The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Klatt's Top 10 + Midseason Awards

Episode Date: October 24, 2018

Joel releases his new Top 10 and tells you why UCF will never be a part of it, while making the case for Ohio State. Plus, Joel breaks down his midseason CFB awards and gives an early breakdown of the College Football Playoff. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, what's going on? Joel Clatt here with Breaking the Huddle. Welcome in. We're sponsored by Dr. Pepper, by the way, at every home gate and tailgate. It is the one that fans crave because it's delicious. A lot to get into today. I'm going to take you through my new top 10, some shakeups, obviously, with some of those top 10 teams losing last week,

some of them in bad fashion. Ohio State, we'll talk about that. A team that you will not see in my top 10, and quite frankly, you're not going to see them the rest of the the year in my top 10 is UCF. And I've got really good reasons for that. UCF, Twitter, get off of my case, hold my beer while I watch the playoff with you not in it. Okay, here we go. I don't even drink, so you can hold all the beers because I won't drink them. Number 10 is Ohio State. You can you can whine and cry all you want about how in the world is Ohio State,

why in the world do they deserve a spot in the top 10? Well, there's still just a one-lossed team. They still have a quarterback that is right now in the top three in the Heisman Trophy race. They still have a passing offense that's one of the best in the country. And they still are one of the more talented teams in the country. So you get the sense that maybe they could fix some of their problems. Are their problems glaring? Yes, absolutely they are. Namely, giving up way too many big plays.

I mean way too many big plays. Did you know, and I don't want to get these teams right, so I'm going to go down here to my trusty notes. Did you know that Ohio State has allowed more 30-yard plays or more than everyone in the country but Ken State and Yukon? I'm going to say that again. Ohio State has given up more 30-yard plays or more than everybody in the country but Kent State and Yukon. That's alarming. Absolutely alarming. They can't run the football, even with really good running backs Mike Webber and J.K. Dobbins.

Their offensive line, which is somewhat experienced, very big, and it involves a lot of guys that have played a lot of football. And they can't average over three and a half yards per carry. That's a huge issue. And where does it show up most in the red zone? When you can't run the ball in the red zone, it becomes increasingly difficult to just throw it in the red zone. That's why historically, teams that run the pure air raid system like Mike Leach's system or Texas Tech, They tend to not have a great touchdown percentage in the red zone. Tend to.

Now you can see some anomalies here or there, but it's really tough to just throw the ball in the red zone and score points. You've got to be able to hold the linebackers, hold the safeties, get everyone on the interior of the field to exploit those one-on-one matchups by running the football. Ohio State can't do that, and therefore they're struggling in the red zone scoring points. Can't have that. Cannot have that. This team's got to get better.

One thing I'm really worried about with Ohio State, this is what, this was not a one-game issue. These issues have been there for three, four weeks in a row. In fact, I talked about them last week, and they have not fixed them. So you can say all you want, like, hey, by week, they're going to go fix those issues. I don't know if they will, which means that it's going to be a really tough end of the season. They still have Michigan State, and I know Michigan State hasn't looked great, but they still have Michigan. Watch out. Watch out, because Michigan is really good. They're going to be floating around up here. which Ohio State fans aren't going to like, by the way, just really quickly.

Ohio State fans, I mean, who's been better to you than me? I mean, not many people. Ohio State fans, I've been really good to you. I argued for you guys until I was red in the face last year that you should have been included even as a two-loss team over Alabama, who was a one-loss team into the playoff. Why? Because you won your conference. I've loved you for a long time.

Guess what? I also call balls and strikes. So if I compliment Michigan, don't come at me and say, like, why are you giving Michigan so much love? Easy. Take a seat. You just took a major L to Purdue, and Michigan's really good. Okay, so they're going to float up here. You're going to float down here.

You're still in my top 10, and that's going to be that. Okay, here we go. Florida is at number 9. Now, Florida, obviously, with a huge chance this week to move up the rankings because they're going to be in that cocktail party game with Georgia. I like what Florida does defensively, 18 turnovers. That's top 10 of the country. This is a team in Georgia, by the way, that struggles with turnovers. They did it four times against LSU in that loss.

So maybe Florida's got a shot. By the way, they're the number one pass defense in the SEC. And Fromm has not been what he was a year ago, in particular on third down. And in that loss to LSU, a guy threw for under 250 yards and about 50% completion percentage. So Jake Fromm's going to have to get better, which means Florida's got a shot in this ballgame. A lot of people writing off Florida, I think Florida's got a real shot. in this ball game. And by the way, they're playing the team that I've got at number eight. That's why I talk so much about it. George is going to be at eight for me, and they have got to

write some wrongs on that offensive side of the football. They can run it really well, as well as anybody in the country. The problem is that they're not getting what they need to out of their passing game, in particular in conversion opportunities. If you look back to last year, Fromm was one of, if not the best third-down quarterback in college football. That's very clearly this year, Tua. His numbers are incredible and insane on third down, but Fromm has struggled in those areas. I actually think the continuity issue when they've been shuttling quarterbacks in and out can hurt, in particular when you're a rhythm type of player, which I think Fromm is. When he got in rhythm last year in the Rose Bowl, you saw what happened. He made a lot of plays, in particular

late in that ball game, albeit against a pretty poor defense in Oklahoma, but he's a rhythm player. He needs more time, series after series in there. Again, the turnovers are the big deal. Four turnovers than they're lost against LSU. This is a team that takes it away quite a bit, 18 turnovers on the year. That's where the game is going to be won and lost. Let's move to number seven. Oh, you. Oh, hello, OU. So you've got a new defensive coordinator, and all of a sudden you give up less than 300 yards in a game. Tusha. Wow. Now, was it just the coordinator? No. And this is why I don't want anyone to get into a habit of just the hot take of like, oh, it was Mike Stoop's fault. Now Ruffin McNeil is fixing the defense.

Absolutely not the case. They did play a little bit better defensively. They still weren't great defensively, but guess what they did? Hold the ball. 37 minutes time of possession in that TCU game, and they only faced 55 plays. How do you lower your total yards output or what you're giving up as a defense? You limit the number of snaps, and that's what they did. In particular, in the second half, OU ran the football, and they did it with a guy named Kennedy Brooks.

I talked a lot about Kennedy Brooks in that Red River game. game and Kennedy Brooks is a guy that I think could actually take off this back half of the season. One, Rodney Anderson is out with the injury. We all know that. Trey Sermon went down with an injury late in that ball game in the fourth quarter against TCU. So now all of a sudden Kennedy Brooks who came into the last week's game with a hundred and ninety five total rushing yards, gets one sixty eight in that ball game, gets a tug. He's got more explosive runs than anybody on that team. So I think he could have a Rodney Anderson impact what Rodney had last year, what he's going to have Now this year, remember Anderson, it wasn't until after the Texas game that he kind of took off the back half of the season.

So watch out for Kennedy Brooks. By the way, Kyler Murray is still incredible. 30 touchdowns responsible for total touchdowns. That's fourth in college football. And again, if the offense is going to hold the ball and only allow their defense to see 55 snaps, then who knows? Who knows? I happen to think that Oklahoma is the toughest matchup for Alabama in the country. We'll get into that over the course of the back half of the season.

Number six, Texas, Tejas. I'm really nervous for Texas this week. Twofold. One is, candidly and selfishly, I'd love to go back to Austin next week and do that game, West Virginia at Texas. But if you lose, we're not going to do that because we're probably going to follow Oklahoma as they go down to Texas Tech and a resurgent Red Raider team. That's just some back channels of what goes on with the crewing stuff.

I'd love to see Texas again. I really would. But every game you've played, Texas, this year against an unranked team, it's been a one-score game. Stop playing to the level of your competition. We've seen you be great like you were against Oklahoma. We've seen you be great like you had to be against TCU when they were playing well earlier in the season. We saw how great you were in the second half against USC, a very very good. talented USC team in particular then when they weren't all banged up with their injuries.

Can you do that when you don't have a great team in front of you? So you go to Oklahoma State this week. Just makes me nervous. Mike Gundy, he's just like, that's a tough place to play. Ellinger has been banged up a little bit with a grade one AC joint sprain in his shoulder. By the way, it shouldn't affect him all that much. Quarterbacks play with much more severe AC joint sprain. I played with a grade four AC joint sprain.

I actually had both AC joints sprained at the same time. Our offensive line was awesome. So Texas, key for them real quick. Colin Johnson needs to continue to play well on the outside as a wide receiver. Their defense, Ominahue up front, he's got a bunch of sacks in the last few games that they've played. So he's been a key. And then Keante Ingram, a true freshman running back. This dude is really good, 110 yards in his last ball game.

So those are the guys that need to continue to play well. All right, LSU at number five. I'm going to say it again. I think this is going to be one of the last times you see them up here. I've said this all year long like, oh, this isn't going to last, this isn't going to last. We're almost there, right? They're almost going to play Bama. They can't beat Bama.

They're not going to beat Bama. If they do, like, I don't know. I'm not going to say something crazy, but they're not going to beat Bama. This is enjoyable, though. This is enjoyable. By the way, it won't shock me because we won't have another breaking the huddle before the rankings are released next Tuesday. Our next breaking the huddle will be next week on Wednesday, and we will be reflecting on those rankings that are released on Tuesday night. It won't shock me at all if the committee does this next Tuesday night. won't shock me at all. You get the hubbub of one versus two that following week with Alabama.

You can make an argument with all the ranked wins that they've had, that they've got the strongest resume out there. They would use the eye test at one for Alabama. Then they would go strongest resume number two with LSU, even ahead of Clemson and Notre Dame. Maybe Notre Dame will sneak in there at two. I don't believe it'll be Clemson because their resume is just not that strong. It just really isn't.

Notre Dame would have the win over Michigan, but they've got LSU has got all those ranked wins. All those are going all the way back to week one against Miami. So do not be surprised if LSU is number two. I think at a minimum the committee will have LSU at number three. Minimum. Minimum. I have them at number five.

Just waiting to get booted down the ladder as I feel like they're going to at some point. And at this point, aren't LSA, aren't you like cheering? Like, yeah, Joel, like stay off of our bandwagon. And trust me, I will. I'm not jumping on that thing. I don't care how fast it gets going or how many people are on it. It doesn't matter. It could take you until the national championship game to lose again.

Guess what? Not getting on. Okay. That's it. You're just not consistent enough on offense. Burroughs good, but I mean, it's just not even close. Michigan's going to be number four for me. Michigan's got a insane defense.

They are number one in the country. country again defending the pass. If they keep this up and they remain there, they will be the number one defense defending the pass in three straight seasons. That's incredible. Their corners are terrific. They rush the passer really well, even without Rishan Gary out there. Rishan Gary, by the way, he's a guy that is probably their best player overall, and he has not been on the field in the last two weeks. And what have they done? Taking two veteran quarterbacks that NFL scouts are somewhat high on Alex Hornedbrook and Brian Llewerkey and totally shut them down. I'm not talking about like, oh, held them in check.

Shut them down. Brian Llewurke's performance last week for Michigan State was one of the worst quarterback performances in Big Ten history. That's just factual. That's not an opinion. The statistics bear that out. The one area of Michigan's got to get better in, Shea Patterson's got to start taking some shots down the field.

He's playing too safe. So if Pep, Pep Hamilton, you're my guy, I love you. Let him cut it loose a little bit, in particular when he gets outside of the pocket. He's great in the structure of the offense. I think he's playing really well, and he's getting one, two, three. Sometimes he gets to four in the progression. But as soon as he breaks contain and he gets outside, here's the thing. The scramble rules take place.

You get Nico Collins. You get Donovan People's Jones. Tariq Black is back now. You get those guys down the field in one-on-one matchups. Let him have a shot. Right? So as soon as Patterson breaks contain, If you start seeing him take shots down field, that's when you're going to start to see this team consistently get to that mid-30s mark, even against good defense, maybe even 40 points a game.

And if this team can score 28, 30, 35, 40 points with that defense, come on. What are we talking about? That's my favorite in the Big Ten, by the way. Notre Dame is at number three. Interesting matchup this week because Navy is so good running the football. You're in a weird neutral-sight game in San Diego against a service academy. me and they're going to be really motivated. The last time we saw Notre Dame, they did not play well against Pitt. So is that going to change? I love what they've done with Ian Bookett quarterback.

They're averaging over 38 points per game with him as a starting quarterback. The defense is pretty good. I love Jerry Tilleri. We'll see how it goes from here. This is the only team in the top 10, by the way, Notre Dame is, that the remaining teams on their schedule aren't even receiving votes, not even just like unranked, not even receiving votes. So, I mean, it's there for the taking. You've got these games that you can win. You're probably supposed to win. You should be in the playoff this year.

They cannot let this opportunity go by the wayside. They cannot. Now, they only have one home game coming up. Two neutral sites, two roads, and one home. That's kind of strange. They're going to play neutral site at Yankee Stadium against Syracuse. This week in San Diego against Navy in a neutral site game. They've got Florida State at home. Then they've got to travel to Northwestern, and they've got to travel to USC.

So that's the kind of the makeup. Those weren't in order, by the way. I was just giving you kind of a total total version of there. Okay, Clemson at number two. Listen, if you go back to the last couple of weeks, they're winning like 105, 110 to 10. They're finding their rhythm. And I've told you this. How many times have I said this on this show? As Trevor Lawrence begins to get more comfortable and grows and gets more maturity in that offense, they're going to be explosive on offense. What have we seen in the last couple of weeks? Explosiveness on offense. Their defense is actually playing better than they have all year long. That front board is incredible. They're in the top five in the country and tackles for loss. They get out to the quarterback in the passing game and they're

great against the run. By the way, Travis Etienne is really good right now. He's got 14 touchdowns rushing the football. That is right now, I believe, tied for the lead in the country with the FAU running back Singletary. I think it's definitely. been singletary. I could be wrong there. Get this on straight. Alabama is number one. They will be number one for the foreseeable future. They're incredible.

Their quarterback has thrown 25 touchdowns and no interceptions. He is right now in the lead by a wide margin for the Heisman trophy. Their defense is okay. And by okay, I mean 12th in the country and scoring defense. A lot of people would take that. I just think that they give so many issues. to the opposition. Jerry Judy on the outside.

You still have to defend the Harris boys back there running the football. Their offensive line gets after a little bit. Tua is so accurate with the ball. He throws on time. He has complete control of that offense. And he's got such control. He doesn't even have to play in the fourth quarter.

I mean, this guy, do you know he's attempted half as many passes as Dwayne Haskins has? This year? Half. Half. Haskins, 315. Tua, 152. How are we doing?

How are we doing, Alabama? Really good. Really good. So there you have it. There's my top 10. UCF, never going to be there. Sorry, Danny White. That was a really cute letter that you sent Game Day.

Hey, Game Day, I got it from here. Danny White, take a seat. Take a seat and go enjoy a bowl game somewhere else. A New Year 6 bowl game, by the way. It's set up for you to succeed. You shouldn't even really be in the New Year 6. You don't earn your spot there, but we give you a handout. So take your handout.

go to that game and maybe you can get another upset win. Until then, take a seat. I'm tired of this. Tired of this. UCF. Unbelievable. 127th ranked schedule in the country. Guess who's 128? North Dakota State at the FCS level. There's 7.0. Should we include them? You tell me, Danny, give me a break. Give me a break UCF Twitter. There's my top 10. Thanks to Dr. Pepper. Appreciate your support. As all always. We're going to have lots of stuff coming up this week. So pay attention to it. We're going to have my thoughts probably on UCF. We'll have some clapbacks. We'll have some clatt stat on Tua that's incredible that you're going to want to watch out for. And then we've

got the game on Saturday. I'll be in Oklahoma, Kansas State at Oklahoma. Kyler Murray and this OU team, by the way, the two teams with the best chance to go to the playoff with one loss right there, Michigan and Oklahoma. So stay tuned. Maybe they'll do it. Time for a little clat stat this week. And we're going to head to Tuscaloosa and Alabama's quarterback Tuatung of Iloa to get our clats stat of the week.

And remember, numbers and facts do not care about your sentiments or feelings, aka UCF. Get out of here. But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to talk about Tua. So in order to talk about Tua and his brilliance, you have to give his brilliance some context. So let's start with the fact that last week, even in a loss, Duane Haskins, continued to play well. He piled up another 400-yard passing game. This guy just does

this. It seems like week in and week out, that's three straight, over 400 yards now for Haskins. It's one of the only things that Ohio State does really well is that they throw the football. Haskins had to throw the ball, however, against Purdue, 73 times in order to get those 430 yards right around there. That was an Ohio State record, obviously. by a wide margin. I believe Arch Leicester, his record was 52 before that, so we beat it by over 20 passing attempts. That's all well and good. Obviously, you don't want to be in that position like Ohio State was, but now let's go back to the Alabama portion of this, because Tua has been putting up some gaudy numbers as well. Now, while some other guys have thrown for more

yards, let's actually look at some of the efficiency of what Tua is doing. So keep in mind, Haskins threw the ball 73 times in a loss to Purdue. Did you know in the last four games, Tua, Tunga Vialoa, has attempted 72 passes, one less than what Haskins did in one game a week ago. Now, in those 73 passing attempts, Haskins threw the ball for 430 yards. Do you know in the 72 passing attempts that Tua has had over the last four games, he's thrown for, 1,033 yards, and 13 touchdowns? That's insane. So think about this for a moment.

Dwayne Haskins throws the ball 73 times in a loss for 430 yards. And was it good? Yes, it was still very good. Tua Tunga Vialoa over the last four games has thrown the ball a total of 72 times, so not even equaling that number of attempts that Haskins had in one game. And he's thrown the ball for 1,033 yards. What? That's incredible. Tua, you are in the lead right now by quite a margin in the Heisman race. You should be.

Your numbers on third down are incredible. You lead the number one scoring offense in the country. You lead a team that has outscored its opponents by 252 points in the first half alone this year, which is a staggering amount. And I hope you've enjoyed the fourth quarter off because we've enjoyed watching you. To a Tunga Vialoa. Well done, sir. So this week, Danny White, the athletic director at UCF, embarrassed himself with some.

letter to no one, namely the game day crew as a whole. And he basically complained about the way they were talking about UCF and dismissing their playoff chances or potential playoff chances, which they did exactly what they should do, evaluate the teams and speak about them honestly. That's what we're all supposed to do as analysts. I'm not here to give you a handout, Danny White. And quite frankly, you should stop asking for a welfare spot in the college football playoff. You already have a welfare spot in the New Year's six Bulls. You occupied that spot last year. Good for you. And you beat Auburn. Good for you. None of that means that you deserve inclusion into the four-team college football, which right now as defined as supposed to be the

four best teams in college football going to compete for the championship. You under no circumstance, UCF, would fall under that umbrella as one of the four best teams in the country. And no, no, actual analyst or computer would ever put you in that spot. Why? Because we can think and we can analyze and we can look at data and we understand what we're looking at. Now you can pick and choose which rankings you like and which rankings that you don't like, but keep in mind that the ranking that's going to be most biased, most sentimental, and most flawed is the AP poll. So UCF is going to be highest in the AP poll than it will be anywhere else. across college football. And part of that is remember who these voters are. A lot of guys that did not

play college football that love an underdog story. Hate to say it, but it's true. I know a lot of them, they're well-meaning, but they are desperate for UCF to create that story for them. The bottom line is they don't deserve it. No group of five team does, by the way. If you play a group of five schedule and you win that league, that's all well and good. But that's like competing in 4A football in the high school level versus 5A football. football in the high school level. Just because you go undefeated as a 4A team does not mean you compete for the 5A state championship. My contention is this. Including any group of five team into the four-team playoff would be penalizing upwards of 20 to 25 power five teams for playing

in those leagues. Why in the world would we penalize those teams? They're not only good enough, but we can genuinely look, rate, analyze, and analyze the data to see that they are as good or better than any of those group of five teams, which means that they would have gone undefeated with that schedule in front of them as well. So why should we punish them? Because what? We love a good underdog story? No, we don't.

I absolutely hate underdogs. I was rooting for the Patriots to go undefeated. Why do I want the Giants to be a mediocre Super Bowl champion? Why would I want any champion to be mediocre? Cinderella stories? Give me a break. You know what I want Cinderella stories? The second week of the...

You know when I want Cinderella stories? the second week of the college basketball tournament. That's when it's cute. In March Madness. Oh, by the way, they expanded that tournament to let everyone in. And guess what it did? Ruin their regular season. So why would I want to do that to college football?

One of the rating systems that I actually like a lot, and I've dug into the numbers of all of them, is Jeff Sagrin's computer rankings. He was included in the BCS, and his ratings have been around for quite a while, and they're very accurate, very accurate based on what we see on the field. Well, if you go to the Sagrin ratings this week, here's what you'll find, that UCF is pretty appropriately ranked or rated as the 28th best team in college football. Now, for any group of five team, would you say like, hey, that's pretty good?

Yes, of course, that's very good. No one's saying that it's not, and no one's saying that UCF is a bad team. But they should be rated right around that 28th spot. Well, did you know that just behind them at the 29th spot is an FCS team, North Dakota State? Dakota State is also 7-0. They've won a national championship in six of the last seven years or something ridiculous like that. That's a great program. They've had NFL players come out of there, namely Carson Wince, who's one of the best quarterbacks in the national football league. By the way, if you look at the schedules that both of those teams play, you might think to yourself,

uh, North Dakota States would be clearly weaker than UCFs because, you know, FCS, FBS. Ah, not the case. According to the Sagrin ratings, UCF schedules the 127th rank schedule in the country. 127. 127. Guess where North Dakota State Falls? An FCS school, 128. So my question to you, Danny White is, should we include North Dakota State as well?

Because, you know, Cinderella's. Michigan fans, I'm talking to you. Right now. You need to share this video with all of your friends, all your cousins, mom and dad. You guys have been in a hard spot the last decade or so, waiting for Michigan to be back and relevant for the national title in that picture. Well, guess what? It's real.

It's real this year right now for the Wolverines. I want to talk to the Michigan fans, right? Because we've been through a lot, and I wouldn't consider myself a fan. But as an analyst, I have been one that has defended Jim Harbaugh. You know it and I know it. I've given you takes that I think he's one of the better coaches in college football, and I believe it. It's not a hot take. And quite frankly, you get painted as some sort of Harbaugh apologists because he doesn't beat his rivals.

And I get it. That criticism is founded to some extent. He was one in five against his rivals coming into last week's game against Michigan State. But if you actually take a closer look at what Michigan is and was under Jim Harbaugh and what it was before he got there, you would see that it's a far different cry than what a lot of people, namely those hot take artists that want to tell you that Jim Harbaugh is terrible, what they want to paint. First and foremost, in those rivalry games,

he was the drop punt snap away and a poor spot at Ohio State from flipping that script. He would have been three and three in those games, and he would have had a division title and a potential playoff berth already under his belt. Two snaps of the football. So it wasn't quite as bad as everyone wants to make it out. to be. Now if you go to this outlook as well, and I dropped this during the broadcast, so Michigan fans, you know where I'm going with this. Harbaugh took over a program that in the seven previous

years was 46 and 42 overall. Okay, so from the time Lloyd Carr stepped away until Jim Harbaugh was hired, Michigan, the all-time winningest program in the history of the sport was 46 and 42. That's awful. For Michigan. Not bad for other programs, awful for Michigan. Do you know that that 46 and 42 over that same seven-year span was tied with Oregon State? Oregon State. You're behind teams like Georgia Tech and Northwestern. So don't give me this garbage like Michigan's the same they were before Jim Harbaugh got there. That's baloney. That is absolute crap.

Harbaugh has turned them into a contender, and you can see, by the way they play in the field, and you can see by their record. Now you just go to their team. Let's start analyzing their team, and I'm going to tell you why this year it's actually for real. First and foremost, they've got some constants that have remained the same and will continue to remain the same during the course of the season. Their defense is fantastic. Their past defense is number one in the country. Their total defense is number one in the country. They get to the quarterback. They tackle well. Don Brown's doing an unbelievable job on that side of the football as their coordinator. They run it well, maybe even better than they have in the past, but mostly they run it well.

Over 200 yards a game on the ground, and Karan Higden has been over the century mark in each of his last six. In fact, Notre Dame was the only team that was able to hold them under 170 yards on the season run of the football. So those are the constants. Defense, running the ball. That's what Harbaugh does. That's who he is. That's in their fabric. But now they have fixed some of the issues that plagued them over the last couple of years.

Let me just take you through them. First and foremost, they're not turning the ball over to the same extent they were in previous years. Did you know last year they were 86th in the country turning the ball over? Coming into last week, they were sixth in the nation turning the ball over. So they've got ball security in a much better clip. Their quarterback, Shea Patterson, doesn't put it in precarious spots. He's only thrown two interceptions on the year. 12 touchdowns, two interceptions.

They don't fumble generally in the rain last week. They did fumble a couple of times, but those were extenuating circumstances. So they've fixed that problem. much better on third down. Last year they were abysmal on third down. Well into the hundred is converting on third down. Now all of a sudden they're one of the better teams not only in the conference but in the country. Why? Because they're winning on first down. Did you know that they're over two and a half yards better in their first down plays than they were a year ago? Just in the yards per play basis. So what does that do? It gets you

into third and short, get you into convertible situations and then all of the sudden that run game can take over. So now all of a sudden you've got some areas that are getting much better. And then the final part, the quarterback. And I touched on it a little bit in that turnover deal. Their quarterback is for real. Patterson makes plays. Think about the plays he made against Michigan State. The long pass on a fade route to Donovan People's Jones, the great throw it in the back of the end zone to Nico Collins. He also converts with his feet. He did a fourth down conversion on a little zone replay. He had the 81-yard run against Wisconsin. his feet have become a huge deal for Michigan.

That has transformed this team into a team that is a legit title contender in the Big Ten. And for right now, they would be my fourth team in a college football playoff. Now that we're at about that halfway point, I want to throw out some awards. And I'm going to start with the mid-season coach of the year. So there's a few candidates out there. I think that you could put Ed Ogeron on that list for what he's done at LSU. a great job. I think you can put Jim Harbaugh on that list, having a transfer quarterback and being a much better version of that team than they have been in the last couple of years. I think that

you can put Brian Kelly on that list. I think that there's a few guys. Jeff Brom from Purdue, there's some guys out there doing some really cool things. And quite frankly, Kyle Wittingham should probably be on that list as well for what he's doing with Utah. But my midseason coach of the year right now is pretty easy. It's Brian Kelly at Notre Notre Dame. Notre Dame is undefeated in 7-0 for the first time since 2012, that year that they went to the BCS National Championship. Keep in mind, he did this while making a coaching decision at the quarterback position and making a change at that position in the middle of the year. That takes a lot of guts. And think about where that team has gone since he put Ian Book into the starting lineup.

Not only are they better offensively, but I think they're better as a team. Book has 14 touchdowns, three turnovers in his four starts, and they're averaging 39 and a half points per game in the games in which Ian Book starts at quarterback. They've got a run game with Miles Boykin. He's a guy that's got 115 yards per game and four touchdowns over his last three. And they're doing that after losing two great offensive linemen in the draft last year in the first round and their best offensive linemen to injury this year. So they're down three really good offensive linemen from last year. They've made a coaching change, a quarterback switch at the most important position on the field, and they're finally getting some health at the running back spot. It's pretty easy to tell you that Brian Kelly is the mid-season coach of the year,

and right now has them squarely looking into the lens of the college football playoff. Notre Dame controls their own fate, and rightly so. They're the only team that's been able to beat a very good Michigan team. They did it in week one. And right now, that's a team that I think can run the table and ultimately be in the college football playoff. Well done. Brian Kelly, you're my mid-season coach of the year.

This has been Breaking the Huddl. I'm Joel Clatt. Big thanks to Dr. Pepper at every homegate, tailgate. It is the one that fans crave. Have a great week, everybody.