The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Michigan in the Post-Harbaugh era, their QB Battle and more Takeaways from the Spring Game

Episode Date: April 23, 2024

FOX Sports’ lead college football analyst Joel Klatt gives his thoughts on Michigan after broadcasting their Spring Game and being around the program over the last week. He discusses the approach new Head Coach Sherrone Moore is taking in the post-Harbaugh era at Michigan. Klatt also points out players that stood out in the Spring Game and discusses the QB battle in Ann Arbor as the Wolverines replace J.J. McCarthy. He also takes a look at the gauntlet that the defending champs will face as they will take on 3 teams that could very well start in the Preseason Top 5 in Oregon, Ohio State and a Texas game on September 7th that will be televised on BIG NOON SATURDAY on FOX. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

He was with Jim Harbaugh. He cut his teeth under Jim Harbaugh. He's been there for six years. He's been a tight-end coach and an offensive line coach and a play call. So the guy knows it, right? He understands what this is all about. So a new head coach and yet, same mentality, same culture, same philosophy, same mentality. College football has never been better.

Interest has never been higher. I 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 sports. all over again. What is up, everybody? It is the Joel Clad show, and I am Joel Clad. Welcome in to a special recap edition for the Michigan Spring game from last weekend.

We had a great time, and first and foremost, follow us wherever you're at. You know the drill, in particular on YouTube, subscribe to the channel, throw in the comments below. I'll try to jump down there with you and then follow us on social media at Joel Clatt Show. I wanted to make sure that I got an episode about this spring game. I did so for the Ohio State Spring game last week. And I know with the draft coming up, I released on Monday yesterday my mock draft 3.0. If you haven't seen that or heard that, go ahead and check that out.

But even in the midst of draft week, I wanted to make sure that I got some of my thoughts about Michigan out to you. So let's get those out. All right. first and foremost, the idea, and I kept saying this on Saturday when I was there for the game, this idea for Michigan is a tough one. It's a tough one because it starts like this. How do you make sure that nothing has changed when everything is different? That's what they're charged to do. And that's what's going to be so difficult and why next season is going to be so fascinating from a Michigan

perspective. Everything is changing at Michigan and around Michigan. Got a new conference in the Big Ten. Got a new 12-team college football playoff. That in and of itself presents a lot of changes. They also are now trying to defend the national championship with all new faces. And yet, when you go into the building, when we met with them, when we talked with, when we talked, with them and then when we did the game, there is this sense within the group that nothing has changed. It's wild because, again, everybody's different. Let's just walk through that. How has nothing changed? Well, because from their standpoint, they will tell you that their culture,

their philosophy, their structure, the way that they do things, the mentality of how they practice and go about their business, their systems, both offensively and defensively, their system of development hasn't changed. None of that is changing. This is status quo for the Michigan Wolverines. And yet, everybody doing those things is different. It is wild. You look around and it's basically a completely new coaching staff.

It's new strength staff. And the only way that you can do this where everyone's different and nothing changes is if they're all kind of promoted from within. And it's not even promoted from within. It's like, are you part of that family? Were you part of that structure? Did you help build everything that we talk about when we talk about the Michigan culture?

That's the sense that I got around their team. So they've got this whole new coaching staff, right? You've got a new head coach, Sharon Moore, who obviously knows what it takes. He did it at the end of the season last year in some of their biggest games, namely Penn State and the Ohio State game. He was with Jim Harbaugh. He cut his teeth under Jim Harbaugh. He's been there for six years.

He's been a tight end coach and an offensive line coach and a play caller. So the guy knows it, right? He understands what this is all about. So a new head coach and yet same mentality, same culture, same philosophy, same mentality. New strength coach, Ben Herbert goes with Jim Harbaugh to the Chargers. And yet Justin Tress is promoted. Now, Tress has been with Herbert everywhere that he's been.

They got their start together. They would say that they built this idea and philosophy together. So in a lot of ways, this is just an extension of the exact same thing that Michigan has been doing and what they will continue to do. New face, nothing has changed. New offensive play caller, new defensive play caller. Both of these guys, Kurt Campbell on the offensive side, he was a quarterback coach last year. In the offense, nothing's going to change for the players. It's the same system.

These guys, even though it might look a little bit different based on the talent that they put on the field, namely the quarterback position because they don't have J.G. McCarthy. it is the same system for the players. So nothing's changing for the players. All the verbiage is the same. And for them, it's status quo. Same with the defensive side, which I think is even more fascinating.

For the last three seasons, we've seen this Baltimore style of defense take hold with Michigan and be dominant. To the tune that last year, they were the number one defense in America, both scoring and total defense. They were fantastic. That started three years ago with Mike McDonald.

When Jim Harbaugh went from the Don Brown college-oriented defense and he wanted to get an NFL-oriented defense. So he goes to his brother, John Harbaugh. And he says, hey, give me a couple of your young guys. I want to run your defense. He gives him Jesse Minter and he gives him Mike McDonald. And he says, choose one of those guys.

He choose Mike McDonald's, even though he said both of these guys are great. Mike McDonald comes in and he implements the Baltimore Ravens defense. Run wall up front, hard edges. Remember Ajabo and Hutchinson, hybrid linebackers, good safeties, good cover corners, length, speed, and they did well, made to the playoffs, but Ohio State. Mike McDonald gets an opportunity to go back to Baltimore, so he does. And guess what?

Jesse Mentor steps in, that same guy that John Harbaugh gave to his brother. Jesse Mentor, fabulous job the last couple of years, took and build upon what Mike McDonald did in the Baltimore defense. Now Jesse moves on and he's going to be the coordinator on the defensive side for Jim Harbaugh with the Chargers. where do you go now? Because it's like, well, both the young guys are gone. What are we going to do?

How about the guy that taught those two guys, this defense? Or as this guy likes to call himself, the OG, the original of this defense, the grandfather himself, winked Martin Dale. So guess what changes for the players? Nothing. Now, will he be more aggressive? Probably. That's his nature as a defensive play caller.

But the structure and the philosophy and the players. the system for the players remains the same. So again, we're stuck in this idea that nothing is changed and yet everybody is different. That's what it is on the coaching staff. And that also bleeds into the players because they lost a ton of really good players. We're going to see them drafted on Thursday night and Friday night and on Saturday this week in the NFL draft. You look at the offense, they're going to have 10 new starters. You look at the defense and they lose Mikey Sain.

and Chris Jenkins and Jalen Harrell and like some guys that played a lot of football for them. And that's going to be tough to overcome. And yet they feel like because of the development side of their program that they're going to have players that are able to step into those roles, even if they weren't highly recruited and perform on those levels. Now, whether they do or not remains to be seen, but that's what they believe at Michigan. And more power to them because they've proven that over the last three years. This is a program that is 40 and 3 in the last three years.

40 and 3. They just rattle off a 15 and 0 national championship. So it's hard to argue with what they're talking about. Before you get into these players, and I will, in particular some of these guys that maybe you don't know at home that I was impressed with on Saturday, I started asking myself, like, how does this happen? How does this work, I think, is a better way to put it?

We've seen it happen and we've seen it work. Lincoln Riley did it with Oklahoma after he took over for Bob Stoops. Ryan Day did it when he took over for Urban Meyer at Ohio State. You know, Frank Solich had a lot of success after Tom Osborne. And then it kind of waned after a few years. David Shaw had a lot of success after he took over for Jim Harbaugh at Stanford. Now, it waned over the years. I started to think to myself like, well, what is it that allows you to have success, even when somebody like Jim Harbaugh leaves?

This is going to ring true also for Alabama. This rings true for your organization that you work for. This is a group dynamics organizational structure conversation. What is it that allows that structure to have success when their leadership moves on? I think it has to do with that leadership and their style of leading while they're there. Okay. If you study leadership, and I've done a fair amount, I really love books on leadership, you'll see that there are people that can have success and loads of it, lots of different types of people.

But it's interesting to see those programs that they lead, those organizations that they lead, when they leave. Some of them fail and some of them continues to succeed. So then you start to study well like, what's the difference

between the ones that fail after leaders leave and the ones that succeed? And the difference is the type of leader that those people are that leave an organization that can succeed.

Generally speaking, in the research, it will show that they have a lot of personal humility. And that personal humility comes in because what they are is they are fiercely loyal and steadfast to the goals and purpose of the organization.

Okay? And let's face it, whatever you think of Jim Harbaugh, that's kind of prototypical of what Jim Harbaugh is. Guy didn't really care if he got any credit. He was fiercely steadfast and had a fierce will towards the success of the organization as something bigger than himself and bigger than him in terms of the cause and the purpose of what was going on.

And so when those type of people are leading, here's what they do is that they teach and they delegate. And when people delegate, then other people learn how to do it as well. You see, some people can do it all themselves and have a lot of success. But when they leave, everything falls off the cliff. When the people that really care about the organization leave,

they delegate, they teach, and they leave the organization in a better spot than when they got there. And I think in a lot of ways, we're going to see if that's been the case at Michigan. So now we get to the players from the spring game, actually. It's a lot of philosophical talk, which, by the way, really interests me because when I look at next year, we'll see how this goes for Michigan. They're going to have to have guys step up.

So who are some of the guys that maybe you don't know about that I thought really impressed me on Saturday? On the edge, a guy named T.J. Guy, not just a guy, but T.J. Guy. A sack, good pressure throughout. A big reason why they were successful was the fact that they could rotate on the defensive line and specifically at the edges. So T.J. Guy in rotation is going to be important? Now, is he going to be asked to be in a star leading role, get 10 sacks? No. But if he's a guy that can have production, can be on the field in critical moments against big opponents,

that's going to help them become a better defense overall because then the starters, like Josiah Stewart won't have to play the number of snaps that he would otherwise have to play. So a guy like TJ guy would be very important. How about Zeke Barry? He flashed in Saturday's game. Coach Moore talked about it with me on the field. Charles Woodson was talking about it as well.

He was constantly around the ball. And he's going to be looking to fill that role that was left a huge gaping hole by Mikey Sain Restill, who's one of the best defenders not only on their team, but in the country. I think towards the end, I would categorize him as the best defender on the best defense in college football. You're going to have to replace that guy.

Zeke Berry made a lot of plays in that defense on Saturday, and he's a guy they'll be looking to really be productive next year. On the offensive side, it's going to be important that they have a second tight end because Colston Loveland is probably the best tight end in the country. They need a second because of their philosophy, their structure, the way that they like to run offense. They want to be in 12 personnel,

one back, two tight ends. So they need another tied end. Watch out for Marlon Klein. Marlon Klein is a guy that played a lot of soccer in his youth. He's fairly nude to football. So again, he's perfect for this development structure that Michigan has. And grew up in Germany, and he's fast. He had four catches on Saturday.

Didn't really get out. But they say that he might be one of the fastest players on the team. his emergence will be huge. If you could flex out Colson Loveland and a guy that can run 4, 4, 4, 3, 5 in a tight-end body like Marlon Klein, that's dangerous. And that's very dangerous in an offense that could feature a running quarterback. And that's when we get to the quarterback battle. Those are the players that stood out.

And then the other thing that I think really stood out is just this quarterback battle. There were no answers on Saturday. We didn't find out who was going to be the quarterback. I think you saw in a lot of ways what makes this quarterback battle so unique. And that is the styles of these players are so vastly different. What Alex Orgy brings to the table, number 10, is explosiveness, the ability to run. What a guy like Davis Warren, number 16, brings to the table is a prototypical knowledge-based, schematic-oriented quarterback that's going to throw the ball to the right spot.

Now, his deep ball for a touchdown, which you're seeing on the screen if you're watching YouTube, was really beautiful. He threw it right on time, great air on that ball. He also was able to scramble and get the ball to Moore who took off for a touchdown. He's a fast player. I'm excited to watch him play next year as well. That's what led to the Mays team winning the game. But Davis Warren is a guy that needs to utilize the system, utilize everybody around him in order to have success. Alex Orgy is a guy that can have success because of his own athleticism, his own explosiveness, and he can equate number. and give you a big advantage in the run game. Don't know who it's going to be. I thought those two were the two guys that really impressed me the most on Saturday.

Orgy was 13 of 18, 103 yards, Davis Warren, 9, or excuse me, six for nine for 136 and two touchdowns. And now these guys are going to be charged with preparing for a season that's going to be very different than the one that they just played. They were 15 and 0, traditional, you know, playoff at the end, did not have a very tough schedule early last year. And now here we go and we're going to have a 12 team playoff. You could be potentially playing 17 games.

And their schedule is ridiculously difficult. They've got Texas Week 2. They've got USC in the fourth game, both of those games at home. They go to Washington in a rematch of the national championship game. That first road game for them isn't until October. They host Oregon early in November. who should be a top five team, and then they've got to go to the shoe and face Ohio State

who could start the season as the number one overall ranked team based on what they've done in the offseason with their roster. That's a tough schedule, an incredibly tough schedule. My question for them would be, you know, how quickly can you get a quarterback ready, in particular for that second game of the year against Texas? Don't know who it's going to be. This battle is going to, I think, bleed into the fall,

and we'll also see if Jack Tuttle has anything to say about this. He's the 18th year man who's going to be vying for that quarterback job as well in the fall. He was banged up this spring and so he did not get to play in the spring game. Speaking of that second game of the year, not only is Texas going to be facing the defending national champions, they're going to be facing a brand new quarterback and they're going to be doing it on Fox because it is official. That's right. Big noon kickoff, big noon Saturday. heading to Ann Arbor for Texas and Michigan. That is the showdown.

It'll be on noon eastern as Texas and Steve Sarkesian take on the brand new head coach, Sharon Moore and the Michigan Wolverines. That should be an absolutely epic day. Big noon kickoff will be there. And seeing those two programs on the same field in the regular season is going to be dynamic. So I can't wait for that one.

Gus Jenny and I will be on the call. All right. Thank you for listening and watching. everybody. Keep tuned for any updates on social media as the draft week rolls out. We're trying to put together some content. Hopefully we get that done. Everybody's schedules are fairly busy. But stay tuned to those social channels at Joel Clatchio, wherever you like to social media. Make sure to follow us wherever you're listening and you get your podcast. And then make sure to subscribe on YouTube. And we'll be back next week with more, Joel Clatio. Thanks for listening.