will be bringing to you. So make sure to stay tuned for that. Remember to follow the show wherever you get your podcast. remember to follow and subscribe to the show on YouTube, become a subscriber, and then comment below. I like to jump in the comments from time to time. If you're on social media, wherever you like to social media, go ahead and follow us there at Joel Clat Show. And you can get all of our content.

And all of that content right now centers around the NFL draft because that's coming up. And that's where I'll be working with this guy. And one of the best guys in the entire business from the NFL network, my friend, DJ, Daniel Jeremiah joins the Joel Klaz show. DJ, what's up, buddy? I'm doing great, buddy. I'm looking forward to our annual tradition, which is not only this visit that we have here, but it's us on a golf cart getting ushered to the stage, the set. And people, if they, you know, there's lined up, there's people, there's a sea of humanity, and they see a Joel and myself on there. And we're in an intense conversation.

And I think they're probably guessing we're going, hey, who do you think is going to be the first pick, the fifth pick. And it really is just, Joel, I don't understand how your suit. It looks so comfortable. It's like it's a sweat suit. But yet it's really a suit. Like you can dress it up. You can dress it down. Tell me about this thing. When you travel, does it wrinkle? I mean, these are these are the conversations we're having on that golf cart. That is that is a hundred percent honesty right there, DJ, because our entire conversation. And last year, it was like a 20 minute golf ride. It was a long ride. It was a I know way too much about your wardrobe. I know way. too much. Oh, that's good stuff. I absolutely love it. All right, DJ, let's get into it. You have been busy, obviously. Now, coming out of the combine and getting prepped for the actual

draft itself, will be live in Detroit. Rich Eisen will be hosting, will be there along with Charles Davis, you and myself. You have your mock draft three out. You chose chaos, as you like to say on Twitter. And I want to start there because I think that this draft has probably more intrigue than a lot of the drafts that we've covered. And the reason is, and this is, we always talk about this, the volume of quarterbacks and the quarterbacks drive the conversation. You've been talking about it a lot. I've obviously been talking about it a lot. You chose chaos because these quarterbacks are going to drive chaos. Can you give us a sense based on the conversations you're having around the league about how valuable they deem these five,

six guys at the top of the draft in the quarterback room? Well, I think there's a lot of love for them. And I think there's a disconnect this year between and just listening to the conversation that's taking place on like talk radio or different spots. They are pushing back on this narrative that we could see, you know, four quarterbacks go in the top 10. And I think the biggest reason, Joel, and I'm curious to get your take on it. But I don't think that they can figure out J.J. McCarthy.

I think it blows their minds. They don't get it. They say, well, look, I've watched Michigan play. You know, you were doing a bunch of those games. I mean, this is the biggest game of the week. Every week, Michigan goes on a run to a national championship. And I just never thought that that team ran through J.J. McCarthy. And they can't wrap their minds around the fact that J.J. McCarthy could be the fourth quarterback to go in the top 10.

And I'm telling them, I'm like, trust me, I talk to these teams all the time. I know what these coaches. I know what these general managers think of this guy. and the more you watch him, he's an acquired taste, the more you appreciate some of the things he does, especially when you get in third and seven plus when you watch that cut up. And I think that there's the need there,

so you have demand, and then we have legitimate supply that you can sell. So I think it's going to happen. I think we're going to see these guys go off the board quick. So DJ, the number is 16. I called 16 Michigan games in the last three years. since J.J. McCarthy stepped foot on their campus, I've watched him live 16 times, which is an absurd amount, obviously. But it's a really interesting, I would say, perspective that I have because I saw him as this just wet behind the ears freshman that they were giving spot, you know, time to, along with Cade McNamara.

And then I saw this guy that eventually won the job, but was still very raw. and then this product that we saw towards the end of his last season as a starter. And I can tell you that he grew a lot from the pocket. I'm not telling you anything you didn't see on the tape. But I would echo exactly what you're talking about. What talk radio and what fans can't get over is what they see. And what they see is this Michigan team that was a bit of a machine. And they're going to run the football, for example, 32 straight times against Penn State.

Now, granted, they threw a pass that ended up being a pass in her, So that was negated. But they run the ball 32 times and they're like, well, an elite quarterback would never have to run the ball 32 times. Well, what they don't understand is they weren't going to block Chop Robinson. So in the first two series of the game, Chop Robinson runs around their right tackle twice. And they just like abandoned the passing. You don't need to. Why do it?

But it wasn't because of JJ. And this is what they can understand. And then the last thing that I would say on JJ. to have the talent that he did and to just do whatever the team wanted him to do to win, I was always most impressed with that. Because when I would talk to him, I would be like, hey, like, do you ever, like, want to throw it more? And he would look at me dead in the eyes. And with all sincerity, he would just say, I will do whatever it takes to win.

And I was like, okay. And if he said that to those teams, which I'm sure he did in Indianapolis, or in any of their private meetings. I'm sure that they're seeing what I saw, which was a guy that was totally committed and really good. His ability level, I think speaks for itself. Yeah, I think this is a discussion that happens every year, though, Joe, do you remember with Trayvon Walker and trying to tell people like,

this guy is going to go much higher than you think to the point where he went all the way up to the number one pick in the draft? Yeah. But you look at the stat sheet and you go, gosh, you only have four sacks. You know, what's the, I don't get it. This doesn't make sense to me. And I think that's it's something I'd try and remind not only others, but I remind myself about this too, which is the job of these teams and our job, you know, to a lesser extent when we are doing this, the draft evaluation and evaluating players. Our job is not to evaluate performance.

Our job is projection. Because if that were the case, if it was just based off performance, we could all print out the stat sheet and we would draft whoever had the most touchdown passes and whoever had the most sack. but the job is to see how these players are going to be once they play really a completely different sport in the NFL where things change. And I think with J.J. McCarthy, you look at him and say he's got a live arm. He's incredibly smart. He's tough. He's athletic. He can move around.

Like all those things. I don't need him to fill up a stat sheet to know that a lot of the things that he has in his toolbox translate well to the next level. And I mean, that's just one of the quarterbacks. I know you started with a broader discussion of the quarterback class in general. I think that's an example of it. I think that's an example of the disconnect a little bit there. Okay. So if you haven't seen my mock draft 2.0, go check it out.

It's on the show. DJ's got three of them out, 3.0. Go check that out. You can check out all of his stuff at Move the Sticks on Twitter. You can find that, his podcast, Move the Sticks. Go listen to it. It's the best in the business. There's no doubt.

DJ, you had all four of the first four picks going quarterback. So I would love to get, and by the way, I had four of the first five. We both have the Vikings trading up. I traded them to five. You traded them all the way to four to take McCarthy. So we both have the Vikings taking McCarthy. Let's go above that, if you don't mind. I know that we're kind of going backwards a little bit.

But the Vikings are clearly gearing up to make a move. I think that that's obvious. In my mind, the commanders and patriots are sitting there and they can't move because they've got to take. their quarterback. They can't trade out of that pick and just again, roll the dice on who's going to be taking snaps when they've got guys like Drake May and Jaden Daniels sitting in front of them. Look, I'm with you on that. I've been saying that's what makes the most sense. But there's, look, there's a lot of information out there when you studied. There's been a bunch of stuff said and reported over the last, really over the last couple weeks of the failure of the top five quarterbacks, you know, top five picks. you know, top five pick quarterbacks over the last several years. The batting average has not been very high because the thought process is, you're going to bad teams.

So the thought there is, well, let's do what the Bears did. Let's try and trade down and make the roster better so that we do take the quarterback. We have the foundation in place. And my thing is the Bears, God bless them, they pick the right trade partner because the Carolina Panthers had completely gutted their team, which then fetched them the first overall pick to then be able to take the quarterback here where they are this year. I just feel like there's no guarantees you're going to be up there again. As much as you like to trade down and accumulate picks and build out the rest of your

roster, there's no guarantee you're going to be employed long enough for that to happen. And there's no guarantee you're going to be in striking position to get a player of that talent. So even though the recent history isn't kind, I would be surprised if any of those top three teams got out of there. There's been some talk about Drake May. And that's where I'll drive this. Because I don't think that you and I would have a very interesting discussion about Caleb Williams.

We both think he's a really great player. Maybe it would be interesting. Maybe not. I didn't think he tackled very well. I mean, I think he played very good defense. True story, Joel. I've gotten very disciplined in my old age now to the point where I don't, for the most part, I leave it alone. But there's definitely type it out and delete it moments.

And that was one of them. when I posted two throws from the regular season game of Utah and SC from 22. Yes. And two plays, unbelievable plays from Caleb. And the guy literally his comment was. I saw one of them you said like, well, you talked about, look at what happens when he has a number one wide receiver. Yeah. He's third and 15.

He rips a dig to Jordan Addison. It's such a good. It's ridiculous. Ridiculous. And then he has another one where he escapes out to the right, has enough awareness to know he's getting towards the line of scrimmage. and just floats one just with unbelievable touch over the top for wins up being a big play. So I post these two plays. And the response I get is, yeah, and they lost that game.

Couldn't beat Utah. And I literally, I started typing up 363 yards, five touchdown passes. He had like 50 yards rushing. Sorry, he lost 43 to 42. He should have tackled better. Like, I don't know even what do I, what do you do with that? I was, I reserved enough. I did not, I did not post it, but I was my thought.

I my memory is so bad when I really want something who was the tight end that had like a million catches for Utah it's like I'm sorry that oh yeah king Kate cancade yeah don't Kincaid had I think I'm actually I was like 19 catches or something crazy like he had an amazing game and it's like sorry Caleb Williams didn't defend the tight end better but you know I digress I want to take it to Drake May because there's I hear the chatter about Drake May and people are like, I don't know about Drake May. Let me just give you my thought on Drake May. I saw him, I covered him live and I always skewed by the games that I covered. I've told you that before, right?

Because I'm not trained like you are from a scout's perspective. I am swayed if I'm in the booth and I watch someone do something great. I'm like, okay, I'm in. And I covered the Holiday Bowl when he plays Oregon. And he made three or four throws in that game, eluding someone in a tight space in a phone booth and then ripping something in in another you know phone booth a dinner plate window down the field down the middle of the field to make throws against what i know was a really good defense that organ had and i'm just in like i think

drake may is any other year when caleb williams isn't the the consensus unanimous number one pick i think drake may is absolutely number one pick material that's where i sit well i mean i just, I think sometimes people think there's a perfect prospect or they think that all of the picture is going to be colored in and that's not how this works. You have to take into account the surrounding. And I think with Drake and I would even put Caleb back into that conversation of the surrounding cast that they had was such a drop off from what LSU had in place. So like we can get into that, that whole debate and that whole discussion there.

But let's just look at the things that we know with Caleb and this or with, with Drake. With Drake, I know size, that's irrefutable. He's got outstanding size. He's got a big time arm, a live arm, that's irrefutable. He's an outstanding athlete, not only as a, you know, you can use him in design quarterback runs. You can move the pocket. He's got a creative gene to him to be able to make things happen.

Like, those things are all irrefutable. And then when you talk to the folks at the school and you hear incredibly, incredibly bright, incredibly tough leader, I'm like, this is the foundation. Now, there's some footwork stuff that gets away from him at time. he's always under pressure. He tried to get a little too big at moments. You dial that back. But I'm like, Joel, like, if we're talking about the foundation of a successful quarterback,

he has all of it. So now we've got to get the rest of it out of him and put the right pieces in place around him. And that's the, I mean, that's an easy one for me to bet on. And you've been doing this a lot longer than I have, not because of our age, but just because, like, I didn't do the draft for a long time. I'm sure this happened at some point in your career, maybe maybe even as a scout. But I learned so much from poor opinions of two guys specifically. And I've learned a lot, Herbert and Josh Allen.

And coming out, I wanted to nickpick. And I wanted to do all these things about it. And yet, I could have cut and paste exactly what you just said about Drake May for those guys. The size, the live arm, the intelligence, all these things that are like, well, yeah, and I knew those. But I was like, well, his completion percentage. And, well, it's just not that accurate and this or that. And May is more accurate than both of those guys were at Oregon and Wyoming, respectively, at least in my estimation. I learned a lot from missing on those two prospects.

I remember I said, I don't know if I would take a first round pick on Justin Herbert. And I'm just like, oh, my gosh. It lives on forever. We've all done this. Everybody's done this. You know, but I learned a lot from that. He was like my 20th player. He was like my 20th player. I've watched every game he's played the NFL.

That's the sense of humor in this whole thing. Is that I, you know, Justin Herbert, I saw the size, the arm strength, the athleticism, the intelligence, the toughness. I looked at all that and said, I don't know. He's a little bit robotic and they don't really push the ball down the field. Auburn game. The end of the game, he threw it out of the back of the end zone. You know, it was like that was a lesson I'm with you. That was a good lesson for me of like, hey, if all the foundational pieces are there, then what are we doing?

Like stop. Just stop. Full stop. And that's, so I'm with you on, you know, Herbert was the same thing for me. And I get to, I get to watch him every single week. And he makes a throw every week. And I go, what, what a dummy? Yeah.

What was I doing? What was I thinking? What was I thinking? I want to stick with quarterbacks because I think that there's another really interesting one. And I know we've talked about most of them. I mean, we could do this just on quarterbacks because we could sit here and talk about Jane Daniels. But I want to, I want to first just throw it to you, Michael Pennix.

Yeah. What are your thoughts on Michael Pennix? Huge arm. It did not surprise me when I got a chance to see him live for the first time at the senior bowl that he has enormous hands because he throws the ball like somebody who has huge hands. Drive throws, he's outstanding. You know, driving the ball outside the numbers, deep balls over the top. He is unbelievable. And it's just, it's a different delivery.

It's a different look because not only is he left handed, but he's left handed. He's high cut, right? So he's got long legs, short torso, and he's got a three quarter delivery. So all those things put together, it looks different. Like it's just, it's like it takes you a while. It's like you got to get recalibrated when you're watching him. But you can definitely see the ball jump out of his hands. And, you know, if you want to fall in love with Pennix, you watch the Texas game and you watch it over and over and over again and see those throws that he made in that game and see some of the pocket movement stuff that you question when you watch some of these other games.

The durability, the injuries factor in 100%. The age I don't really worry about. I think it's almost a good thing nowadays to have that number of starts under your belt. I love that he's had adversity. Look, I had him in this last mock draft. I mean, in my personal list, in my top 50 list, I have him more kind of right around that borderline, one, two, like in that range. And then the mock draft, I had him going 13 to the Raiders.

Because I'm looking at Aiden O'Connell and I'm looking at Gardner Menshoe. And I'm sure you've probably called both of their games in college. I have. The talent as a thrower between him and those two guys, it is not close. No. It's not. And I'm going to go one step further. And I just want your honest reaction to this.

Okay. I love Michael Pennick so much throwing the ball down the field. I love his timing and ability to control from the pocket so much. I love his ability to throw with leverage so much. I don't think that this gets talked about enough when we talk about quarterbacks is, are you putting your wide receiver in a position to have better odds than the defensive back? How many times are you making your wide receiver catch a 48% ball versus a 52% ball? And that's what I mean by leverage.

And when I watch Pennix throw the ball, and I'm talking about down the football, field. The ball is always opposite the defender. And the wide receiver always is in a position where his odds are greater. And so from that point, I started thinking about the offenses and the play callers and the personnel in the NFL. And it's like, okay, if I wanted to pick one spot where I think he would immediately not only make them better, but flourish, I cannot stop thinking about Miami. I cannot stop thinking about Miami. You're going to get, oh, man, the Tua folks are kind of after you.

I know, and they have, and they have, because I think he's an upgrade. I think he's an immediate upgrade. There is not a doubt in my mind that he throws the ball better down the field and more accurately down the field and with more power and tempo and pace than Tua right now. And that doesn't mean that Tua doesn't have a spot in the league. Tua would be a lot better for Sean Paiton, you know, in a lot of respect. because of what Sean Payton likes to do with more of a point guard style quarterback. But I just, I can't get this out of my head, this pinnics to Miami.

I really can't. That's fun, man. I haven't heard that yet. So that's, it's an interesting way that you put it because I don't think that anybody would argue with you in terms of being able to drive the ball and then to drive the ball over the top. That pinnics, you know, on an arm, from an arm standpoint, that's not close. I would say how they've, and a lot of this is not necessarily, I would say the Mike McDaniel,

offense, I would say they've crafted an offense around to a RPO based slants, quick hitters. I think two his hands are quicker. That's where I would give him the edge and all the RPO stuff you're going to do. He's just, he's just so quick with all that. Whereas Pennix, I think, allows you to really, with the speed that they have, I think it would be less run after catch and would be more. We're just going to play on top of you. You know, we're going to get on top of you and make those. And then if you expand it, then we're going to bury you with digs and in cuts in the,

those things. But I think to a like his superpower to me is just is those you know I talked about when he was drafted like as a blackjack dealer like that's what he is. It is just it is just ride rock throw and just just get the ball out as quick as you can and let those guys run with it. But I think that's I would think it would be a different looking offense with Pennix and I think it would be a much more, you know, vertically dynamic offense with him. By the way, those lights under your shelf there. Is that new? I'm glad that you noticed by the way because we we we did this last year. You came on the show. And like only a good friend can, you ridiculed my set so bad that I had to change it. Yeah, there it is. We brought back the picture knowing that we would probably talk about it. Oh yeah. There it is. It was a little dark. It was a bit dark. And so I literally blew up the whole office. We totally, we spent thousands of dollars. Like how much to get those lights under that? That's just the coolest thing I've ever. seen. I never seen anything like that before. Yeah, they're built in. I got the switch over here. Yeah, it's

really the underlying. Never seen anything like in the sign now. We got greenery. Do you want me to turn. Would you like me to turn mine off now? Would you like me? Because I just control from my phone. I mean, I'm not saying I'm more high tech than you over here, but I'm just, I don't know. I've hardwired into the wall. You're, you're ahead of me again. You're ahead of me again. I can't. I was going off. I was trying to time that up to just turn those bad boys on, just when you think, oh, I've got the, I'm the only one that's got these underlights on my shelves. Really, really, really? Let me push a button. Well, there they go. There they go. Now let's turn them off. You're unbelievable. Oh, my gosh. I thought that you would be real impressed. You go right over the top.

Like pinnicks with Mike McDaniel playing on top with the defense. Just bam. Just right there. Just an absolute haymaker. You know what? That's fine. I'm good with it. I'm good with it.

Maybe I can have my son in shop class make me a little move the stick sign in the background like that though like you have with that clats. Can he covering up with your big head? Speaking of turning it off and on, I can turn that off. Oh, there it is. There it is. Yep. I can do that.

Thank you. But you have a. do you have a chain, though? Look at this thing. What is that? This is from Al the Jewelor. This is Sauce Gardner's Jewelor who made this thing and sent to me. It's a move the stick to diamond.

It's like chain. What? No, I don't have it. You know what? I just got sent to me. Hundreds of videos of guys doing 20 reps of 225 on the bench. Because after Quinn, After Quignon Mitchell did 20 reps, I was like, that's incredible.

I was, yes, I was like, that's insane. People don't do that. And so I challenged everyone. I was like, if you can do 20 reps to 225, then I don't know, I'll send you a hat or something. And we legit, DJ, 51 guys did 20 reps on video, sent it into the show. And we got hundreds of people that sent in their videos. And they did like 17 or 18. Guess what they get.

Nothing. You get a winner. It's a winner's world, man. That's right. Speaking of Winners World, you're breaking out Soss Gardner's jeweler right in my face right here. You've got diamonds all over the place. I got nothing. I got nothing.

I got a little here. What's that? Like one of those little like Russian dolls, you know? Oh, yeah, that is with you. Yeah, it's, it is, it's me. It's, it's me. And then like all of my teammates, and remember Brian Calhoun, you know? Yeah, so Brian Calhoun.

You remember Bobby Purify? He's in there. That's it. No diamonds on it, though. When you get down to the last one, is it Bloom? Who's the last one down there? Actually, I don't know. This is fun.

Do you want to take a guess? Derek McCoy? Do you remember a wide receiver? Derek McCoy. And another wide receiver, 2003, excellent season in fall of 2003, played in the NFL for a little bit, a little bit with Seattle.

Not Hagen's or why am I drawing a blink on the name? No, no, no, it wasn't. Am I going to get you? I'm going to stump you. DJ Hackett. There you go. Wow. Yes.

That's incredible that you got that. So you broke out sauce gardeners diamonds and I break out the little Russian doll that we go down to DJ. Why are we exploring what's in our offices here? This is what people want to see. Oh, this is amazing. Have you ever bought anything that's been promoted to you on Instagram? Have you ever fallen for that? Like, you know, those little ads that pop up.

You can buy stuff. I don't have Instagram on any of my devices. You're smart. So this thing popped up and it was like, this is how you can be super productive. It's this little timer thing, right? And you can do that. And so basically I'm just watching tape all day long.

And I'm like, okay, well, you know what? I'll set this thing for 30 minutes. And I got to challenge my time doing evaluation. That's all we get. Because I got to start going faster as we go.

I thought, you know, this is going to help me be productive. So I ordered this thing. Mind you, it's like bedazzled on the side here. That's, that's, that's what it is. I popped up on Instagram. I think I spent like 30 bucks on this. So I show my wife, I show my wife. I go, look, honey, this is going to keep me productive. I'm going to be able to time myself as I go through these. A little buzzer goes off. She goes, wow, that's great. I have one of those too. I go, you do? I've never seen it. She goes, yeah, it's my phone. You get a, you get a timer on there. We all have them. What are you doing? It's so true. Oh my goodness. Oh, my goodness. That's incredible. Well, now I'm just dying for whatever I have around. What do I have? I've got the travel size therogun that's sitting here. Yeah, I got the big dog in the other room. Oh, you're going to love this. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay, DJ, you have four kids, correct? Correct. Yes. And ages? I have a 22-year-old who just got married daughter. I have a 20-year-old son as a sophomore at Baylor. I've got an 18-year-old who. who's on a college visit at Samford right now.

I had a tough loss the other day. And then I have my youngest is 16-year-old sophomore. So you've already been through this. What do you got? I've got three boys. You and Travel Ball right now? No, no. 12, almost 10 next two weeks and seven.

Okay. So you know what I got sitting on my desk right now? What do you got? Like opening day tickets here? What do we got? No. 12-year-old. Oh.

guy stuff. We're going to have to go through that with. Oh, you got to tell them, you got to have the talk, huh? Here we go. My parents never had the talk with me, by the way. Well, neither did, neither did mine. So now I'm sitting there and I'm like, we got to like, I can't. Are you siblings? Do you have siblings, Joel? I do. I'm the youngest. So I'm the youngest too. That's my theory. I think they had the talk. They were just out. They were done. I think they were just like, you know what? They were done. I'm not going to do that again. I'm sure. I'm sure his older brother, his older sisters will tell them about that. Guess what? No, they didn't. No, they didn't.

Didn't happen. And in fact, figure all that stuff out from my friends. Those are fun conversations. Yeah. I was like, wait. Wait, what did you just, what did you just call it?

Are you serious? That's how that. Really? What? Yeah, you didn't know that. Of course I knew. That's disgusting.

What are you talking about? Yeah. Of course I knew. Oh my gosh. This is the draft conversation that everybody wants right here. I didn't. Tune into NFF. network, you'll get more of this on Thursday night.

Listen, by the way, no, this is Friday night, hour three. This is it. We're going to get into the guy stuff, the body book for boys. I will guarantee that no one had this conversation on their bingo card

for the way this interview was going to go. Who's the top wide out? Forget that. Did your parents talk to you about this stuff? Nope. That's so true. I can't. I can't end on that, though, because I do have to get your thoughts on the wide receivers. I really do. Because I've seen what you've put out there.

And I don't, here's the thing that I never quite understand. You do such a good job of holding your cards close to your vest of what you actually think. Now, you'll rank guys and I would encourage everybody to go out there, check out DJ's top 50 list, check out his mock draft. But his mock draft is always going to be a mixture of things that he's heard and his own evaluation. And so a lot of what you're saying out there is. is what you're hearing. And so when you throw out these like little tweets about don't be surprised if, it always piques my interest.

And you threw it out like, hey, don't be surprised if neighbors is the first wide receiver taken. And I was like, I'm like, hold on a second. Is that the thing? So here's the thing. When you talk to teams and I have good, I've been fortunate. up to be around this league now for over 20 years. And a lot of the guys that I came up with in the scouting side are running teams now. It's just so hot. We get to be your mid-40s. Those are the

guys who are getting hired as general managers. So I was having a conversation with one general manager who picks in the 20s. And he was like, I, and he's got, you know, we're going to lie to me. He's not in a position to get any of these three guys. Right. Right. So he's like, we have neighbors is the top wide out in our room right now as we're going through it. And he said, And he said, look, the, we love, and we love Marvin and we love Adunze, but neighbors has a club in his bag that they don't have just in terms of the, the juice, the speed, tackle breaking, make you miss, all that stuff, majority after the catch. He's got a different gear. And we haven't seen him run yet. And, you know, I don't, I think people, I don't know that we, and I guess we aren't going to see him run. I don't think he's, you know, we're going to get a time on it. But he's ridiculously fast. And all the GPS, all the GPS stuff is really good there too. Marvin's is actually good, too. but um so that's where when i hear that and then when i go through i i have the majority of the tape for the year that i jammed through and i now keep mind i gotta get all everybody done before

the combine so that's 330 guys i got to get done so i can't wait for all of my tape to come in to get started so when i did the white outs i didn't have the last two or three games like including bowl game you know so i'd done everything up into that so then finally we get through the combine i get back home i now through NFL films get the rest of my videos and i've got the whole catalog for the whole year, I can go, like, you know, I want to spend through these whiteouts one more time. So I see the whole year and I'm like watching like, okay, if I was divorced from any previous opinion, if I was divorced from knowing who these guys were, schools, helmets, everything. And you just watch their targets and you watch all the explosive plays

this year that neighbors piled up. I could see a team talking themselves into that. Now, what I ended up doing, Joel, as a responsible adult is for my own. So I'm saying, that's why I put out the tweet. There's some teams that are going to have it that way. And that's not just going to be that one team. There'll be other teams as well. So that's why I say don't be shocked. There's an opinion out there that exists. Now, for my own opinion, which I'm, you know, that's all I can be held responsible for is how I rank them, how I stack them, not what I'm hearing or what I put in a mock draft. So I'm like, you know what? They always say, like, it's always to go back to where you first fell in love. So I went back with Caleb Williams and I went back with Harrison Jr. with MHJ and said, okay, these guys have been my number one and number two players for the whole process. I'm going to go back to watch all their 22 stuff of when I really, really like fell in love with these guys

as most any evaluator did from that tape. And I came out of there emboldened personally to say, I strongly believe Caleb is the best quarterback in this class, and I strongly believe Marvin Harrison Jr. would be the number one receiver. Yeah. I love neighbors. You can't not love neighbors.

Right. Oh, he's dynamic. He's got a jetpack on his back. But Marvin Harrison, Jr. is totally different. He was a fifth year pro playing college football. Now, I don't think the end of his college career was great. I thought, and this is what, if there's something that's spooky about Marvin Harrison, Jr., to me, and I saw a ton of his games.

I was around him, talked to him, saw him catch up the jugs guns. You've talked to the people at Ohio State. Every day he's working on the jugs. The dude is a tireless worker. And the thing that starts to eat at me, the worst game I saw him play was the Michigan game. Worst one. I'd never seen him give up on a route like he did in front of that interception. And I was like, blown away size of that game.

scope of that game, pressure on his head coach, and that makes me nervous. And so then I hear your tweet. So I had to go back and watch. And so back and I watched, talk with Brian Hartline. And again, I'm in the exact same boat. You go back and you watch his route running ability. You go back and watch, you know, these times when Ohio State actually had to make plays and actually had to make first downs. It was him every single time.

And he would win. you go watch him against Joey Porter Jr. last year on the road against Penn State. Yeah. And Joey's a really good player. And Marvin just ate him up. Totally ate him up. Don't feel bad, though, because he did it to Kalen King this year as well. Yes, he did.

I mean, he ate up Kalin King bad. So, yeah, so I'm with you on that. And this whole wide receiver group, I think, is really deep. I think that. So what about, what about answer me this then? What would you do with Neighbors versus Adunzee? So I can get talked into Neighbors over Adunzee because of my previous answer about, I think Adunzee played Blackjack with the cards counted because I think he played with the odds in his favor more.

Not that Neighbors didn't play with a great quarterback because he did with Jaden Daniels. But Pennix, Pennix is accuracy and the ability to throw the football. on the right spot was so uncanny. And so I can get talked into neighbors. Now, I would take a Doonesay. I would take neighbors and I don't know which guy I would pick as the second wider. So I don't know.

I think all of these guys are close. I gave them all huge grades. I have a Doonesay over neighbors. And I'll give you, first of all, he had more contested catches anybody in the country. So, and you can give, you can give Pennix credit for, you know, some of those back shoulders and giving him, you know, good opportunities. But this dude is a war daddy in traffic. Like, he is not afraid to work in there. He is not afraid of crowds and he's coming away with the football. And he's super calm in those situations. Oh, yeah, yes. He's got late hands, late hands,

and then he's got incredibly strong hands. But, and look, I can, I kind of hear what you're saying in terms of I can be talked into it like neighbors, the explosives. He's going to give you those. I go back to it and say from a quarterback standpoint and I'll spin it to you this one. Because this is how I got to that, to a dunes A over neighbors was this. My definition of a number one receiver, everybody has a different one. My definition of a number one receiver is third down or in the red zone when everybody in the whole stadium knows where the football's going and you can't do anything about it. To me, if I look at that criteria of how I define a number one receiver, I would stack a Dunezay over neighbors because on third down, he can win and he doesn't have to be open to win. And then when we get into the red zone, his size is just, there's just such a massive difference in his size and his ability to play above the rim and do different things.

And another thing, a peek inside of our conversations that we always have. Wide receivers in the playoffs have to win in traffic. There's not free catches. There's not free catches, easy catches in the playoffs. That just doesn't happen. It's not a thing. There's not catch and run easy. There's not cheap offense in the playoffs.

And O'Donze gives you the opportunity to go out there and get earned yards. This is where we'll end. I want to talk about, I would love to hear a couple of guys. We'll go one for you, one for me, one for me. Maybe off the radar. And I'm going to quantify that with like, let's go middle second to like middle fourth type of round guys. that you would be fine saying like, okay, I know he's not a first round guy, but I really like this guy. Whoever takes him on that night.

We're going to be sitting in Detroit. I'm going to pound the table and be like, that was a really good pick. Yep. So I get to go first? You go first, yeah. All right. I'm going to go Max Melton, a corner from Rutgers. And he is, you know, he's 511.

He ran 439. So you've got the plenty of size, the speed legitimate, but ultra. tough, ultra competitive. He's going to play a nickel. He can play outside if you want to. But he's fluid, fast, and tough. And I think he's probably, everybody's kind of pegged him as a third rounder. But I've done this long enough to know that when everybody in the league thinks the guy's going to the third round and everybody loves him and he's the guy they want in the third round, he's probably going to go in the second round. Yep. That's such a good point. When there's a consensus on a number, it's going to be higher. When it's all over,

it's always going to be lower. Oh, man. What do you got? I, and again, 16 of their games that I called over the last three seasons. Mikey Sainer still, Nickelback, Michigan. That might be too high. I don't know if he's going to get taken in the fourth. Maybe, maybe not.

I don't think he's going to get to the fourth. Maybe high second. I'm not sure, but I can tell you this. He was the best defender on the best defense in college football. and every offensive coordinator that I talked to would talk about having to know where he was at. And, you know, next week I'm going to do an episode, Daniel, about kind of like plant your flag guys, where it's just like, listen, I'm going to have 10 guys next week where it's just from top 15 picks to guys that might be third rounders that I just, I've covered, I know them, I believe in them. He's in that list for sure.

he's an amoeba he can play a lot of different positions and he's just a really good football player only played defense for two years yep and it was funny when i was getting the background stuff on him not only from from michigan but then talking to the guys he was working out with and he was with a big group i think he was in texas i think he was in dallas with those guys um and they i always ask him like did they have nicknames normally you get a group of guys together um for a period of time you know they'll get nicknames or they'll call each other one thing or the you're you other and kind of you can learn it's an interesting question to ask because you'll learn something about this guy i think i know the nickname that he the CEO oh no i didn't know that one he called and they said everybody he walked in there and they go oh the ceo's here like he literally just like he took charge

of the whole group he you know he was just kind of the point man and like you talk to him he's so smart it shows up in his play you don't get his you know six picks to have his hands on as many footballs and and make all the plays he did um you also look at i think it is pro day by the way i had to get this confirmed but i did have somebody tell me that he did them work as a wide out as a pro day, you know, obviously with. Well, I mean, he was a decent, if not pretty good wide receiver before he switched over. That's like a show off. But that's like a show off move. And I would advise any client to do that. If you can do, anything you can do, show it at your pro day. What was the nickname that you had that you thought it was?

He was, he, he, he, he's going to hate me for saying this. He begged Gus to call him Frozone. Really? Yes. Interesting. Nice. Gus never did. He wasn't, yeah, he's like, I got, Maserati, Marv. I'm not about to lose my credibility on this one. He's like, listen, I can't just throw out what you want. He's like, my nicknames are Maserati and Hollywood. Like, yeah, it is what it is. Select company. My next one, I'll go Marshawn Neeland from Western Michigan. Yeah, I like him. Who, to me, like, he reminded me a lot of Tully Tui Poloto and calling the Charger games and seeing him. You saw him a bunch at SC and then what he did last year with the Chargers. There's a, There is a skill set with the edge rusher that I've kind of fallen in love with here the last couple of years.

And I think it translates really well. When you look down at your notes, Joe, I'd be curious on this. I don't know if you ever talked about this. But like, do you have certain names that are like kind of like that clue you in on it when you're like, man, if I see this, this term or this word on my paper with this position a bunch of times, I just know historically when I see that, that that translates really well. with pass rushers over the last five years or so. If I look down at my paper and my notes and I see rugged and I see rugged and there's

rugged and he's rugged, guess what? Those dudes, that transitions very well to the NFL. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting you say rugged because I would have said motor. You know, the guys that just won't quit to get after the quarterback generally get after the quarterback. You know, it's not, there are guys with a great out pitch that can't. be good pass rushers. But a lot of those guys, if you take their out pitch away, their one move, they kind of quit, you know, and go away. And then there are guys that are

rugged or have great motor. And it's like, you take away this. I'm going to go to this and go to that. And it's not even that they've got a block. And then all of a sudden they come, they come in and at the end of the game, you're like, well, how do he have eight pressures? Well, because he tried really hard, you know, and he. But it's like, you know, we're watching where this is where we're recording this. We've got the NCAA tournament going on. And it's the version of the pass rusher, I would say, is the guy who picks you up full court the entire game.

Yes. And you're like, you might block him. You might block him for a quarter and a half. After a while, you're like, just stop, man. Just, that's enough. Stop. And it's never like just to pick you up so that you like have to touch the ball. You have to turn him three times to get it across half court.

And you're like, I'm so tired of this. Yes. Oh, man. All right. My last one, again, it's hard for me not to go to guys that I sat with and covered. And so I'll be interested to see where he goes. He's not as dynamic as the top guys from last year, but I think he does a lot of things well at this position, which you need to, Jonathan Brooks from Texas. I really like Jonathan Brooks from Texas. I loved his maturity when I sat with him, his leadership, and he waited for his time behind Roshan Johnson and Bejohn Robinson.

And then all he did is roll out there and play like a savvy vet, catching the ball out of the backfield, slashing runner in between the tackles, hit some home runs outside. And I just think like maybe not Gibbs Bejohn type of impact in his first year, but the ability that hurts you as a runner and a pass catcher, he definitely has that. And so Jonathan Brooks is a guy that don't know when he's going to get selected,

but I really like him as a player. No, I get that too. He's another one I would use rugged with him, just kind of how he plays, tough, physical. And then, you know, I wish you would be able to have a healthy process to see where that would have taken him.

I feel like at the running back position this year, there's like, I have about six to seven guys that are so closely graded. I don't think there's one that's just way above everybody else. I have kind of that clump of guys together. And I'm fascinated as we get closer and have more conversations if more teams see it like that. And if they do, is it like, look, I don't want to take the first one.

So I'm just going to wait. I just need to get one of them. So I'll wait until somebody else wants to start the party. And then I just need to make sure that I get one before the run ends. And because of that, all of their stock gets hurt. Yeah. You know, I did think it was interesting. And again, I was close to him so much.

But Blake Corum had a really good combine. He ran a little bit better than I anticipated, to be honest. That was plenty of good enough. Yeah. And his vision is so good in particular in that duo scheme and everything. And when you watch all of those Michigan players work out, I'm sure everyone was like, oh, well, yeah. Now I know why they won the national championship.

They're all really good players, you know, across the board, both sides of the football. No question. By the way. So if like your wife's like, Joel, dinner's ready. and you're like, I'll be there in just a minute. I just want to play with my Russian doll. Oh, look, there's me. A few more minutes, honey.

Just a few more minutes. I'm reconstructing my Russian doll. That's right. That's right. And when your wife calls you in from dinner, you've got to like, hold on. I've got to take off my sauce gardener chain. You never get the back of it unclasped. Give me a help.

Give me a little hand back here. Oh, my gosh. You got to bring that to Detroit. You got to wear it. True story. I had it at the combine. I brought it to the combine because for the D.Bs, I thought it would be, I thought I was going to have a little fun with it, right? You know, and, yeah, hey, the D.Bs are going.

You know, hey, I got to get, you know, this is, this is from, from Al the jeweler, saw his jeweler. I got to rock this thing. Get into, get into. And so literally guys getting ready to run. And I teased it. I said, Rich, I got to show you what I've got here for the combine. We've got the DBs going. No lie, Joel.

The guy, like, blew a tire on the. I'm like, I can't. This is like a bit. I can't do this. The guy just got hurt running his 40. Like, I take it off. If you did a bit after a guy blows a tire at the car. That's awful announcing. You're unawful announcing in no time. Well, not only that. Mayock would have literally like repelled into Lucas Oil and ripped you out of the booth. He would have been so mad. Oh, he's so funny, man. We talk all the time. I text him all the time about this stuff. Dude, he's doing great. Golf game's gotten a lot better. I bet.

Good for him. That's fantastic. I cannot wait to be with you guys in Detroit. Have conversations. Got a couple of new suits so we can chat about that. That's right. I might bring the Russian doll just in case. Just in case we have a slow moment on the desk.

Answer me this. If you hollowed out the Russian doll, so you just had the biggest Russian doll, could you wad up that suit and just put it inside the Russian doll and just throw it in your suitcase? And it won't even wrinkle. It's the darnest thing I've ever seen. It's unbelievable this guy. It's a sweatsuit and a suit. It's unbelievable.

Listen, I'll give him a shout. It was state and liberty pants. Yes. And I was, and DJ was like, what are those? And I was like, yeah, these are amazing. This is, I can travel. Fantastic. Wear them as a suit.

And there they were. And we had a, we literally had a 20 minute conversation. I do not have a deal with them. Maybe you do. Maybe you just don't know. Maybe now. Maybe this will do it. Although they might have turned it off.

You know what? The CMO probably is listening. I think when you busted out the daddy book. And when I brought it when I brought up. We might have lost a sponsor on that one. The guy stuff book. You know what? Joel Clashow mailbag at gmail.com.

If you're a dad that's about to have the conversation, how'd you do it? Did it go well? I don't know. talking to two guys who don't know anything about it. So let us know. I didn't have the conversation as a kid. Sorry, Dad, throwing you under the bus. How many kids you got?

I got three. I got three boys. Maybe they should have had to talk, you know? So good. DJ, you're the best. I appreciate you. You really are one of the great people in the business. And I know that we've been laughing and having a great time.

the way that you handled not only yourself, but also honored Mort and his family at the Combine when you found out the news about Chris Mortensen was incredible. And I know that's just the type of person you are, but I wanted to say that before we left the show. You really are one of the best people in the business. And I appreciate you for coming on. Well, you're very kind. And I've been so blessed to have unbelievable friends in my life.

Mort is one of them. and I cherish that relationship, but you're another one as well, man. It's been cool to get the chance to do these drafts together because of the time we get to spend and the run-up to it. And I look forward to sit next year every year at this thing. No doubt. All right. DJ, have a good one, man. You can catch DJ all of his stuff on NFL Network, Move the Sticks, the podcast, as well as he's on Twitter at Move the Sticks.

You can follow DJ there. Sorry, your time's up. Sorry, your time's up. Big thanks to DJ for coming on the program. He's always the best. He's always the best. Okay, I teased it that we had some big news and I was not lying. We have huge news. On April 13th and April 20th, we will be televising Ohio States and Michigan's spring football game live on Fox.

That's right. We are airing them on Fox. I'll be at each of those games. Both of them are going to be at noon Eastern. So Big Noon rolls on, but I cannot wait for these. Fox will be broadcasting the spring games for Ohio State and for Michigan. That's, again, April 13th for the Buckeyes, April 20th for the Wolverines, the defending national champions. And we will be, I will be at both.

So I cannot wait for that. It's going to be a big April. There's no doubt with the draft, with the UFL starting, and now with these marquee programs and their spring games on Big Fox. I cannot wait for that. Last big announcement is that we have easily the strongest listener base in any podcast in the country. Maybe not. I don't know. But guess what?

It's going to cost me a lot of money. And you know what? Happy to do it because this is how this played out over the last couple of weeks. Roll the tape. When I look at Quinnian Mitchell, he's strong. He did 20 reps of 225 at the combine. If there's one guy listening to this podcast that could do 20 reps of 225 on the bench, I mean, I'll find a prize.

I don't think that there is another podcast that has as strong, physically strong of a listener group than the Joel Clatchell. You guys are getting it done, and it's going to cost me. You know what? Happy to do it. Happy to do it. We got hundreds of emails, hundreds, hundreds of people on social media. And we saw them. We saw them.

And you know what? Kudos to you. Now, there were 51 of you, 51 of you did 20 reps of 225 on video verifiable. You will be getting a prize. I am going to be buying you a hat personally and sending it to you. So we will be in contact with you. Hopefully, if you've sent an email in there or if you've sent attached to our social media, we'll try to DM you and get all your information.

You are going to be getting a hat. 51 people did 20 reps of 225. And again, like I said, we got hundreds, hundreds of emails. There was a lot of people I got like 16, 17. And guess what? No soup for you. Although strong. And I was impressed.

I couldn't do it right now. My elbows would explode. I haven't straight bar benched. Everyone was like, how many could you do? I haven't been under a straight bar bench and gosh, I don't know. 12 years, at least. Yeah, my shoulders and elbow would just explode. I could do some push-ups, yeah, but definitely not bench press.

So we've got hats coming your way, and that's going to be fun. That'll be really fun. Listen, thank you for listening. Keep sending your emails in. Joel Clatshow Mailbag at gmail.com. Anything is open for business, by the way, college football, draft related, life-related, whatever you want to throw us, we are there. Follow us on social media at Joel Clashio.

Subscribe the show wherever you're listening. Subscribe on the YouTube channel as well because we're going to have some really good content that is exclusive to YouTube during the course of the next few weeks. Thank you for listening, everybody, and have a great week.