The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Klatt is back!

Episode Date: August 30, 2019

Joel Klatt returns with another season of college football laying out his Top 25 teams in the country and diving in on his Top 10. Find out who he calls out on social, why he agrees with fans or claps back - tune in every week for what to expect for the exciting season ahead! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Are we college football fans? We are back. Thank the Lord. It's college football season again. And as always, I'm Joel Clatt. This is Breaking the Huddle, and we are brought to you by Dr. Pepper, the official drink of Fansville. And we always appreciate what Dr. Pepper does.

They are college football and the official drink of Fansville. Here's the laydown for today's show. I'm going to give you, I know you've probably seen it already, but I'm going to give you a quick rundown of my top 10 going into the season. And I know Miami and Florida have already played, as well as Arizona, newsflash, Arizona is not in my top 10. Close, very close. Hawaii's not either.

But I'm going to give you my top 10. I'll run through that pretty quickly. And then we're going to get very interactive. So here's the deal. Get on your social media right now and interact with the show. Interact with your friends. Invite them in because the more interaction, the better. Because you know how I love to get a little snarky with the fan response.

And listen, that's just fun. It's like we're all sitting around that we're all back in college. and we get to be snarky with one another about our opinions about the sport we love. Here we go. Top 10 in the country as I see it in the preseason. Okay, I'm going to start at number 10 with the Utah Utes. I think this is going to be a special year for Utah. I actually think that they're going to win the Pac-12 conference.

This defense is sensational. Kyle Whittingham told me that this is the best front seven he's had on defense, maybe ever. You've got to listen because this is a guy that's had tremendous defense. They almost won the PAC 12 a year ago, but got beaten that game against Washington in the Pac-12 championship game. I think this is the year. Zach Moss returns at running back. He was a thousand-yard rusher before he got hurt.

He ran for 121 yards per game before he injured his knee. He's now back in healthy. Watch out for Utah. All right, here we go. Fancy, fancy. I got LSU at 9. I really like LSU. I think LSU could have a big year.

It's interesting. I was talking with Urban Meyer quite a bit. As you know, Irma Myers is with Fox Sports. If you don't know that, you've been buried under a rock for the last month. But one of the things he told me that was interesting, he was texting and chatting with Joe Burrow, the quarterback at LSU.

And one of the things is that culture is so important. And Joe said, listen, the culture here at LSU is a winning culture. And he understands that, because remember, Joe saw a national championship culture at Ohio State, a championship culture, a Big Ten championship culture at Ohio State. So that tells me that LSU might be a little closer than we think. Now, they're going to have a huge game early in the season on the road against Texas.

So we're going to see right away what Ed Ogeron is going to bring to the table. Remember, Ed Ogeron, in his three years as the head coach, they've gotten better by one win every season. Eight wins is first year, nine wins his second year, ten wins last year. That's a first time since, I think it was 2013, maybe even 2012, that LSU had done that. So LSU, is right there. Okay, number eight, Notre Dame. Notre Dame is one of those teams that for whatever reason elicit a lot of eye rolls when you're like, hey, I think Notre Dame is going to be real good. Everyone's like, oh, okay, Notre Dame. But they're really good. Notre Dame is, I think, going to be solid on defense. Okay, I know that they're missing some of the pieces from last year's

team, but they should be solid on defense. And this year, they're going to have Ian Book for the entirety of the season at quarterback. Remember, it was last season that Brandon Wimbush faltered out of the gate, even with a win over Michigan, and they went to Ian Book, and from the time they put Ian Book in at quarterback, they averaged over 30 points per game on offense. This is a really good program. Okay, they're built for success under Brian Kelly. They're tough, they're fast, they're physical. I like their quarterback a lot. They've got their coach back. One issue. Really, two issues. schedule-oriented. They play seven teams coming off of a buy this year. That's really tough to do.

And there are three, I would call toughest games are all on the road at Stanford, at Michigan, and at Georgia. Tough to overcome, but a really good team I've got them at eight. As we move then to number seven, I'm going to go with Ohio State. And I can already hear the grumblings. Like, what? We haven't seen Michigan yet. Does that mean you have Michigan ahead of? Wait for it. Yes, I do. We'll get there in just a moment. For now, it's Ohio State. I think Ohio State has a chance to be a great team this year. They're loaded, talent-wise, loaded. Here's the one thing that gives me pause. No team in the history of college football. Zero. No team ever. Has lost a coach that won 90% of his games at that school and lost a first-round draft choice at quarterback. So all I'm saying is let's wait and see.

Allow them to develop into the team that we think that they can be, maybe lean on their defense, albeit a new defensive structure early in the season, with a lot of veteran players on that side, with maybe the top draft pick in all of college football as a defensive end in Chase Young. Let's let their defense develop under new coordinators Hathley in Madison. Let's see how Ryan Day does now at the helm for the first time in his life, even though he had the interim gig last year. That's an interim gig. This is his first time as a head coach. Let's wait and see.

There's only really two things on the field that concerned me about Ohio State. Again, they're loaded talent-wise. The depth behind Justin Fields is a concern because if you're going to run him and use his talents as a runner, then you're exposing him to injury and they've got nothing behind Justin Fields. He goes down, Ohio State's season goes down. So Ohio State at number seven with a tremendous upside. So don't be mad, Buckeye fans by what you're about to see here coming up. up. At number six, I've got Texas. Cue the Texas hate. Everybody in the country,

oh, Texas is so overrated. Why do you hate my team, but you love Texas? We'll get to that later. Texas won 10 games last year. They won 10 games even while playing in a season in which they played in 10-1 possession games. They've got their quarterback back. They're one of the few teams in the country that had 10 wins that bring their entire coaching system. staff back. That's news in and of itself. One of the guys that I think is most helpful in that regard from the assistant coaching standpoint is the offensive line coach Herb Hand. Now, you might not hear a lot about Herb Hand, but here's why you should. Last year was his first year at Texas. What they did with the first year of a 10th new assistant coach is they went to Auburn and they

stole Herb Hand, the offensive line coach. The beginning of the year last year, Tom Herman's main concern with Texas was their toughness up front, their ability to play quality football in the offensive line. And then Herb Hand had a whole season, and what did he do? He got this program to the point where they were physically beating up Georgia in the Sugar Bowl. Think about that. Georgia had run for 300 yards in five straight games going into the SEC championship game, ran for over 100 yards against Alabama. Guess how many rushing yards they had against Texas? 72. Guess how many rush yards Texas had against Georgia, which was a great defense, a very good defense? 178. Physically, Texas is back and ready. I haven't even touched on their quarterback,

who I think is a tremendous player. By the way, Sam Ellinger, he was one of only a few players since 2000 in the Power 5 to throw for 25 touchdowns and run for 15 touchdowns. That list includes Tim Tebow, Johnny Mansell, Cam Newell. Marcus Marriota, Lamar Jackson, who did it twice. Guess what every one of those quarterbacks did? They won a Heisman trophy. So all y'all's hate for Sam Ellinger is real, and I'm here to tell you, bag it!

I don't want any of that. Pound sand, take a lap. Oh, here we go. Oh, I can just hear it now. You know what I kind of want to do? That's right. I did it. I did it.

I've got Michigan ahead of Ohio State. For a few reasons. Let's get into, put the snark aside. Why do I have Michigan ahead of Ohio State? Michigan brings back their quarterback, their head coach is still there. They have at least, in theory, adjusted to what they struggled with a year ago, which was the fact that they did not have a high tempo, up-tempo, quality passing game when you take away their run game. Bring in Josh Gattis as the new offensive coordinator. I think his offense mixes well with Shea Patterson. They've got three wide receivers on the outside that are NFL caliber receivers. I'm talking about like really good receivers. Donovan People's Jones, Torek Black, Nico Collins.

They're all monsters too, by the way. I mean monsters. Over six foot, athletic, can run after the catch. They're going to be able to throw the football well. Oh, and by the way, they bring back all these offensive linemen and could possibly have the best offensive line in the entire Big Ten conference. When you couple that with the fact that Don Brown, their defensive coordinator, as a defensive coordinator, that regardless of how many starters he has back, he plays quality defense.

Just go back to 2017. He lost 10 starters on defense. 10. Guess what they did that season? He brings back one starter, and they finished 13th in scoring defense and third in total defense that year. They're going to play quality defense. That's a given. For those reasons, I think Michigan is going to be a really good football team.

Then you go back to what I said about Ohio State. No team in the history of college football has had to replace a coach that won 90% of his games at that school and a first-round draft pick at quarterback. So this ranking isn't necessarily about like, hey, for sure Michigan's better than Ohio State. It is they better be better than Ohio State this year or else when are you going to beat the Buckeyes. This ranking puts way more pressure on Michigan than it does Ohio State. Okay? That's just the bottom line. Michigan is 0 and 7 against Ohio State in the last seven years of the Urban Meyer era.

We know what Harbaugh has been. We know Harbaugh struggle against top 10 teams. There's pressure here. There is immense pressure here, but I do think it's a quality football team. All right, let's get into the top four. Here's my playoff picks for this year. I've got Oklahoma at number four. This Oklahoma, Texas battle, along with Ohio State and Michigan battle, is just going to be epic.

I can't wait for it during the course of this season. I think Oklahoma is going to evolve enough defensively in order to be a really good football team. Alex Grinch is their new defensive coordinator. Remember, the last time he called defensive plays, it was for Mike Leach at Washington State, and he brought them to the point where they were actually playing really good defense with that air raid system up on the Palouse. He goes to Ohio State last year. It was kind of a co-coordinator, worked in the secondary under Urban Meyer,

so he gets to see that program, and now he comes to run. really, I don't want to say be the savior, but he comes to fix a defense that was the last ranked defense in the country when it comes to past defense, 128 out of 128. If they're just average, I've talked to him about this, does he have to be world beaters at Oklahoma? No. You go to Oklahoma as the defense coordinator right now with Lincoln Riley. If he's just average, be in the top 75 defensively, and all of a sudden, watch out, watch out. And then Lincoln Riley, what he's going to be able to do with Jalen Hertz, I think is going to be outstanding. They've got a great core of wide receivers. They've recruited really well and have

been deep on the offensive line, although all these guys have not necessarily started. They're replacing four offensive linemen from last year. Creed Humphreys, their returning offensive lineman, he's outstanding, he's special. They've got a great core of running backs as well. OU for me in the playoff. Georgia in the playoff. I think there's probably a lot of eyebrows because you know what that means in the top two. Yes, I'm going to have two SEC schools in the playoff this year. I think Georgia is going to be an excellent football team. Think about what they've done in the last couple of years under Kirby Smart. They've taken Bama to the brink in overtime in a national championship game, then had a seven-point lead in which Bama had to go again to

their backup quarterback in order to save them. So in back-to-back seasons, Alabama has had to throw the Hail Mary of Hail Marys, which is, we've been. We've got to go to our backup quarterback in order to beat Georgia who's gotten the lead on us. Once in the SEC championship game, one of the national championship game, don't you get the sense that this might be the year that Georgia gets over that hump? Maybe? I think it could be. Really quality defense, D'Andre Swift, excellent running back.

They lose a lot of wide receiver help for Jake Fromm, but they do bring Jake Fromm back. One concern for me, and it's the reason I didn't pick them in the SEC, they lose both coordinators. Jim Cheney on the offensive side, Mel Tucker on the defensive side. side. So Kirby Smart's having to shuffle some things around when it comes to staff. Let's go into the top two. I've got Alabama at number two. I think that this is kind of self-explanatory because these two schools you know are going to be one and two in some order. And for me, this might be lazy, but the last time we saw college football, we saw these two teams on the field. One of them was beating the other by 28. One of them in Clemson has what I deem as the best quarterback in college

football. Dabo Sweeney brought his entire staff back after a national championship and has done that over the course of the last few seasons. So Texas and Clemson are the only teams on this board that can say that. They've brought back their entire staff. This is excellent stuff. I love what Clemson has been able to do building their program. I think Alabama is also going to be an excellent team, but the injuries on the defensive side are starting to weigh on me a little bit. Dylan Moses just went down with an ACL tear. He's down for the season. another linebacker. He's down right now. Don't know how long that's going to happen, which means they might have two true freshmen at middle linebacker. Now, their offense is exceptional. Jerry Judy, Tua, all of those things. Alabama is going to be a great team, but that's how I see the top 10 in college football. So after all of that, I hope you have some thoughts on the sport.

Let's get to some of your reaction. Let's get to some of the tweets, and we're going to do this interactive right here live on the show. Let's scroll down just a little bit. Let's scroll down. Oh, I like this one. Let's go Steve. There we go. Hi, Steve.

Steve says, how do you leave PSU, Penn State, out of the top 25, waiting for a quality response? I loathe, loathe when people say how. How did I leave Penn State out? Because I did. Why did I leave them out? Now, that elicits a quality response, which you asked for. So I'm going to insert why and then give you what I feel like is my quality response.

Penn State, they have been ranked, shoot, for their last 33 games that they've played, which is an amazing mark, an amazing mark. What's fascinating for me, though, if you go back through the history at Penn State, what you see is the sharp rise in what they have been as a program under James Franklin really came when Joe Moorhead came in as the offensive coordinator. They had Sequin Barclay and Trace McSorley a quarterback. When they had those three guys, then they were really good, won the Big Ten. They were in the top ten.

Then Joe Moorhead went to Mississippi State. Sequan goes to the NFL. They still have Trace McSorley, and they kind of fell off just a little bit. And Trace McSorley, you've got to remember, he's the heart and soul of that program. Heart and Soul. He's the all-time winning as Penn State quarterback. No one's thrown for more yards than Trace McSorley in Penn State history. Now you lose Trace McSorley.

Again, there were just a lot of teams that I would like to rank, but for that fact, I understand their defense is going to be very good. I think Penn State takes a little bit of a step back. That's one of the toughest divisions in all of college football. You've got two of top ten teams in there. You've got one of my most underrated teams in Michigan State as well. I think it might be a year where Penn State potentially steps back just a little bit. Does it mean I hate them? No.

Does it mean that I don't think that they're very good? No, I think that they are good. Their defense is solid. But when you've got to put it down on paper, there's got to be other teams there that are going to vie for those spots, and I like them just a little bit more. So there you go, Steve. There is my quote-unquote quality response.

All right. Let's scroll a little bit. Let's see. Oh, I love this one. Opossum Jenkins. Yes. I love it. First of all, your picture, sensational.

Opossum Jenkins at Intel Warrior. Where the hell is Illinois? Champagne, which is just south of Chicago. All right, thanks, so awesome. Let's keep going. All right. Let's see here. I like some of these.

Ooh, I'd love to hit on Wisconsin. Another one is kind of like, okay, Ryan comes in. He says, no Wisconsin? Question emphatic, question emphatic. Come on, Joel. I kind of agree with you. And again, it goes to the Penn State answer. For me, it became just, there was

not enough space. I like some other teams a little bit more. Let's take a team that I had 24th, Northwestern. I had Northwestern 24th in my ratings, my rankings. Northwestern has a five-star quarterback coming in and Hunter Johnson. They've got Pat Fitzgerald. They've got a defense that returns almost all of their production, guys like Patty Fisher and Joe Gossiano. They've got Isaiah Bowser, their running back, who was terrific in the second half of last season. So, So I really liked Northwestern. Meanwhile, when I looked at Wisconsin, I love Jonathan Taylor. Love Jonathan Taylor.

I think he's unbelievable. The other parts of the team, though, are kind of a wait and see. I know you're very excited about Jack Cohn, getting the quarterback nod, and I see that as well. We'll see how the defense responds to losing so many impact players over the last couple of years. You know how I feel about Jim Leonard, the defensive coordinator. I think he's a tremendous coordinator. But for those reasons, Wisconsin was still kind of a wait-and-see for me.

That's the only reason I've got them outside of the top 25. I will be in Camp Randall, though. Week 4, Michigan comes to town. Big noon, Saturday. You got to love that. I can't wait. Gus and I will be there. All right, let's take a couple more.

Oh, stop. I love this. I've got two right here. I'm going to finish with another one, but right now I'm going to go with gophers forever. Gophers, gofers forever. Excuse me, sir, but if we kill all the gophers, who's going to be left to play the course? Nebraska at 13 is just ridiculous.

Maybe they'll get there during the season, but to start them there coming off a four and eight season, shocked guy at the end, emoji. Is that shocked? I don't even know. I don't know how to name emojis. I'm 37. Okay, I'm a grown-ass man. I don't know about emojis.

Okay, so Nebraska, yes, I do have Nebraska way up there. Again, this is a process. This is a process where you have to look at schedules. You've got to look at the way teams played late last season. You've got to look at who's incumbent quarterback. So you've got to look at is the coach back? Is the system back in place? Did they have new coordinator?

So on and so forth. Here's where I landed with Nebraska. When you go oh and whatever it was, six to start the season, you got to understand you're about ready to have mutiny on your hands. And they didn't. That means that that team loves and buys into what Scott Frost is selling. They got better and better and better during. the course of the season to the point where they win four of their last six. They were right

in those ball games, played Ohio State really well on the road in the shoe last year, and then they bring their quarterback back, who I think is a tremendous player, probably should get some Heisman-odd type of love, maybe in the top five or six, Adrian Martinez. He's perfect for what Scott Frost is trying to do. They've got Frost back as the head coach, and then their schedule is so good. The West Division in the Big Ten is so schedule dependent because of how heavy the East Division is in the Big Ten. Guess what? Nebraska misses Michigan, Michigan State, and Penn State. They do have to play Ohio State. That game's in Lincoln. Then you look at their schedule in the West Division. They're going to play Northwestern, Wisconsin, and Iowa all at home. This year is

tailor-made for Nebraska. They're my pick in the West Division. I think that they win nine, maybe ten football games this year, and that's why I have them inside of my top 15. All right, last one. I got to get my man here. Mike Evans. Ahem. At Q's football. First of all, I appreciate and love the snark, and he should know it well. Mike Evans was my radio partner back in Denver at 104.3, The Fan.

We had a morning show there, Evans and Clat. I love you, Mike. I love talking to you every single day, but your love for Syracuse knows no bounds. And I will just tell you right now that while Syracuse is a decent football team, the ACCC is so bad. The ACC is so garbage. Last year, they were so overinflated. And I showed you that weekend and week out with the football playoff rankings and everything going on. So I know you love the orange, Mike Evans, but just remember, stick to acting.

That's right. It's a bit we used to do. You were better as Meg Ryan than you are as a football analyst. Boom! I said it. Got to love it. Mike, love you, bud. Can't wait to talk to you soon.

That's the show for today. We're going to be with you next week as well. This has been Breaking the Huddle. I'm Joel Clatt. I love talking college football with you. This show every week. It's brought to you by Dr. Pepper. Remember, it is the official sponsor of Fansville. And new this year, we've got a special homepage for Breaking the Huddle and all the content that you can possibly want from me on college football. Just go to foxports.com slash breaking the huddle and you get everything. You get all the videos. You get this show. You get the monologue segments. You get clapback segments. That's right, Clat back is back for the 2019 college football season. You can follow me on social. My Twitter is at Joel Clatt. Instagram at Joel underscore Clat because I was late to the party in Instagram. So I don't have the same handle as I do for Twitter.

Massive fail on my part. I'm 37. I'm a grown-ass man. Take it up with me later. Pound stand breaking the huddle. Joel Clat later.