The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Klatt’s Top 5 QBs in the Draft and the real benefits of shortening games in CFB

Episode Date: February 28, 2023

FOX Sports’ lead college football analyst Joel Klatt reveals his Top 5 QBs in the upcoming NFL draft and gives his thoughts on the most polarizing QB prospect in the class, Florida’s Anthony Richardson. Then, Joel dives into the proposed rule changes to shorten games in college football and shares his thoughts on how the actual effects of these changes could help level the playing field in the sport. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome into the Joel Clatt Show. I'm Joel Clatt and thank you for joining us. If you are new to the show, welcome in. A lot of people might be new to the show after that big old mailbag episode. I cannot tell you how many people have commented to me about, oh, so you're giving marriage advice now. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go back and listen to last week's episode because, yes, I did a mailbag episode and there may or may not have been some life advice, some marriage advice in there. So go back and check that out. Hey, remember to subscribe to the show. You can follow us on all the social medias at Joel Clatt show. You can follow me on social at Twitter, at Joel Clat, Instagram, at Joel underscore Clat.

And yeah, that's where we're at. So today is an exciting show because we're going to start getting into the draft. As we get closer to the draft, you're going to get a lot of draft content for me because that's my next big project. I will be working the draft. for NFL network. Like I have been the last couple of years, a good chance, hopefully that that increases just a little bit. So can't wait for that.

Love working with those guys. DJ, obviously, is fantastic of what he does. Charles Davis, Rich Eisen, so can't wait to get to Kansas City and talk about the draft. So in that vein, let's get started. And then we also have some college football news and notes kind of stuff to talk about at the end of the show. Let's start with the NFL draft. and to get things kicked off, I think that the biggest issue in the draft is just what's going on at the top. So let's look at the top 10, the draft order at the top.

And the biggest question is going to be, what is Chicago going to do with the number one pick? Obviously, when you got the number one pick, everybody just assumes like, okay, if you have a quarterback, then you can trade out. That is exactly what I believe Chicago should do is trade out of that pick. It's pretty apparent to me that in the back half of last season, Justin Fields played. tremendous football. You could see that he turned the corner and he became a dominant player. He became a player that you could see grow into what Jalen Hertz has become with the Philadelphia Eagles and then some grow into what Josh Allen is and has become with the Buffalo Bills. This guy is a modern style NFL quarterback. And I think that Chicago would be well served if they

not just select a different position, but trade out of that pick and get Justin Fields some help. Okay? So to me, it's a lot of this is about value. I don't think that they should just sit in number one and take Jalen Carter and have to pay him number one money. Why not trade out of the pick? And they've got a lot of suitors sitting there. So the bears are set at quarterback. And yet you're sitting there and you're looking at a number of different teams, right? Houston needs a quarterback. Indianapolis needs a quarterback. You can debate Detroit. Las Vegas is obviously sitting there.

Carolina, all these teams need to answer questions at the quarterback position, which means in a draft in which there's two guys that really a lot of us are going to have consensus that should be top five, top six picks, and C.J. Stroud and Bryce Young, now all of a sudden you've got leverage because the rest of the guys, I think, are a bit of a reach. So you've got more than two teams with a quarterback need. sitting in the top 10, and you're Chicago, you don't have a quarterback need, and the positions that you could draft will still be there at any of those picks,

maybe save for number nine, right? So if you're looking at a defensive lineman or some help on the defensive side if you're the Bears, you could probably still get Jalen Carter if you traded out of that pick. You could still potentially get Will Anderson from Alabama. Tyree Wilson is a guy from Texas Tech that a lot of people are high on. Miles Murphy was at Clemson. So there are opportunities for Chicago to get much better. You can get a really good player, probably one you were going to target anyways with that number one pick, and get value.

You look at some of the previous trades for that number one pick. Everyone obviously in 2012, Washington traded up from six to two to take our G3. They gave what, two more first, the sixth and the two more first and the second. the Rams traded up in 2016 from 15 to 1. They gave up another first two seconds, two thirds. You're going to get a haul. The Bears have a lot of needs. They can help their roster a great deal by trading out of that pick.

I think Philadelphia is a great model. They reminded me a lot of really the Seahawks team that won the Super Bowl because you can build a great, roster when you're not paying your quarterback second contract money. And so now you've got the opportunity to do that, get much better, get much deeper on your team. So the first take I have and the whole NFL draft is Chicago should trade out of number one. And the reason that they should trade out of number one is because they've got the leverage there. And the leverage is Bryce Young. I think a lot of these teams are going to target Bryce Young. Bryce Young is going to be,

Bryce Young is going to be my top quarterback on the board. So let's get into my top five quarterbacks in this year's NFL draft. I start with the Alabama Signalman, Bryce Young. I said this all the way back when they played Texas this year. This guy is and should be the number one pick. He's so good. When you watch him on film, he's obviously a distributor. He's accurate.

The ball comes out. He's like a ninja, man. I mean, it's just like, boom. like quick release. His chest can be pointed at the target. He doesn't even need his throwing shoulder or his opposite shoulder pointed. He doesn't have to press the ball back. His feet are amazing. He's got so much poise. He's got great leadership. He's really good in clutch moments. Bryce Young's a terrific player. So he's my number one quarterback on the board this year. Number two is kind of a no-brainer as well. C.J. Stroud, quarterback for Ohio

State. I've obviously been around C.J. a lot in his career so far, covered him a great deal at Ohio State. He is very accurate. He's worked hard. He's been a really good leader for Ohio State. And I think that we saw a side of him, albeit in a loss to Georgia, but we saw a side of him and a competitiveness out of him that maybe we hadn't seen before in that last game. And I think that is going to I think that's going to carry some weight with scouts. C.J. Stroud is a heck of a player. Heck of a player. This is though when you get three to five is where I think it really gets interesting.

Because most of us who cover the draft are going to have the same guys up there at one and two. And probably going to have the same order, Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud. But then it gets interesting. And it gets interesting because at least in my estimation, not in everybody's, but in my estimation, there's a pretty sizable gap between those two who I feel like are NFL ready players and then the rest of the quarterbacks in the draft. That doesn't mean that there's not talented guys available. It just means that there is a gap. Because there's a gap, I immediately go to like, okay, I'm viewing it in different tiers now.

And so if I don't need a guy that's absolutely ready to play in the NFL, I've got to go with traits. and I've got to go with upside. So with that being said, my number three quarterback available in this year's draft is going to be Anthony Richardson from Florida. Anthony Richardson is so talented. He is explosive. He's got a great arm, great arm strength, and he's the type of guy that, yes, is raw,

and there's things that need to be refined. But you can kind of say, sense that let's just say, for example, he's a Rubik's Cube. Okay? Now, is he close to being solved or complete? Probably not. Is he like two or three turns away from being complete? Probably not.

But if you can complete that Rubik's Cube, if you can complete Anthony Richardson, he's got the traits that would make him one of the best players in the entire league because of his size, his speed, his arm strength. This guy is the total package. He would be the best player on the field if you could figure it out. If you could unlock him. Is it going to take some time? Probably.

Probably. There's a lot of things that need to go right. There's a lot of rough edges that need to get refined. His decision making. His accuracy really are the two most prominent ones that I think need to get fixed. But if they can get fixed, man, this guy's a dynamo man i mean like he is a better version of josh allen right like he's a better version of jalen hertz and in a day and age by the way that we've seen in the last few years

a lot of quarterbacks that that that most of us said were a bit of a project and they've worked they've worked in the past projects didn't really work out in the national football league but they have of late i thought herbert was a bit of a bit of a project. He's worked for the Chargers. I thought Josh Allen was a bit of a project and had accuracy issues, albeit a strong arm. Look at what he's done with the Buffalo Bills. Patrick Mahomes was a project coming out of Texas Tech. Jalen Hertz was a project. Justin Fields, they thought, had some rough edges. He's starting to be refrient. Lamar Jackson had some rough edges. He's one of the best players in the entire league. So it's working. So people are having success.

with these guys that might not be complete players coming out of college. That's the reason I've got Anthony Richardson at number three. So then when you go on from there, my next two guys, at number four, I'll go with Will Levis. I'm not terribly excited about Will Levis, but he does have some traits. Not nearly Richardson style or level traits, but he does have some traits. It's got a strong arm. And then a number five, I know he's injured and he's got to come back from this, but I've got Hendon Hooker.

Love his disposition. He was so good before he got injured this year for Tennessee. The offense does give me a bit of pause because of the offense that he was running at Tennessee. But more on that as we kind of go along. But there they are. My top five quarterbacks available in the 2023 NFL draft. Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud, Anthony Richardson from Florida, Will Levin. and Hendon Hooker.

Remember when all those people were like, you're an SEC hater? Okay. Let's move on. Let's get into some college football stuff. And there has been some news and some chatter around college football. I could talk all about, and maybe even take a victory lap,

about Dion Sanders and Colorado becoming the number one transfer portal team in the country. But I won't. I won't. I'm not going to do that. What I do want to talk about is something, that I was talking about three years ago, and that is rule change proposals. So let's get into it. The commissioners and the powers that be in college football have proposed, although they haven't even debated these things. Just proposed. They've kind of floated out the proposal of four rule changes that all have to do with, let's say, timing. When you read articles about this, you

you'll read that like, hey, you know, there's four proposals out there. Two of them have a lot of consensus. And then the other two, there, there's some pushback. The two that have consensus that are going to pass that will be changed are no-brainers. And it's like, why are we wasting time doing this? Just do it. It doesn't have to be debated. You don't have to waste time on this. No back-to-back timeouts. Yeah, obviously. Enact that rule. Adopt the rule immediately. And then if a penalty ends the first or third quarter, they're not going to have an untimed down in the first or third quarter. They'll just do it as the first play of the second quarter of the fourth quarter.

Again, no-brainer. And it's not going to affect anybody whatsoever. And by the way, that's not going to speed anything up. Now, the next two are going to speed things up. And I want to talk about these because these next two are important. and I do think that they need to be adopted. The third one is there's a proposal that the clock would no longer stop after every first down in the game. And it would only stop in the last two minutes of each half.

I've been arguing for this for years. Like I said, I was talking about this three years ago. Three years ago, I've been saying this for a long time. And I'll tell you why after I mentioned the fourth one, then the fourth one would be a proposal of that the clock would not stop after incomplete passes. This one's a little bit more controversial, but let's get into it. What you're going to hear a lot about, and I don't want you to get sucked into this, is that it's all about game time. All right, they're going to say like, well, our games have crept up to three hours and 20 minutes, and a few years ago, they were three

hours and 17 minutes. I don't care about game time, and I don't think any of you care about two or three minutes here or there. Personally, I'm not going to feel it in the booth if the game is three hours in 20 minutes versus three hours and 17 minutes. And I don't think that we should be wasting our energy on those three minutes, okay, of real time. What we should be paying attention to is snap volume. And again, I've been saying this for three years. The reason that you enact some of these rules, adopt some of these rules, is to reduce the total number of snaps per game. It's a player safety issue. It's not about game time. I don't care about the three minutes of real time.

317, 320. Pound sand. Who cares? What I do care about is the potential of reducing a game by 10 to 20 to 30 total snaps. Now you're talking about something. You see, the hypocrisy of the rulemakers in college football is, I mean, it is so rich and so palpable. They talk about player safety and they're like, targeting. this and targeting that and rules. And yet they've never touched the clock. And quite frankly,

the targeting rule, we put it under this player safety guys. Is there any way that we can measure whether targeting has made the game safer or not? No, you can't measure that at all, at all. So they enact this rule and then they're claiming like, oh, the game is safer. We've lowered the strike zone. Yeah, but you've also encouraged quarterbacks to throw the ball in precarious spots because they can gain an advantage. So I have no idea whatsoever. And nobody does. And no one can argue that they have. I don't know if targeting has made the game safer. But I do know that if you change the clock rules and reduce the total number of snaps, what you've done is limit the exposure.

And to me, snaps is player safety. It's tangible. You limit the number of snaps. You're going to limit the number of injuries. And when you talk about where we're going and in terms of expanding the playoffs, potential of more postseason games, this has to go down. You have to adopt these rules. So not only are they late, but they're talking about it in the wrong vein. It's not about game time. It's about player safety. So let's talk about it in terms of player safety. If we can reduce the total number of snaps by between 10 and 30 per game, then you're actually tangibly talking about making the game safer for players. You're limiting their exposure. But you're also doing another thing. And this is going to be my second point. It's going to do two things. One of them limit snaps,

player safety, yes, obviously. But it's going to do another thing. And I don't think that many people realize this yet. But when you reduce the number of total snaps, what you're also doing is increasing competitiveness. You're increasing parity. How's that? Well, let's say I was playing golf against Tiger Woods, John Ron, whoever. And you tell me like, you got one hole. Could you beat him on one hole? Probably not. But my chances of beating him on one hole, a lot better than beating him on five or 10 or 18 or 6. Or 10 or 18 or 7. Or 72 or over the course of the whole season. You see, the better you are, what you want is more volume, more time, because the cream is always going to rise to the top. And in a sport where we have

a huge margin between our best teams and our average teams, what you see is the best teams in college football, the offensive coaches in college football, they want snap volume. Because it's a way for them to maintain the advantage. Maintain the advantage. If we we can reduce the total number of snaps, what you start to get is more parity. Now, a team can catch lightning in a bottle. I think you'll have more upsets. You're going to reduce the total number of possessions. This is a tangible way to make the game more competitive. And I'm here for it. I'm absolutely here for it. Shame on them for not putting these rule changes in this vein. They're arguing about three minutes of real time as if anybody cares.

Anybody cares when all they should be talking about is minimizing the exposure for the athlete in terms of their player safety and creating a more competitive landscape. And it does both of those things tangibly, tangibly. That's why I'm in favor of both, of both. And I understand that stopping the clock, or excuse me, not stopping the clock, clock after incompletions is pretty drastic. I would only do it in the first quarter and in the third quarter. And in the second quarter and the fourth quarter, it would stop like we normally see it. And again, the clock would stop after a first down in the last two minutes of each half.

So you retain what's great about college football, which is not requiring a quarterback in an offense to operate as clean and efficient as an NFL offense would operate in the two-minute drill. And yet you get the benefit of limiting the total number of snaps. Because right now, college football has like well over, I think it's over 180 snaps per game on average, NFL is just over 150. That doesn't make any sense. That doesn't make any sense. So these rules should absolutely be adopted. And if anybody is worth their soul, they will talk about it in terms of player safety, and they will talk about it in terms of competitiveness. Here's some of the problems out there. Number one is they're talking about timing. And if you're going to talk about timing,

You better talk about officiating, and yet no one wants to put officiating on the table. Why are we not talking about the review process in college football? If you're worried about the three minutes of real time, from three hours and 20 minutes to three hours and 17 minutes, maybe, and this is, you know, just me thinking out loud, maybe we shouldn't allow a replay official to stop the game whenever he wants all game long. why don't we have these coaches that are making six plus, seven plus eight plus nine plus million dollars a year make them responsible for stopping the clock with coaches challenges? It's too obvious. I mean, sometimes it hurts my head how obvious some of these things are. It's like, guys, guys, you're three years late on the clock issues, which now you're just getting to. and the issues that you should be talking about, we aren't talking about.

If you want to talk about timing, put officiating on the table. We should have a national officiating base. We should revamp review and not have it stopped all the time by the guy up in the booth. It doesn't make any sense. And with all of our attention focused on these clock rules, guess what we're not focusing on? All the things that need to be addressed currently. So this is what happens. when things bleed over, right, it's taken three years to get to these issues that should have been addressed back then.

And now all of a sudden you're addressing them now. Guess what it takes away the focus of? NIL boundaries, transfer portal, the calendar in general, which I've talked about at length already. All of these things need to be addressed right now and are not and are not because we are so late. college football and intercollegiate athletics in general moves like the Titanic, man. I mean, you can see an iceberg dead ahead from miles. And it's just like, oh, you know, all the head's Darbird, whatever they do. I don't need to turn the wheel. And it's just like, it takes forever to turn.

Meanwhile, the NFL is like a speedboat. Do you know why? Do you know why? College football moves so slowly because those in charge of college football, are also looking after non-revenue sports. And it's maddening. It's maddening. This is yet another reason why we need an entity looking after just college football.

Rules, governance, all of these things. But when we have the same people, these same commissioners that are also in charge of non-revenue sports and they've got to show up in the swimming and diving championships, you know, for each conference. and it takes their attention away from these things that need to get fixed in a fairly quick manner in the sport that matters because it generates the revenue. It doesn't matter more because the people matter more. It matters more because it pays for everything. You wouldn't have any of the other sports unless football was there paying for all these sports. So we need people focused on making football better all year long. this is all they should be doing. So the lack of focus on an annual basis, on a year-long basis,

year-round basis, I guess I should say, really hurts college football. You can see it in this regard, when it takes years and years to get to rules and to get to movement of things that should have happened along a time ago. And it happened with NIL and now it's happening with these rules and it's happening now with the calendar. We need people to move quicker. Okay. So this needs to pick up. How do we do that? We've got to create some sort of base, some sort of governing body that just looks after college football, period. All right. That's going to do it for me this week. Thank you for listening.

Remember, rate and review the show. Send me some feedback on social media. You can hit us up on social media here at Joel Klatt Show, any of the social medias. And I'll continue giving draft content as we move along each and every week. And then we'll continue to chase down all those interviews. Go back and listen to the podcast with Gus. Gus and I did a nice sit down about his documentary, going back to school with Gus Johnson, the mailbag last week.

Go check out all of those. And yeah, it's going to be a fun off season. Thank you for listening. Enjoy your week.