The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Ohio State beats Indiana & Alabama, Ole Miss, A&M all go down: who’s in the Playoff and who’s out?

Episode Date: November 25, 2024

FOX Sports’ lead College Football analyst Joel Klatt reacts to a crazy Saturday in College Football which saw 7 Top 20 teams lose. He breaks down what makes Ohio State so dangerous after their win over #5 Indiana before discussing the Hoosiers’ Playoff hopes after the loss. Klatt then considers the Playoff ramifications for Alabama, Ole Miss and Texas A&M after all 3 were beaten on Saturday. He also looks at the wild Big 12 race as Kansas pulled off another upset, this time against Colorado, and Arizona State survived a wild finish to keep their Cinderella run going. Finally, Klatt recaps the impact of the big news on the recruiting trail as Michigan picked up a huge commitment from #1 overall player, QB Bryce Underwood, Colorado got their 5-star successor to Shedeur Sanders and USC also got their future QB. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Indiana is firmly in the playoff. All they need to do is go out and take care of business against Purdue, and they're going to be and should be in. 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.

Hey, welcome into the program, everybody. I'm Joel Clatt. This is the Joel Clat show. The show is always brought to you by Hampton by Hilton. What a weekend it was. Let's get right to it. First of all, wherever you are listening to this show, wherever you get your podcast, rate and review us. We'd very much appreciate that. If you're watching on YouTube, congratulations, subscribe, hit the notification button, leave a comment below.

We'd love that. And then wherever you like to social media. So go find us there, at Joel Clash Show, wherever you like to social media. I'll tell you, the TikTok is blowing up. You might want to get over there to TikTok. There's quite a few of you over there. And we are there, all of our content in the form that you like to digest it in. Okay, what a wild week of college football.

That was awesome. Okay. And it's just, I thought that the playoff expansion was going to be great for the regular season, but you don't really know until you're in it. And it's like, this is phenomenal. This has been the best regular season that I can remember. And certainly in my career covering the sport or even just being a fan, which I've been a fan my entire life.

And the interest in the sport has never been better right now. And there are so many fan bases that still feel like they have a chance to be a part of the party. And that's what I'm here for. It was a phenomenal. Seven teams in the top 20 go down seven teams. That is a wild, chaotic day of college football. I'm going to get to all of it. We will get there.

I've got thoughts on all of it. So buckle up. Here we go. Let's start with the game that I was at. Ohio State takes care of business in their third top five matchup of the season. The rarefied air of these types of games, you start to really separate yourself out. And it is very apparent the teams that are comfortable in these settings and the teams that are not or maybe new to these settings. And we had a team that was brand new to this setting. And we had a team that has been doing this for years. and in particular in this season has done it three times this year. And I'm talking about a top five matchup. Ohio State, totally comfortable. Even being down 7-0, totally comfortable. Executed in all three phases. Meanwhile, Indiana, it was too big for them. It was too big for them.

And that's okay. And I'll get to Indiana in a little bit. And because I've got some strong feelings about the way that they played on Saturday, how that game went for them specifically, where they can go from here, and also what that loss means for Indiana, because I think that that's the biggest question that everybody had in the back of their mind as they were watching on Saturday was, what does this do to the playoff chances for the Hoosiers? Now, before I get to get to that, let me just quickly kind of discuss what we saw from the Buckeyes,

because I think it's important at least to acknowledge when one of the best and most talent, rosters in the sport is starting to find their identity. And here's what I love most about Ohio State. They have answers everywhere. And when you get into these matchup style games, when you get into these playoff games and championship games, and inevitably what's going to be taking place here down the stretch as we end up crowning a national champion,

is that you're going to get into a spot in a game, a spot in a quarter, whatever it is, where you need answers and you have to adjust, and you're not going to be able to just throw your fastball right down the middle and win. You see so many times in college football, and I've started talking about this a little bit more lately, but so many times in college football, you see teams just try to rely on what they're best at all the time. And that's not always going to be there for you. And so you've got to have a secondary pitch. I talked about this last week with Tennessee.

I think this is one of Tennessee's great flaws, is that they don't have a secondary way to beat you offensively other than just like their system. Their system doesn't adjust. You can't get big. You've got to be small. Rather to get into that, Ohio State has the answers. They do have it.

They can do a lot of different things to beat you at the top end. Let's start with their offense. Because their offense now has shown over the course of the, year with now their third and fourth iteration of what they have been on the offensive side in terms of their offensive line lineup, that they can do just about anything. They can obviously throw the football on the outside. Will Howard has proven that he can be very good. In fact, this was maybe his best, most efficient game so far as a Buckeye, 22 of 26, 201 yards, three touchdowns. He did have that interception on a tip

ball. He tried to get it to Jalani Thurman, the young tied end. But they can obviously throw it. that and they've been able to throw it, you know, for shoot. I don't know. Decades. I mean, their wide receiver core has been incredible. I love the fact that they can also run the ball when they need it. So you go to the Penn State game, and at the end of the game, what did they do? They ended the game on the field with the ball as an offense with just kind of a ground

and pound offense when they needed to throw the ball in the middle of this Indiana game. They can do that. They, in a lot of ways, have an offense that you can't just take one thing away because they'll just move their focus. And those answers, I think, are very key. They can run it when they need to. They can run it inside. They can run it outside. They can run it with big personnel.

They can run it with small personnel. They've got a quarterback that can run the football. Then they can throw the football. They can throw it out of play action. They can throw it out of RPO. They can move the pocket. they can throw it out of out of the pocket in terms of down the field. They can throw it short.

They've got a screen game. There's a lot to defend. That's just on the offensive side. Then we get to the defensive side. Well, guess what? They're starting to have now answers on the defensive side. This is not a team that just has one system that has weaknesses. And if you attack that, you can succeed.

We've seen them now adjust since that game against the Oregon Ducks. And now it's not just a four-man rush. They're able to bring pressure. They brought so much pressure on Curtis Rourke. You know, they hold Indiana to 15 points and 151 total yards. A lot of that was on the first series and then on that late touchdown drive that Indiana had in the middle of the game, Indiana couldn't do much of anything. I mean, Rourke had no time.

The blitz package from Ohio State was outstanding. The crowd noise forced them into a position, Indiana's offense, where they had to use a silent snap count and the Buckeyes just totally took over for that. But that wasn't always the case. This was a team that largely relied on their four-man rush to provide pressure. And in top five matchups, in previous seasons, and even against Oregon this season, it didn't show up. They did not affect the passer and they did not get sacks. And now you go to the Penn State game this year and you go to this game against Indiana.

And it's totally changed. They've got answers now on defense. They can play man. They can play zone. They can blitz. They can rush four. So to me, it's just like the width of what they can do. now is pretty impressive.

And now you can win on special teams as well. Obviously, the dropped punt snap from Evans from Indiana. That was a huge play. And then Caleb Downs returns a punt for a touchdown. So this is a team that can beat you a lot of different ways. That was a killer for Indiana. That special teams gaff on the punt right before half. It's a 7-7 game at that point.

And you think to yourself, if you're Indiana, boy, you know, we've played pretty dang well here. It's 7-7. Indiana's punting. There's under two minutes to go, and Evans just drops the ball. Now, it was drizzling a little bit right there. You can see it on the camera lens if you're watching on YouTube. And yeah, the ball is a little bit wet, but you just have to get the punt away. It's not like they blocked it.

Then the punt team comes back on in the second half. They punt the ball after the first three and out. And Caleb Downs takes a bounce and he spins away and he's gone. And it's like the punt team for Indiana was directly responsible for a 14-point deficit because of where that drop snap happened. Man, that was just an absolute killer, but it goes to show you, here's the Buckeyes. And what are they? They're good on special teams. So answers for the Buckeyes.

Now let's get to the Indiana Hoosiers because I think this is where most people are going to be talking about. It's like everyone's going to want to talk about what this means. for Indiana moving forward for the playoff. All right. So I'm going to give you my final thought first, and then I'm going to run through everything. Indiana is firmly in the college football playoff. There's not a doubt in my mind, and there's likely not a doubt in the committee's mind. And you might have had a doubt at the time the game ended on Saturday.

But by the time the day ended of college football, everything had broke the Hoosier's way that needed to break the Hoosiers way. And so as we sit here now, you're listening to this on a Monday, maybe even Tuesday. Indiana is firmly in the playoff. All they need to do is go out and take care of business against Purdue, and they're going to be and should be in. Okay, so let's start with that. Now, now let's get to everything else.

The game, the matchup was too big for Indiana now and this time. But here's the thing. Top five matchups are always too big for teams the first time that they're in them. This has happened all year. The first time that even Georgia, which lives in this type of atmosphere, and they expect this type of atmosphere, what happened the first time that they had to go on the road and play a top five matchup? This was against Alabama earlier in the year,

and they were totally overwhelmed in the first half completely. Now they came back and it was a great game, but what happened? They lost. Ohio State lives in this air. This is all they think about. They go on the road to a top five matchup and they face Oregon. They lose. Now, was it a great game? Yeah, absolutely. It was a great game. Those are two premier programs that live in this air all the time. This is what they do. Everything about their programs, 365 days a year, is about these matchups. You can't say that for Indiana. This is a program that's trying to level up. They didn't know exactly.

exactly how good they were to start the year. They start the year 10 and 0. There's this belief. They're trying to get it going under Kurt Signetti and all these new transfers. What is it? 27 of them, 13, 14 of them actually starters, all these guys from JMU that came with Kurt Signetti. And now all of a sudden they get their first opportunity.

They don't live in this air all the time. They don't think about this 365 days a year. This is something that is like thrust upon them because of their dominance in the 10 previous games. And guess what? They didn't handle it well. And that's to be expected. That's to be expected. If we're going to say that like, hey, these environments can be too big at times for even Georgia or Ohio State, which they were in their first times on the road in a top five matchup, then obviously that's going to be the case for Indiana. And it was the case. I thought there were times in that game that it was too big for the players and there were times it was too big for the coaches.

I think Kurt Signetti would even admit that. They made mistakes that you cannot make. Number one, special teams mistakes. I already touched on them. The punt team killed Indiana. 14 points, you're not going to win the football game. You're not going to win the football game. And by the way, if all you do is just punt the ball away and don't give up a return,

then the touchdown in the fourth quarter would have presented a, three-point game at that point. So, yeah, was Ohio State's defense dominant? There's no doubt, but guess what? Indiana's defense held Ohio State to a season low, 316 total yards. So it's like, did Ohio State have to go

pedal to the medal? No, because of the special team's gaffs for the Hoosiers. But I'm just saying, like, it's not like Indiana played awful. It's like, for instance, it was very similar to the way that Georgia lost to Ole Miss. you know, I thought Indiana played better in their matchup against Ohio State than Oklahoma,

or excuse me, than Alabama did with their matchup with Oklahoma. You get my gist, the special teams killed them. Then they didn't adjust to the pressure package that Ohio State was having and they didn't get to their one-on-ones on the outside and they didn't get to their quick throws. Now, maybe you just didn't have time to get to those. But again, that takes time and getting comfortable in these types of environments and settings is important. and I think it's important not only for the players but for the coaches. And I know for a fact, they will be better next time that they get a chance to do this. This was not some sort of evidence that Indiana wasn't as good as we thought that they were coming into this game.

This was evidence that Ohio State is really good, betting favor to win the national championship, and that Indiana made some drastic mistakes, giant mistakes that cost them the game. that's what this was. That's what this game was. Top five teams are 23 and 3 at home this season. Indiana will be better for this. There's no doubt. And they will be in the playoff and they should be. And so that's where the conversation goes next. So you go away from even just the game and you start in on this conversation and this narrative.

First and foremost, folks. this is not a debate between Indiana and the SEC. This is not a debate between Indiana and Georgia. This is what some on some networks might try to make it, but that's not what this is. You've got to follow the actual data. And here's what it will tell you. After Saturday played out in all of those games,

all those seven teams in the top 20 ended up losing, here's what you actually see. When the dust settled, Indiana is in a great spot and firmly inside of the playoff and not on the bubble. They're not on the bubble. One, the nature of that game should not have put them on the bubble, but now the data doesn't even put them on the bubble. The biggest knock against Indiana coming into this game last week was about their schedule. I believe it was 106th in the country. And listen, I nor anybody was going to be able to sit here and defend their schedule. Now, all you could say about the way that Indiana had played that schedule is that they were dominant against the 106th easiest or best or strongest schedule in the country, however you want to put it.

They had beat that schedule to the tune of 30 points per game, which was the best margin in the entire sport. So they had done what they needed to do against the schedule that was not very good. But now you look up and you faced a top five opponent in their stadium with the number one defense total and scoring of the Ohio State Buckeyes. And you look up and you're like, oh, wait, now Indiana's schedule is 52. They went up 54 spots. So now they're 52nd ranked schedule, which means look around them in the top 10. And you start to see that they have a tougher schedule now that.

Miami, SMU, and Notre Dame. And in Notre Dame's case, it's by a substantial amount. Notre Dame's schedule is 78th, toughest in the country right now. SMU, 77th, Miami, 59th, Indiana, 52nd. So now, like, folks, this is not an SEC argument anymore. And we'll get to what happened in the SEC in a moment. But this is why Indiana is firmly in. it's because the data suggests that they're in.

Their strength of schedule now is better than Miami, SMU, and Notre Dame. All teams that we would consider kind of like, yeah, they're kind of in. And the ACC championship game is going to be Miami and SMU. And now people are saying like, well, the loser of that game is probably, you know, they're definitely in as well. Well, then Indiana is for sure. So they've got the 52nd ranked schedule. and you take a look at those teams on the screen, Miami, SMU and Notre Dame,

and you start thinking to yourself like, okay, all one loss, by the way. So let's compare their losses. And this is where it's not even close. Miami lost to Georgia Tech, SMU lost to BYU, and Notre Dame lost to Northern Illinois. Okay, so now, if there's a question now, it should be about Notre Dame. They've played the 78th ranked schedule, and their loss is against Northern Illinois. It's not even close to comparable to a team like Indiana. Now you ask yourself, like, well, how dominant has those teams been in the games that they've won?

Okay. So in the rest of their games, not just their loss, Indiana already wins the loss argument. They've won the schedule argument now because they're 52nd and everyone else is behind them. So now you look at it like, well, how dominant have they been against the rest of the schedule? Well, Indiana has been more dominant over the rest of their schedule than any of the other teams. I mean, think about what Miami has done against teams like Cal and Virginia Tech, right? So, like, this is why I'm telling you that Indiana is absolutely in. The bubble is going to come down to, like, the ACC championship game loser and maybe like the winner of the South Carolina Clemson game,

maybe the winner of the Big 12 versus the AAC championship. So that's where the bubble conversation is going to take place. Indiana is way above that. Data bears it out. I think that their play has bore that out as well. Indiana is firmly in. Everything broke their way that needed to break their way. If it didn't go their way on Saturday,

we would be having a different conversation. But since it did, the numbers are suggesting that they are firmly a college football playoff team. Now, part of the reason is because The SEC just went full chaos mode on Saturday. That was crazy. Oklahoma beats Alabama, Florida beats Ole Miss, Auburn beats Texas A&M.

There was all sorts of things going on in the SEC. And what happened in the SEC on Saturday is that the SEC lost the benefit of the doubt. You see, what happens in college football, and I tend to push against this narrative, and candidly, I think rightly so. But there is a narrative and it's pushed by the major network player in our sport that it's just like the SEC is the end-all, be-all, and it's just so vastly tougher in every single case. Now, is the SEC a great conference?

Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's very difficult at the top of the conference. Very difficult. And they've got a lot of very good football teams, very good football teams. They've got a lot of draft picks. I'm not disputing any of that. But what I am telling you is that you lose the benefit of the.

doubt when your top teams stop just losing to each other and they start losing to the teams at the bottom of your conference, which have shown that they are not very good at all. See, that's what's happening and what happened on Saturday. You lose the benefit of the doubt when you lose to an Oklahoma team that was one in five in their last six games against FBS opponents. You just do. You lose the benefit of the doubt when one of your losses is against Vanderbilt and Vanderbilt lost to Georgia State. You lose the benefit of the doubt when you lose to seven lost

Kentucky. You lose the benefit of the doubt when you lose to five lost Florida, who lost at home to Miami, so you can no longer say that, well, it's tough to win on the road in the SEC. No, no, no, it's just tough to win on the road in college football. This is what I bristle at is that there's always the added the comma. It's tough to win on the road, comma in the SEC. Stop it. It's tough to win on the road, period. Period. Period. Period. Ask Oregon at Wisconsin. Ask Penn State at Minnesota. All of these places are tough. Ask Penn State at USC. I mean, LSU couldn't even beat USC in a neutral. So you get where I'm trying to go here.

For a long time, the SEC in this season was getting the benefit of the doubt because the top teams were beating each other. And you could say that like, hey, man, the top five teams, the top four, certainly. And the top five teams in the SEC, they're all really good because they're just beating each other. And because of the schedules, it's like, well, yeah, Georgia, you know, they could get two losses, maybe even three losses. and we could still say that they're like really, really good. But the problem is, is that when you lose to Oklahoma and Vandy and Auburn and Arkansas, and Florida and Kentucky and LSU, those aren't good losses. And so you lose the benefit of the doubt.

That's what happened to the SEC. Great day for Tennessee, by the way. All the teams that needed to lose in their conference lost. Last week, they're on the outside looking in. Now they're just like, for me, Indiana, firmly in the college football playoff, firmly in the college football playoff. The data suggests they're firmly in the college football playoff. Great day to be of all.

How did it feel rooting for Florida? Probably pretty good, knowing, knowing that it paid dividends. Watching Florida dunk literally on that hoop for the Ole Miss Rebs, like that's, that was pretty great. If you're a Tennessee fan, if you're a Tennessee fan. So the SEC starts to eat itself. I would have given you the benefit of the day. out if you lose to yourself at the top, but that's not what's happening.

And so the reality is that the SEC is probably going to be limited to three teams. You know, granted, there is a path for an A&M team to still get into the SEC championship and still win the SEC after the way that they have played. I just highly doubt that. If you look at the standings right now, you got Texas, Georgia, still A&M, then Tennessee, and then South Carolina. think the best way or path for a fourth team for the SEC is actually South Carolina because they still have Clemson to play. And now all of a sudden that Clemson South Carolina game is

an absolute monster. If it holds chalk and Texas is able to beat Texas A&M, which they should be able to. Now, granted, it is tough to win on the road, period. And so Texas having to go to A&M is going to be a supercharged environment. It's a rivalry game and that's not easy to do. But if Texas is able to hold on and they go play Georgia, there's a really good shot that the SEC is only getting three. And you know what? That's okay. That's okay. Because, hey, Alabama, you can't lose to Oklahoma, who's just lost five of their last six against FBS opponents. You can't lose to Vandy, which lost to Georgia State. Hey, Ole Miss, you can't lose to seven loss Kentucky. You can't do that. Ole Miss, you can't lose to five-loss Florida.

Not when all the chips are in the middle of the table. That's not a thing. So Alabama and Ole Miss, there's not really a path for those teams back in. There would have to be just like mass absolute pandemonium for that to happen. Now, we just saw that last Saturday. So I'm not saying it's a 0% chance, but those two teams right now are very clearly out. See, the dust settles on a Saturday like last Saturday. And to me, it's like, yeah, Tennessee, Indiana, you're firmly in this playoff because

you're still going to get a Miami and SMU loser. You know, so like the loser of that game and then maybe the winner of Clemson, South Carolina. Like, that's where the bubble discussion is going to be. The bubble discussion is not going to be on Indiana and it's not going to be on Tennessee so long as they take care of their business here. at the end of the year. This is what last week meant to me. I think that there was a lot of clarity in terms of the playoff.

I do believe that the college football playoff committee is going to rank Indiana higher than a lot of people think because of the data that I just shared with you, because if you actually pair them against SMU and Miami and Notre Dame, and if you see their resumes right next to one another, they're going to win that resume argument. They just are. So this debate, if you want to call it, about Indiana is not a debate.

They are very clearly in the college football playoff right now. I did want to touch on just for a moment, this idea of like, why does this happen? Why does so many teams lose like this, seven teams in the top 20? And it's something that I've touched on before. And I think that it happened to Alabama. It happened to Ole Miss. It happened to a team I'm about to talk about in terms of like Colorado. why does this happen?

Why do these teams that all of a sudden they're playing so well to put themselves in position to make a run and then all the sudden you have these like inexplicable losses? You're like, how did that happen? What in the world? How did Alabama play that poorly against Oklahoma? Because that game wasn't even close.

It wasn't even close. And here's what happens. You start playing the game around you rather the game in front of you. There's so many ways to say this. You can call it being distracted. The quickest way to be defeated is to be distracted. All these old coaches adage,

these coaching adages, they are true and they're true for a reason. When you're not focused on the game right in front of you, there's a good chance that you're going to get beat. If all of a sudden you're preparing that week and all you can think about is what happens if you win, the result, if you start thinking about what it would mean if you win this game and the next game and the next game and maybe we're going to be in

the playoff and what is that going to be like and where are we going to be seated? Where might we play and is that going to be cold? Then guess what you're not focusing on? The game plan. What's Oklahoma doing on third down? Meanwhile, what's Oklahoma doing and what's Florida doing? They're not thinking about what's happening in two and three and four weeks. They're not thinking about what happens if we win this game or when we win this game and what's in our hands and what's our destiny as a team. You know what they're focused on? The game plan. And football is won through the attention to details, period. And in life, greatness is realized through the attention to detail. And when you take your eyes off the details, when you take your eyes off

the small things in this sport, you get beat. That's why it happens. And these are still kids. I can understand why they're looking ahead. Do you know why? Because all guys like me and everybody else that talks about this sport talk about is the overarching narratives. And what happens if they win? And who's going to be in and they should beat them? And we talk about everything other than those little details

that a player has to be focused on. So it comes down to focus. That's really what it is. That's why seven teams in the top 20 get beat. It's because they're looking at everything else. And that's exactly what happened to Colorado. and Colorado goes on the road, and they're playing a very good Kansas team.

The only reason Kansas has the record that they do is because they've lost a ton of one possession games. You know, Kansas, Kansas really could make a strong argument that they should be like 8 and 3, 9, and 2 right now. Like a really strong argument. And not just because these are one score games. It's not like they scored late in order to make it a one score game. In fact, if you go back and retroactively just end every Kansas game, at the two-minute timeout in the fourth quarter, they're nine and two. How about that? Again, let me say that again.

If you go back this season and you take Kansas's season and you just end every one of their games, at the two-minute timeout in the fourth quarter, they are right now nine and two. So Kansas is a good football team. Guess what they're focused on? Become a bowl eligible. They're focused on this game plan. Their focus is on Colorado. How do we stop Chodor?

How do we stop Travis Hunter? How do we game plan against that defense, which has been very good on the front? And they came out there and they played the game in front of them. And it was very clearly clear, I should say, that Colorado was playing the game around them. They were playing the game about if we win this one and when we win this one, we're going to go to this game

and we're going to be in the playoff and we're going to win that trophy or this award. And guess what? You get beat. And that's exactly what Deon Sanders talked about at the end of the game. When you're in control of your own destiny, it's a phenomenal thing. I don't just think about football. I think about life. So the message to these young men, if God were to grant you every darn thing you needed in life,

all the ability, the thought process, the connections, the visuals, and you don't do nothing with it. That's on you. And that's what we are. We control our own destiny. And we fumbled it. Yep. Yep.

And it comes down to a lack of focus. You see, this Colorado team, they reminded me more of last year's Colorado team than at any point, really, maybe since like the first game against North Dakota State, they had become a team that was much more balanced. And I'm not talking about like run and pass. Like they're going to be a pass heavy team. I'm talking about balanced in terms of,

being able to rely on more elements of your team. You see, Colorado's defense had been very good. Here, middle of the season, late in the season, they've been able to stop the run, create pressure on the opposing quarterback, and they did none of that against Kansas. Devin Neal ran all over them. Devin Neal was outstanding. This is a veteran Kansas team, and they're a good team.

And there's a reason that a lot of us thought that Kansas could challenge for and potentially win the Big 12 championship game. And again, if some of those one possession games go their way, then this is a totally different deal. He had 207 rush yards, 80 yards as a receiver, four total touchdowns. Colorado never stopped Kansas, not one time. This was last year's version of Colorado's defense. The front got run through, they missed tackles, they were terrible in the back end. like the tackling was the worst the entire season,

and it was very clear that that defense played as if they thought they were much better than what they were. They were not disciplined in the front. They jumped gaps at time, and that's not, I don't think, what they had been doing over the last few weeks. In fact, I know it wasn't because I prepared for that game against Utah. Utah came in and tried to run the football on them last week

and couldn't run at them at all. They were so sound in terms of gap responsibility, and being physical up front against the Utes. All of that left against Kansas. Kansas hammered them. And congratulations to Kansas. There's a reason why we've all loved Lance Leipold over the last couple of years. And when they don't turn the football over, they win.

They win. And they beat Colorado thoroughly. The reason the other part of this of why it reminded me of last year's version of Colorado is because Chidor played great and Travis played great. but they couldn't carry a team that was awful. There was not another element of Colorado's team that played even remotely well, other than those two. Shador played very well.

Now, there was something that happened in that game, and I got to tell you, like, I am so thankful that Shador Sanders' feet weren't firmly planted in the ground. when that Kansas defender took one of the cheapest shots at Shador I've seen in a long, long time. A long time. Sanders is rolling up in the pocket. Forty-five Miller comes up and he missiles his knees. If Shadur Sanders' feet were firmly in the ground and planted, that is every ligament in his knee. It might be a broken leg. That could be a career ender. That was one of the cheapest shots I've seen in a long time. And it didn't end there, by the way.

Later in the game, 45 is kind of like giving Sanders the business. And that's why Shador stands up and he's kind of shoving and everyone's like, Shador shoved the official. Bull crap. Like, I'm telling you, that was, that was cheap. That was very cheap. And if I was Lance Lippold, that player would be disciplined because that reflects very poorly, very poorly. You cannot missile at somebody's knees. That's just, oh, man. Again, I'm going to turn this into like, I'm very thankful that he's not hurt. And I'm very thankful that he's going to have a really bright future because there's a good chance that he's going to be the first pick in the NFL draft, maybe second pick in the NFL draft. There are lots of scouts

right now that are trying to position GMs trying to position themselves to where they could draft Shador Sanders. He's that good of a player. You might not lie. the way that they go about their business, but they can play, man, they can play. And he was even great against Kansas, but it didn't matter because the rest of the team wasn't great. And Kansas, as a team, was prepared and ready to play the game in front of them. Another team that is doing that on a weekly basis right now is down in Tempe. How about Arizona State? Kenny Dillingham has done something pretty remarkable with Arizona State because that was a team that was picked to finish dead last in the Big 12. And here they are controlling their own destiny.

as like Colorado was before. But they were controlling their own destiny even last week, and they took care of business. Okay, so this is a team that had that. They had all the trappings for, hey, we could probably look ahead and get beat. And they saw the game in front of them, and they took their opportunity, and they won.

They jumped out to a big lead. They held on late. An Arizona State, which needed to continue to win in order to get a birth in the Big 12 championship game, is now one win away from, the Big 12 championship game. If they beat Arizona in the Territorial Cup, they will go and play for a Big 12 championship

title and likely, although not guaranteed, a spot in the college football playoff. There is a scenario where, like, let's say Tulane is impressive and they win the AAC and something weird happens in the Big 12. There is a scenario where a bubble team might be like a Big 12 champ. I don't believe that's going to happen, but there's, it's plausible. But here's Arizona State and Kenny Dillingham. They went at 28, 23. But I will say this.

They were very focused and you give them a lot of credit, but the end was wild. I don't know if any of you saw, and I'm sure you did, the end of that Arizona State BYU game, but they have the ball down inside the five. And rather than just scoring and making it a two-possession game, they started running backwards to try to bleed the clock out, but they didn't do it correctly. And then they try to chuck the ball up and it lands out of bounds with one second left, which was the correct call. Fans stormed the field.

They have to review it. Kenny Dillingham loses his mind, which, by the way, you know why he lost his mind? Because he was dead wrong. That's what happens when it's like, oh, my gosh, I screwed this up. He should have just scored the touchdown. It was a total mismanagement at the end of the game from Kenny Dillingham. Now, whether he would admit that or not, I'm not totally sure, but I'm telling you that it was. They had taken the cold post down.

They've got to put them back up. Didn't be why you actually catches the Hail Mary. It was just a couple yards short of the goal line. So Arizona State holds on, and here they are playing for the right to go to the Big 12 championship game. What a remarkable turnaround. Scatibou. scataboo, excuse me, they're back. He's one of my favorite players in the country.

They just keep rolling. Oh, my gosh. Now there's a four-way tie in the Big 12. So Colorado could still get to the Big 12 championship game. The teams that control their own destiny are Arizona State and Iowa State. Colorado would need two of the teams that are tied at the top to lose. So they would need a combination. Here's the three teams.

BYU, Iowa State, and Arizona State. Colorado needs to win, and two of those three need to lose. So there's a lot of different scenarios still to go. There's a scenario where there's like a nine-way tie at three losses. There really is. I've seen some wild things today. I don't expect that, but you know what? Who knows? Because last weekend taught us that we can't just be out there and think that chalk is going to run the day, not in college football at least. That was a great, that was a great ending, though, for that Arizona State and BYU game. Some recruiting news last week, and I just wanted to touch on this. I don't normally touch on this during the year, but it was huge that we're getting some major commitments from top end quarterbacks, and three of them. Houston Longstreet committed as a five-star

to USC. Now, Juju Lewis, Julian Lewis, who was kind of a USC guy, he ends up flipping and going to Colorado. And remember Julian was a guy that was the number one quarterback next season. And then he reclassifies into this recruiting class. So he's going to Colorado. There's a huge gift for Prime in Colorado. And it leads people to believe that Dion is coming back as the Colorado head coach. Now, whether that happens or not remains to be seen.

But the biggest news of the week was the Bryce Underwood flip. Bryce Underwood is the number one player in this year's, class, and he is a five-star quarterback from Michigan who had committed to LSU, and Michigan flips him, and he's going back as the number one overall prospect in the class. And he was actually at the Northwestern game last weekend. Here you see some of that footage on YouTube. So Bryce Underwood, I tell you what, man, Michigan fans are excited about this one. And all of those commitments were huge for those programs because they need answers in that area.

and Michigan is certainly at the top of the list. And the reason that I bring that up is there's two things about this that I think are significant for Michigan. Number one is it signifies a little bit of a shift in their overall philosophy in high school recruiting. And I believe that that shift was born out of necessity. This was a team that was very prideful in the fact that their NIL was there to take care of the players that earned.

earned it in-house. And they did well. They did very well. Last year's national championship team, those guys made a good amount of money. But the guys that were taken care of were the guys that were Michigan guys. And I'm not saying recruited from Michigan, but they had committed there, developed there,

and then began to play there. And that's when they started to make some of their money. Blake Corum did very well among others. And, you know, it wasn't a team and a program that was, let's just say like they had an appetite to go and dabble in those top-end NIL dollars for players that had not come to their program yet. This is a clear departure from that. A couple of reasons.

Number one, he's in your state, and he's clearly that special. He's the number one player in the country. But then also, let's not forget, this year, the evidence was so clear that they are desperate to fix the quarterback position. And rightly so. I think in hindsight, you look at Michigan last year, and the guy that didn't get enough credit. I know that this is wild because quarterbacks generally get too much credit,

but McCarthy didn't get enough credit for what he did. You see, their system, their philosophy only worked because J.J. McCarthy was a magician on third down. He was the best third down quarterback in the country by a wide margin. In fact, if you looked at

some of his conversion numbers and efficiency numbers on third and long, it's wildly, wildly successful for those downs and distance. And they didn't have that this year. So they couldn't convert. They couldn't stay on the field.

They lose their time of possession battle. They've got to expose their defense to more snaps. And then everything starts to unravel. The field position battle becomes an issue because you're not getting first downs in order to change field position. So everything that was a staple in their national championship year has now all a sudden become a weakness. And it can be boiled back to the quarterback play.

It really can. It really can. So Sharon Moore knows that he's got to fix that position, and he uses that and the knowledge of that and the evidence of that this season to shift and evolve what he's going to do in high school recruiting. And then they went out and they got Bryce Underwood. And that was huge. Rumors were that it was a $10 million deal or north of that for four years at Michigan. I could certainly see that. And remember, all of these deals are going to get, they're going to get ripped up.

I don't know how else to put it. Because what's going to happen with the house settlement later in that settlement with the NCAA without getting into the weeds is like revenue sharing is coming. And in the settlement, there's going to be some structures put around actual NIL and collectives that are going to be much more restrictive. And you're not going to be able to just pay through your collective, pay for play like you're doing now. and the pay from the school is going to show up in the form of the revenue share. So it's more like a salary.

So these NIL deals are going to look vastly different even in a matter of months. But the rumors were out there, the reports were out there, that it was a $10.5 million deal. And you know what? Good for Bryce Underwood. Michigan gets their quarterback of the future. Colorado gets their quarterback of the future. And USC potentially gets their quarterback. for the future.

College football never disappoints. This season has been absolutely awesome. I cannot wait for the rankings release on Tuesday, and we're going to see exactly what the committee thinks about Indiana. We're going to see what they think about Tennessee, and we're going to see how they jockey for position there in the SEC. Like, does South Carolina actually have a chance if they're able to beat Clemson? Who are the teams that are going to be on the bubble?

We have all of those answers, and we will discuss it at length for you on Wednesday. So join us again on Wednesday right here at the Joel Clat Show. Go follow us on social media at Joel Clat Show. Wherever you like to social media, remember to subscribe to this show on YouTube, hit the notifications button, and you will be hooked up with all of the things that we put out there. Thanks for listening, everybody, and have a great week.