The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Michigan responds, Tennessee’s a Title contender, evaluating Ohio St & a Colorado Hail Mary

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

FOX Sports’ lead College Football analyst Joel Klatt reacts to Michigan’s last-minute win over USC and considers how their run-heavy attack affects their ceiling and floor this season. He breaks down what he saw on the film after watching Tennessee dismantle Oklahoma on Saturday Night and reveals why he feels the Vols are a legit National Championship contender this season. After calling Ohio State’s game on Saturday, Klatt compares the Buckeyes to teams he’s seen the last two weeks: Alabama and Texas. Of course, he has to talk about Shedeur Sanders’ Hail Mary in Colorado’s win over Baylor and why he believes Travis Hunter should be at the front of the Heisman list right now. Klatt also shouts out several big-time performances over the weekend from Clemson’s revitalized offense to Illinois and Utah’s big road wins and BYU’s stunning home win over K-State. He also puts a spotlight on Iowa’s Kaleb Johnson and talks about why the Hawkeyes could be a sleeper in the Big Ten before discussing the Heisman chances for Boise State’s star RB Ashton Jeanty. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tennessee is a national championship contender. College football has never been better. Interest has never been higher. Believe that we are at the dawn of the golden age of college football. It was an epic day of college football. It was one of those days where you fall in love with the sport all over again. What's going on, everybody? Welcome to the show.

This is the Joel Clat. I am Joel Clatt. And this show is presented by Hampton by Hilton. Great, great weekend of college football. Those were some incredible games. to get to a lot of it today. Hey, remember wherever you're listening, rate review our show, invite a friend to partake. Why not? Because it's always better with a friend. And then if you're watching on YouTube, just make sure to subscribe. We've got a lot of stuff going on on YouTube that's

exclusive to YouTube. So you're going to want to be there and subscribe and leave a comment below, like the video, and do all those things. If you want to follow us on social media at Joel show, wherever you like to social media, we're on all the platforms, even TikTok. We're on TikTok. It's true story. Okay, here we go. We've got like Michigan USC. That was a tremendous game. Tennessee OU, man, Vols looked great. I was at Ohio State. So I'm going to give you my thoughts about Ohio State, in particular with kind of what my schedule has been, because remember now, and subsequent weeks, I've gone Texas, Alabama, and then Ohio State after starting with Penn State. So kind of my thoughts on how all of those teams kind of stack up within each other. Colorado,

another Hail Mary, and then just some shoutouts of great performances. Maybe your team, maybe your favorite players in there at the end. So let's get to it because it's a packed show. Michigan responds. How about Michigan coming out there? They went 2724 over USC, which just turned into an incredible game. An incredible game. Mullings, TD, final minutes, fourth down.

I mean, that had all the drama. It had everything that you want from a college football game. And if we just take this from the Michigan perspective, now for a moment. Listen, I don't think it's going to be pretty this year for Michigan. Now, Granite Colston Loveland wasn't there and available and didn't play. So the passing game was never going to be great regardless. But now with Alex Orgy as quarterback, you can kind of see this blueprint starting to emerge before your eyes. And guess what? It is not going to be pretty. This is a ground and pound grappling team now. That's what they're going to be. And that's

what they're going to need to be. Doesn't mean that they can't start to develop a little bit in terms of the passing game, but they are going to have to bludgeon people in the run game. And guess what? They did it to USC on Saturday. And USC had to be prepared for that because they knew Alex Orgy was going to start. They knew that they weren't all that comfortable Michigan throwing the football. And so they knew what they were going to see. And yet Michigan was still able to be effective enough running the football in order to win the game. You've got to live with your ceiling at some point if you're Michigan. If you're looking at the beginning of their season, I think it's a nod to that they were trying to raise their ceiling early by playing Davis Warren because they thought, okay, I think we can

still run the football just because we're Michigan and we're physical up front. And then he gives us the best opportunity to at least be a requisite passing team. And that's how we're going to become the best possible team that we can. And then it was like, you know what, this is not working because the run game is not panning out, the passing game is not panning out, and now we're falling below what we feel like our standard is as Michigan as the defending national champions. And so you go in a different direction. And is the ceiling quite as high with Alex Orgy? Maybe, maybe not. But guess what? The floor is a lot higher. The floor is a lot higher. And let's, let's remember now about this program is that they are a self-admitted development program.

Now, it's still a high-end development program, but this is an organization and a program that is not going to live on five-star recruits. It's just not. They're not going to live in the transfer portal in order to reload season upon season. And right now, you can tell after the national championship, after all of those veteran players left, they're going to have a little bit of a year or two, maybe three, where they're trying to build back to a place where they've got that solid veteran base.

that doesn't mean that they don't have elite level players right now. They might have four first round picks in the NFL draft. Both of those defensive tackles, Will Johnson, another pick six for him and Colston Loveland. But as a roster, they're clearly not what they were a year ago when they were the national champion. They were so veteran and very talented. So now you start to look at this and you start like, okay, this is the blueprint. This is where they're going to be. Maybe the ceiling's not quite as high, but this is where they're going to be.

And now you can see them having a more successful season. rather than what we saw in the first few weeks. How important is one snap of the football for the trajectory of an entire season? Think about this. Khalil Mullings scores on fourth and goal. And if they don't convert that, what are we saying about Michigan today? No holds barred. Who knows?

Two losses? You know, what's Sharon doing? What are all these people? Oh, my goodness. Sky is falling. and yet they do convert maybe the benefit of a no-call. I thought that it was probably a hold on the fourth and one on the left side, but benefit of a no-call.

And they score. And now today it's like, okay, well, the blueprint is intact. They got a team that is a very good football team in USC, more on them in just a bit, and they're able to win the ball game with their philosophy. And so for them, they've got to be feeling great about this. And if I'm a Michigan fan, at least I can hang my hat on something.

Now, I think in the first few weeks, there was very little that they can hang their hat on. And now you can hang your hat on knowing the philosophy. 46 runs, 12 passes, 79% run plays. Orgy only completed seven passes for 32 yards and beat a ranked opponent. That's just wild. They ran the football when everybody knew that they were going to run the football for 290 yards. That's staggering. Kallel Mullings was fantastic.

You talk about beast mode. Yes, the fourth and one was incredible, but how about the 63-yard run to set up the fourth down? That was an incredible effort, spinning away from tackles and getting it done. He went 17 for 159 and two touchdowns. They were three-for-three on fourth-downs, and in the first half, you could really see the blueprint because what they were doing offensively was working.

They could stay on the field, they could sustain drives, and they were limiting the exposure to their defense. Their defense in the first half only played 29 snaps. See, that's the blueprint for Michigan. And I've been talking about this all year long. They need to protect that defense, keep them as fresh as possible, so that they can go out there and get themselves off the field

and then they can sustain drives offensively. If they do that, they're going to start winning at a better clip, and these games won't be quite as close. The problem was that USC mounted a furious comeback because they're a really good football team. They had 44 offensive snaps in the second half, and they got themselves back in it. I've also been, I don't know if critical,

but acknowledging the fact that the blitz rate had changed from Michigan up to this point. And I had suggested that I thought that they were blitzing too much. And one of the things that Jesse Mentor and Mike McDonald really hung their hat on is that at the college level, if you force a team to snap the ball between nine and 12 times in order to score, the likelihood that they will make a mistake is quite high because it's hard. Offensive football is hard.

Offense is about details and spacing and execution, timing, and all these things that are hard to put snap in and snap out. So this idea that you're just trying to wait out a mistake for the opposition, I think is a good one in college football. Look at Ohio State. You go back two years ago, they gave up far too many big plays. Last year they didn't. They were one of the best defenses in the country.

Last year, Michigan was the best defense in the country. What did they do? They didn't give up big plays at all. I think big plays occur when you manipulate the structure of your defense through blitzing. That doesn't mean that blitzing just never works because obviously there's a time and place to pressure and blitz the quarterback and things of that nature. Even run blitz and stunt and pressure. There's all sorts of those types of structures that you can use as long as you use a safe umbrella coverage structure behind it so that you don't give up a big play. And what we saw on Saturday was that Wink Martindale changed a little bit.

He had been about 48% blitz rate in the first three games, almost half the time, which was a top five blitz rate team in America. And on Saturday against USC, he blitzed 30% of the time. Last week, I said that if they blitzed as much as they had been blitzing, that USC would take them apart. And I still believe that because Lincoln Riley's system provides answers for the quarterback. When you manipulate your structure, he has an answer. in order to exploit that particular structure.

So they did not blitz quite as much. I do think Michigan moving forward is going to have to clean up some of these small things that have not been, let's say Harbaugh-esque. Because if you go to the Harbaugh level efficiency, this is what you would see is that their average net field position last year was as good as anybody, in fact, first in the country. They were plus 10 yards.

When you just took a look at like, where does your average starting field position, where is my average starting field position. Michigan was plus 10 yards. That's wild. This year, they've been 120th, almost last, almost, at minus 6. That has to change.

Their special teams has to get better. They've got to get off the field earlier in the downset on defense, and they've got to sustain drives on offense. The turnover margin, last year, they were elite. They were elite in turnover margin. They were plus 18 that was first in college football. This year, they're minus 4. they've had nine turnovers in four games.

They had two against USC, hurt them in that second half. They turned it over eight times all of last year, and they've already got nine turnovers so far this year. So some things that they can clean up that are just aside from the philosophy and the run game and the defense and all of that. If they can do some of those things, then I think Michigan can still have a pretty successful year. I still now think that nine and three is certainly possible.

Maybe more than that. Maybe. I don't know. The difficult part, though, is like 8 and 4 is also in the cards because they're just going to play closer games with this style of play. Therefore, you better lean into some of those small things like I was talking about in the efficiency. Let me just touch on USC now. So USC goes on the roads, their first Big 10 game and like, man, what a second half comeback. I thought that USC showed some real resiliency in that game. They trade blows with a physical team.

Remember, Michigan jumps all over them early, and that place is going crazy, and Sharon's going crazy on the sideline. And USC calmly is like, okay, and then they come right back and start trading with them. It reminded me of like the wilder fury fight. Remember when like both guys were knocking each other down? And it's like, hey, USC stood back up after getting knocked down to the mat in the first half,

and they started trading in the second half. And they were coming back. And man, they played a, phenomenal football game. Really good football game. And there are some things on that team that I think need to get better, but I just wanted to compliment first their resiliency, in particular Miller Moss, who was getting beat up at quarterback, but they came back and had every right to win that game, every right to win that game. They are one broken tackle away from winning that football game, one fourth down stop away, maybe a holding call away, maybe a couple of other calls.

I know USC fans are not thrilled with the officiating, but guess what? The officiating across college football has not been very good. So it's very difficult to blame one specific game on just officiating when officiating in general has been incredibly poor this year. One broken tackle. I mean, they're in position. That's the thing is like this is not quite like last year. Last year it was just total whiffs and they were out of gaps and given up giant runs.

And this, this wasn't that. They were there. They were there, spinning off him, and he just couldn't bring Kolo Mullins down. And that's got to make you six, 63-yard run on that final drive. I still think there's a ton of season left for USC. That come back in the second half, Woody Marks play. Woody Marks, man, that was like the Maurice Claret play from that, what was it, the O2 championship game.

To go back and steal the ball from Kenneth Grant, man, that was incredible effort. And it speaks to the effort and the resiliency of the entire program. program. Now, what needs to get better for USC? The offensive line has to get better. They have been manhandled now twice this season. LSU manhandled up them up front and it came down to just like Miller was just incredible in that game. And he was trying to against Michigan as well, but it was just too much. Josiah Stewart was terrific. That defensive line was just too much for USC and they could not hold up. That has to get better. And then he made. makes one mistake and Will Johnson takes it back for the pick six. I mean, Will Johnson is

an insanely good player. He is so good. He's very smart, great instincts, and there's one mistake for Miller Moss, and boom, all of a sudden it's in the end zone. But you've got to understand for Miller, man, the margin is so small because the offensive line is not very good. They ran it decently, decently, not great. I'd still love it if they would get back. If Lincoln would get back to that run game that he had at OU, maybe they don't have the horses up front to do that, but if they were able to do that,

it would take some of the pressure off of that quarterback, and Miller wouldn't have to be perfect. He wouldn't have to be Superman all the time, and maybe he wouldn't make some of those mistakes like he did to Will Johnson that wound up for a pick six. A lot of season for USC. And by the way, I think that's their worst matchup. outside of maybe like an Ohio State or someone like that,

they match up better with other Big Ten teams than they do Michigan. Just because Michigan is such an outlier. It's such a phone booth boxing match. All right, let's go to the SEC game. Tennessee makes a huge statement. A win at Oklahoma, they win at 2515 in a game that, let's be honest, did not feel as close as a 2515 game. The first thing I'll say is the only reason that's a game is because Oklahoma has an elite defense, an elite defense.

I was very impressed with the Sooner's defense. Why? Joel, they gave up 25 points. Yes, against an offense that I'm like, I love Tennessee's offense. I, folks, Tennessee is impressive. They lead 22, 3 going into the fourth quarter. They've got a stifling defense, one of the best in the country, I think, especially after watching it. They jump between man and zone, between pressure and drop eight.

I love their schematics. I loved their game plan. They've got absolute men on the defensive line that were just mauling the offensive line of the Sooners. They're really good. And this is outside of even just like Nico. Nico Iamaliava played really well for a young player making his first true road start. So he got, I told you he was going to turn the ball over.

I told you that last week, and he did. And now he's got that out of his system. I think that's one of the worst games he's going to play. What was he? 13 to 21 for like 194 and a touch, two turnovers. I think that's one of the worst games he's going to play this year. And they won on the road against an elite defense. So like where does that leave us with Tennessee?

Love their defense. They're incredible. Their defensive line is sensational. Their quarterback just played the worst game of maybe his year. At least I think it's going to be the worst game of his year. And he was throwing seeds, man. The touchdown pass that he threw early in that game, I was like, who makes you come out of your chair.

As a former quarterback, you just don't see that that much, especially at this level. Like Tennessee is an elite team. Their defense finally gave up a touchdown after not giving one, not giving up a touchdown in their first 15 quarters. Nico did make a couple of mistakes, but this guy is tremendous. I think it's time to call Tennessee what they are in reality. And you see this reflected in my rankings that I put out.

I put them at number four. Tennessee is a national championship contender. Saturday was as impressive as you can get. Their defense, sensational. Their offense, really powerful. Quarterback, elite, played his worst game of the year. Still won. Still elite.

The Tennessee volunteers are a national title contender. I absolutely believe that. Now let's go to Oklahoma. Oh, boy. So what was that? I don't want to get too upset. So I'm going to try to take this in pieces. I'm not an Oklahoma fan.

but I did watch their offensive film on Sunday. And it was gross. It was gross. I'm going to try to explain it because I know that you, I'm not going to be able to explain the film to you as you're listening. The offense was an absolute mess. Now they have a quarterback dilemma, but I'm here to tell you it is not a quarterback issue at Oklahoma.

Now, that doesn't mean that it wasn't. wasn't Jackson Arnold's fault. It doesn't mean that Michael Hawkins was worse than him. It doesn't mean that Michael Hawkins was better than him. It just means that, like, the quarterback details and clearly, like, where the quarterback is looking on certain plays is wrong. Their film is a disaster area. This offense has to go back to square one.

It's really hard to be great on both sides of the ball. I understand that. And I will start by saying, I think Oklahoma's defense is elite. I really do. I think that their defense kept them in this game against an incredible offense. They made life difficult on Nico. They gave themselves a chance in a marquee matchup game. I loved OU's defense.

I thought their effort was tremendous. I thought they played physical. They made it tough on Tennessee. and Tennessee could not run away and hide when you thought like maybe, oh, man, they got the ball. It's 22, 3. Here we go. Like, are we going to get another score and really put this thing away? And OU didn't allow that.

The problem was their offense was going to do nothing. Okay, folks, folks. You can say all you want that like, okay, they've got a quarterback issue and they've got to fix the quarterback position. It's not a quarterback issue. It really isn't. While the quarterback's played poorly, it is an offensive issue. every single piece of their offense was bad. Every single piece.

The game plan, bad. Execution, bad. The fundamentals, bad. All of it. All of it. Every single piece of it. The protection plan was at times egregiously bad, where the quarterback is looking dead into the spot

where the linebacker is blitzing from, which means he either should be hot or side adjust, meaning like throw the football quickly, and he's taking a full drop and hitching and almost getting sacked while the offensive line shuffles the other direction and slides the other direction. It's wild what they're doing. The schematics are totally off.

So Jackson Arnold gets benched, and listen, folks, like, yes, you can't turn it over, over three times. Yes, Brent Venables throws him under the bus by talking about like, that was an RPO and it was a run. It was a run all day long. We don't have a backwards RPO. Okay, I watch the play. And I'm just telling you, like, he probably should have handed the football off. I can see on the film why he didn't. And if it's not an RPO that was going to throw the ball backwards, why is the wide receiver behind the quarterback? Okay, so as a coach, you have to understand these two truths about the film that you watch. What you see on that film, you are either only one of

two things, coaching or allowing. And at OU, there is a lot of bad football being played. If you're telling me that everything that they coach them to do is not being done on the film, then that's a problem. And if they are doing what's being coached, then that's a problem. Last thing I'll say about Oklahoma's offense, they had an inability to run the football at all. And frankly, this has been sadly the case the entire season, which is why you end up in a close game against Houston. And like the offensive line is not playing very well. They get beat constantly. They don't target the right people in the protections. They don't target the right people in the run place, to be quite honest with you. But it's more than that because they try to run this little scheme where it is basically a

a triple option from the shotgun. You're either going to hand the football to the running back, run it as a quarterback, or you can throw it as a quarterback. So it's an RPO. Okay. So it is a new version of the old triple option. Well, defenses back in the old days, they would assign players to the dive or the running back and assign player to the quarterback. So you're the quarterback player and then you're the pitch man, okay? So you had three defenders that had very specific responsibilities that the quote, triple option. If you just take that into the modern day, the RPO is just a triple option. So what did Tennessee do? They employed an old tactic. They just played old school option defense. They had a player for the running back, a player for the quarterback, and a player for

the passing option. That's all they did. And they did it incredibly well. So every time Jackson Arnold would just sit there and read the defensive inn or the outside player, he got a read that signified give the ball. And yet the quarterback player was just standing there unblocked, ready to tackle him. Because the offensive line is unblocking, you know, they're not blocking the defensive in, which becomes the quarterback player, all this technical stuff to say like, they didn't block any of these guys and never adjusted. So early in the game when Jackson Arnold was playing and OU was still trying to run the football,

had no ability to do so, and they kept trying to do it. And it was not happening. It was not happening because Tennessee's plan was spectacular. It was terrific, and OU didn't adjust. Then Arnold starts to panic, makes a couple of poor plays. The fumble, you know, first and goal from the five was bad. I mean, that's a different game if he doesn't fumble right there. But he fumbles that ball. Then all of a sudden, they bench him, and Hawkins goes in, and guess what happens. First thing, bad snap, which is the same bad snap that Arnold got. The offensive line is still targeting the wrong people. But what they stopped doing was that run game scheme, because now the game's out of hand. So now it's 22, 3, and you just have to throw the football. Well, now in the straight dropback game,

it looks like Hawkins is playing much better than Jackson Arnold, but really he's just playing a much different style of offense. Okay, so Arnold was put into a position where he could not succeed. Because the scheme of Tennessee's defense was taking away everything that Oklahoma was trying to do when Jackson Arnold was in the game. Then Hawkins goes in the game and now they're doing something totally different. They're throwing the football. Now, it's still the same egregious mistakes in pass protection. They're still allowing guys to get beat, whether it's in a one-on-one or just letting guys run free and they're not targeting themselves. And Hawkins had to run around. His eyes are in the same spots as Arnold's. They're not really looking in the same spot. They're come up.

their eyes were left, then they'd go right, then they'd come all the way back, left again. I'm watching this. I'm just like, man, this is as poor an offensive film as I've watched in a long time, certainly in the last four or five years, maybe in my entire career. So that's what's going on for the Oklahoma Sooner's. Sooner fans, you might think it's just a quarterback problem. This will not be fixed with Michael Hawkins as your quarterback. It won't. The entire offense has to play better.

there was no urgency from the H-backs and when they're spinning and trying to run the football, they were mistargeting things, there were drops on the outside. It was not good offensively, not good. That says bad in an offensive film as I've watched. Tennessee, National Championship caliber team, though. Game I was at, Ohio State beats Marshall 4914. I wanted to, rather than just talk about the game, because obviously it was never in doubt, I just feel like the perspective that I've been able to gain over the last three weeks is interesting because I've seen Texas, Alabama, and now Ohio State in the last three weeks of the season. I've got to see them in person, watch all of their film, prepare, talk to their coaches, do all of that stuff. First, what impressed me about Ohio State

is overall the culture being around them, very similar to Texas, very bought in, very bought in, and Alabama, they're very bought in as well. But specifically Texas and Oklahoma, they have this culture and a lot of veteran players that is just very bought in and purposeful. Purposeful with urgency is the way that I would like to say. And maybe even more Soto-Hausick because there's more veterans on that team. On the field, what impressed me more than anything

was the two running backs. Quinchon Judkins and Trevionn-Henderson are elite players. And then the run game, you're starting to see now, Chip Kelly in this run game. You're starting to see some schematics and run-game style, that they just didn't have before. Inside counter, little delayed gap schemes.

And it's like, oh, man, this stuff is really good, tough to stop for a defense, in particular Marshall, which, by the way, was the best defense that Ohio State had faced to date. But obviously, that game wasn't going to be in doubt. The run game, the physicality of Judkins, the physicality of Henderson, both of them had long touchdown runs

where they stiff-armed someone to the ground and ran to the end zone. So it's like dealing with these guys is not going to be easy for anybody on defense. Combined, they're averaging 181 rush yards on nine yards per carry. They had 249 against Marshall. The wide receivers, by the way, totally ridiculous. Best wide receiver group in the country. Amecca, Buka, and Jeremiah Smith, and Carnell Tate, and Brandon Ninnis.

Their fourth best wide receiver is a number one receiver on every pro. program but five in the country. Their fourth best. Their fourth best receiver is the best receiver on every roster in the country, but maybe five, maybe six, probably six if you were to throw Colorado in there with Travis Hunter. Some concerns for Ohio State. I didn't think their pass rush was great. And because of that, what ended up happening is Stone Earl for Marshall was able to get loose a couple of times. And so they struggled against the quarterback scramble. Now, we'll see if that becomes a theme moving forward because in general, I think their front defensively is very good. The other concern, and again, it wasn't anything egregious,

but it's just like a question of how is Will Howard going to play in a big moment and especially there. He made the mistake after the game I saw somewhere where he made the comment like, well, no one's going to complain with a 49-14 win. And it's like, I'm sorry, welcome to Columbus. Will, they will complain after a 49 to 14 win if they do not feel like it was up to standard. And there were things, you know, the interception was not great. You can't under throw some of those passes. And lots of Buckeye fans will tell you like, that's the question mark is Will Howard. Can he be a quarterback that takes them to the promised land? And that's what they would, that's what they would ask. All right. So now if we're talking about all of them, how would they

each stack up? So if I had to rate or rank those, three teams that I just saw in the last three weeks, I think I would probably put Texas at the top of that, which is why I did in my rankings coming off of last week. So Texas for me is the number one team in the country that had more to do with the fact that I really believe in their quarterback. I just have questions for Will Howard. I think he can do it, but man, I know that Texas has no questions at quarterback. And really, regardless of who it is, whether it's Uers or Manning, I feel like. They can play elite enough to go and win a national championship. And then their offensive line play. So those two things, I would say, are better than what Ohio State has right now. Now, I think Ohio State is probably better everywhere else. But the problem is those two position groups are just vital. So I give Texas the nod in terms of that.

Ohio State would be second. They're a ridiculous team, folks. They really are. And I will say with Donovan Jackson back at left guard for them and Justin Simmons at left tackle, the left side of their offensive line is dominant. I question the right side of their offensive line. We'll see if that can develop. Josh Fryer needs to get better at right tackle. I like Seth McLaughlin, their new center who came from Alabama.

That is a ridiculous team. I do believe that defense is going to play lights out. We'll see if they can get some pass rush. And then third in that trio would be Alabama. I think Alabama is excellent. They're very good. My two main questions are I do think that their defense is going to start giving up some big plays here soon. Because the big plays are there to be had on film.

South Florida and Wisconsin just didn't connect on some of those plays. But wide receivers were running behind the secondary players. And that's a secondary. Remember, only Malachi Moore is the guy that's back. Everybody else is new whether it's transfer or freshman. So that's a bit of a concern for me in terms of the big plays. I do love their offensive line. I do love Milro.

That's a very good team. Defense, I would say, would be my question mark for Alabama. Those three teams, all elite. All of them are elite. Miami is as well, though, by the way. Georgia is as well. I think that we've got five really elite teams. All right, let's move to Boulder.

How about that ending in Boulder? Wild. Shedur Sanders throws a Hail Mary after one gets dropped on the previous play. that hits him in the chest. Sanders rolls left and throws it, and Wester is there in the end zone, in the rain, slips down and still makes the catch. I mean, that's incredible. Like, you know, you guys can all sit here and say, and I see some of the comments like, oh, who cares about Colorado? Hey, man, whoever did this, I don't care if it was Jones Jr. High or Syracuse or whomever,

I'd be showing this play. Like, tying the ball game up like that with a Hailberry was phenomenal. CU now has, by the way, and I do know this, three legit like Hail Mary, win it, tie it at the end of the game. Obviously, The Miracle in Michigan is the most famous. You would probably not remember this one, but we were tied with Kansas State in 2004. And I threw a touchdown pass with no time remaining. It was a 60-yard touchdown pass. And so we win the game and dog pile into the end zone. And now Shador ties a game against Baylor here in 2024.

So we got the fours. We got 94. We got 2004. We got 2024 here for the University of Colorado. This is a big win for them. It really is because now they're 3 and 1. They're 1 in the Big 12. And it proves to them that they can win these close games. That was a huge question mark coming into this season. And the way that they played against even North Dakota State, I was questioning whether they could win some of those games. They get beat badly by Nebraska. And now they have played much better since. I think the defense has become or developed into a defense that can be relied upon at times, and in particular in the second half, if you look at what their defense has done in the second half of every game, they have not allowed more than seven points in any second half yet this year.

So the defense is much more real than they were a year ago. They still give up the eight sacks, and yes, it's still a combination of poor play by their offensive line and Shadour holding the football. Shadour Sanders has got to throw the football quicker. He holds it way too long. You just can't do that. You just cannot do that. But this is a game that is going to be huge for them,

because I said regardless of who won this game, whether it was Baylor or Colorado, they were going to be able to put themselves in a position to compete with the top tier in the conference. They're going to have that chance this week, by the way. They travel to Orlando. They're going to face UCF. That game is on Fox.

And in fact, Big Noon kickoff is going to be in Florida at UCF for that game, while Gus and Jenny and I will be in Michigan for Michigan, Minnesota for Big Noon Saturday at noon Eastern in the Big House. That's just the scheduling note for this week. And then at the end, I would be remiss if I didn't talk about Travis Hunter. My gosh. I mean, my gosh, guys, this kid. He's unbelievable.

Seven catches 130 yards. Fourth straight, 100-yard game. Fourth straight. He's playing 133 snaps per game through four games. By the way, the next closest in terms of player playing the most amount of snaps in college football is 87 snaps. That's 46 snaps per game different. That's incredible. He has now played in this season, and it's a young season.

532 snaps of football. That's 169 more snaps than anyone in the country. And the guy who's second behind him, 169 snaps behind him, has played one more game than the Colorado Buffaloes. That's wild. So he's done all of that. He's doing all that. Oh, hey, by the way, he still has a pick.

And he forced the fumble to win the game in overtime against Baylor. They say like, oh, you know, he's not a great tackler. He got right in there and he stuck that right shoulder directly on that ball. He causes the fumble. and rolls out of the back of the end zone, Colorado wins. Bam, walk off right there. I mean, tell me he's not in the conversation for the Heisman trophy. And to me, he's got to be the one that you start with because no one's doing anything remotely close to this. It's like the conversation for National League MVP or American League MVP

when Otomi, Otani was in the American League. It's the same conversation with Otani when he's pitching. It's like when he's pitching and he's an elite pitch. and an elite hitter, there's no debate. Well, now we're seeing a player that is an elite wide receiver, one of the best in the country, and an elite defender, one of the best in the country. He could legitimately win the Thorpe Award and the Bullittnikoff. Wild.

Wild. I just want to appreciate watching him, and it's not just because of the uniform he plays. Regardless of uniform, this guy is phenomenal. Now, what did happen at the end was a field storm. And there's a lot of opinions about storming the field, rolling around social media, about Colorado and this or that. And before I give my opinion, let's hear from Primetime.

I want to apologize to the opposition, the way we stormed the field. And I didn't get an opportunity to go and shake the head coach's hand, but I did try to go over to the locker room and wait it out until he came out. But I don't think they got the word to him. because that's not professional. I wanted to shake his hand and acknowledge, but I don't like what transpired at the end of the game, but I love what transpired at the end of the game.

We have a fan base that's phenomenal. We have some young kids on this campus that loves and breeze, see you football, and I'm thankful. I totally agree with him. I totally agree with him. In general, I feel like you should only storm the field for giant moments.

I feel like you should only storm the field for spectacular moments. But guess what? That was one of them. They just tied the game with a Hail Mary and then forced a fumble to win in overtime. Like, what do you want them to do? That's what makes football and college football more specifically so amazing. Now, if you just win a run-of-the-mill game, like, yeah, you know, like, do we? We really need to storm the field. But my goodness, are we really too good for college kids running onto the football field? I mean, if you have a problem with that, with the way that the game went and ended,

I think the problem is you. I think the problem is you. I want to give some shoutouts because there were some great performances, and there's just becoming too much quality stuff. to talk about in these episodes. So I was like, you know what? Let's do more of a quick fire, kind of rapid fire shoutouts

for some of the great performances. So here we go. I've got a few of them. Clemson puts up 59 on North Carolina State, excuse me, North Carolina State after dropping 66 on App State, although I know App State got beat badly and who knows about North Carolina State. But, but this is big because after that Georgia game, I had this to say about Clemson.

And what's going on at Clemson? They missed. We thought DJU was going to be that guy because of the way he played for an injured or, yeah, injured Trevor Lawrence against Notre Dame that one night in prime time. And then he became the quarterback and we're like, ooh, actually it's not really that.

Well, I think it's probably more like, you know, Cade Clubneck. And Kate Clubnick is the guy and he's the star. And guess what? It's not panning out. And maybe it will. And I hope it does because Cade, I think, is still a really good player.

And maybe that's a team. that can still develop and go on and have a really good year and what is unquestionably a soft league. And I hope that's the case. Aha. Aha. How about that? I love seeing teams, whether it's proved me wrong or develop.

I just love when teams get better. And Davo and Clemson went to work after that Georgia game. And you know what? Georgia was is elite. And you know what? They played great in that first. week and Clemson couldn't do anything offensively. And then you look up and you're like, oh, well, it's the same Clemson off since. This offense has just struggled and struggled and struggled.

And yet, like, it doesn't make sense because Clubnik is a really talented player. And Garrett Riley, I mean, he took a team to a national championship game as an offensive coordinator. He was the TCU offensive coordinator a few years ago with Max Duggan. And you're like, why isn't this working? And then it's like, bam, all of a sudden it clicks. And now, Clemson, all they do is find the end zone. All they do is find the end zone. I'm really happy for them that they have developed into that style of offense. And now this league in the ACC looks more like a two horse race than the single horse race it was a few weeks ago with Miami. So fired up for that. Illinois with that huge win on Friday night, that was a great win. I thought that Brett Bealema's team was was poised. They were prepared.

they played an outstanding game. They were physical. Their quarterback Luke Altmeyer was terrific. I thought Luke Altmeier was one of the stars of the weekend. And we can get lost with that because it happened on Friday night. But man, he was very good. And then that offensive plan for Illinois, meanwhile, like Nebraska, maybe you weren't ready.

Maybe you weren't ready because that's a game that we feel like we've seen before out of Nebraska. It's like they got to start getting out of their own way. and more on that probably on Wednesday. How about Utah? By the way, I mean, like the Royal Utah, like the state, the youths go on the road with a backup quarterback and beat Oklahoma State in Stillwater.

Isaac Wilson now starting the last couple of ways. He's Zach's brother, by the way. Rising, not playing, and then getting that win is massive, is massive. And the way that K State got beat like a drum in Provo, by BYU. Now all of a sudden, the Uts are sitting there, and it's like maybe the best two teams are sitting in the state of Utah,

but certainly Utah, sitting in the driver's seat now in the Big 12. They're going to host Arizona this weekend. BYU, that was a stunter man. They blew out K-State by 29 points after K-State laid it on Arizona the week prior. That was wild. Okay, a few more things that I thought were fantastic.

Excuse me. Caleb Johnson from Iowa. He is playing outstanding. He's one of the best backs in the country. It goes for over 200 yards, three touchdowns against Minnesota in the Floyd Rostdale game. That's the statue of the pig. He leads the country in total rushing yards,

second in rushing yards per game with 171. He's phenomenal. What a great performance. And now, by the way, don't look now, but Iowa, they have Ohio State in a couple of weeks. There'll probably be a two-lost team, but they don't have another ranked opponent on their schedule. Now, their second loss was Iowa State,

a game that they were controlling and probably should have won and then let slip away at the end. We could look up at the end of the year, and we could see Iowa as a team that only has one loss in Big Ten play, which would certainly put them in the conversation for the two-spot and possibly play in the Big Ten championship game. I'm just saying it's kind of a Missouri Esk style of schedule. Missouri has a very soft schedule in the SEC. I would say that Iowa has a soft

schedule in the Big Ten outside of having to play the Buckeyes. They play the Buckeyes, but then again, not a ranked opponent left on that schedule. And when Caleb Johnson plays like he did on Saturday with 206 rushing yards, they're going to be tough to beat. Speaking of running backs, Ashton Genti continues to just dominate the year. He went for 127 on only 11 carries. Granted, it was just against Portland State, but anytime I get a chance to say Ashton Genty on this program, I'm going to do it. He leads college football with 195 rushing yards per game on 10.5 a carry. I've been asked whether he could actually win the Heisman Trophy. I will continue talking about him. There's no doubt. I do believe that it's a narrow path for a player in the group of five.

He's going to have to do something from a statistical standpoint that is just like mind-blowing. I think he's going to have to be 23, 24, 2,500 yards in this season on the ground. And Boise's going to have to keep winning. They're going to have to be a team that's winning the Mountain West and probably in the CFP. If that happens and a couple of other things break his way, like some of these stars around college football, lose a couple of games, maybe don't have the stats that we thought that they were going to have, then maybe, maybe there's a narrow, narrow path for Ashton Jente to win the Heisman Trophy.

I will be arguing, though, that he should be in New York. At this point, I think that he would be a finalist if that award was being given out today. All right, that'll do it for this episode. We've got a lot more coming up, obviously, for Wednesday's episode. So there's still so much to get to, my goodness. I love college football. By the way, this 12-team playoff is expanding how we watch the sport because more teams we just instinctively know are relevant.

There's more stories that are relevant. We know that there are teams that are great and elite, and that's fine, but the sport's so much bigger than those few elite teams, which I'm starting to really love, folks. Aren't you starting to feel it? Now we're getting at the end of the September and, like, aren't you starting to feel it a little bit? This difference with so many more teams that actually matter in college football, I really feel

it. We have a mailbag episode of the show coming up on Wednesday, so please, please send your questions. whatever question you have. You can ask me a life question, a football question. I can tell you stories about minor league baseball, whatever you want. You just email us at the Joel Clatshow Mailbag at gmail.com. That's the Joel Clatshow Mailbag at gmail.com. And we will hopefully get to your question on Wednesday. I hope you have a wonderful few days, folks. Enjoy them. And we will be back on Wednesday with another episode. Thank you.