The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Ohio State steps on the gas, Texas is back…in the Playoff mix, USC’s gritty win & Klatt’s Top 10

Episode Date: November 3, 2025

FOX Sports’ lead College Football analyst Joel Klatt reacts to Ohio State’s impressive 2nd half against Penn State as the Buckeyes put on an offensive display that showed what they are capable of. He also breaks down the Heisman race and where Julian Sayin sits right now. Klatt then gives his thoughts on several of the matchups this weekend that served as eliminator-type games for the Playoff. He starts with Oklahoma’s win at Tennessee as Klatt breaks down where the game went wrong for the Vols and the fundamental flaw that is holding them back. He then discusses what to make of Texas’ win over Vanderbilt and whether it’s time to finally trust the Longhorns. He also reacts to the wins by Michigan and USC as they stay in the mix as 2-loss teams out of the Big Ten. Klatt reveals his latest Top 10 where he debates what to do with Georgia following yet another comeback win, this time against Florida. He wraps up the show by reacting to the news that Auburn has fired Hugh Freeze and breaks down how good of a job Auburn is. 0:00-2:20 Intro2:21-13:11 Ohio State beats Penn State 38-1413:12-21:10 Oklahoma knocks off Tennessee 33-2721:11-26:52 Texas hold off Vanderbilt 34-3126:53-30:49 Michigan struggles through 21-16 win30:50-34:36 USC picks up road win at Nebraska34:37-44:21 Joel’s week 10 top 1044:22-48:58 Auburn fires Hugh Freeze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

That's what I was waiting to see from Ohio State. I think the country was waiting to see and we got to see it. Julian's saying right now is your betting favorite to win the Heisman. It's like it's Georgia, but is it Georgia? So here's OU hanging on. Here's Texas hanging on. Here's Michigan hanging on. Here's USC hanging on.

I probably should calm down, but I'm not going to. Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome into the Joel Clatt Show. I'm Joel Clad. This show is brought to you by graduate by Hilton. We thank them for their support. as always. Always love these graduates on the road in these college towns, and you should stay there as well because they're awesome. Lots to get into today on college football. It was a

good weekend, maybe not great weekend, but now we're starting to get a clearer picture of the playoff implications of some of these games and the playoff picture as we come down the stretch in November. Can't wait for rankings coming out, by the way, tomorrow night. That'll be Tuesday night. We'll have a full recap. We will wait to record our Tuesday show that will drop on Wednesday, react to the playoff rankings. So I always love that every single year as we get into November. That's coming up this week. But first, before we get into these games, just remember, subscribe to the show.

That would be awesome if you did. We'd very much appreciate that. You can hit the notification button. You'll know when all of our content drops on YouTube. And you can follow us wherever you like to social media at Joel Clat Show. All of our content lives there. We'd very much appreciate a follow. Jump in the comments.

And as I always try to do on Wednesday, or excuse me, on, Mondays and Tuesdays, I try to jump down in the comments and mix it up a little bit with all of you. By the way, if you see some weird account that's like my face and Joel Klatt's six, some numbers, that actually is me. I haven't verified it yet. So we're working on that. But it is me if you see that weird guy commenting with my picture. All right, let's get into it.

My top 10 coming up a little later in the show, and it has gotten a bit of a shake-up after last week's results, obviously. But I want to start with the game that I was at, watching Ohio State beat Penn State at home. Number one team of the country, as it is told to us by the AP. I believe that the committee will also do that based on what we've seen from Ohio State so far, maybe not based on resume because of Texas's struggles, at least in their couple of losses that lost to Florida more specifically.

But I do think that Ohio State via eye test, efficiency markers are going to be right there and likely your number one team on Tuesday night from the playoff committee. And here's what I thought is I'm watching that game and I'm preparing for that game. There are not many holes in that team. I'm just like that is a very complete football team. And the issues that you can kind of conjure up in regards to the Buckeyes, you have to look really hard because there are not many. You know, maybe, hey, would you love for them to run the football a little bit better?

Yeah, probably. but guess what, they ran it pretty well, in particular late in that game against Penn State. Would you love it if, you know, do they stop the run great in the interior? Yeah, they kind of do. That defense is still the best defense in the country. So again, everything that you try to invent as a problem or a question for Ohio State, at some point they have answers for. And at least in this case on Saturday, we got to see a problem.

major answer. I've been wondering, along with a lot of people, but as you know, listening to this program, I've been wondering, like, when are we going to see it? When are we going to see fourth gear from Ohio State where they actually are like, okay, let's go. And we got to see that on Saturday against Penn State. It was basically one snap. They're going about their business, going about their business. You know, they have three possessions in the first half. They score on all three of those possessions. they're in line to double up because they've deferred and are going to receive the second half kick. They get the ball right around that two-minute mark and you're like, oh, they're probably going to go right down the field and score.

And boom, C.J. Donaldson fumbles the football. And that fumble leads to a Penn State score. And now all of a sudden, it's 17, 14 at halftime. And it's like, whoa, hold on. It's a ball game. Even though Ohio State had largely dominated that game up to that point, total yards, all of it. Now all of a sudden it's a ball game. and you could sense that there was going to be some frustration at halftime.

And what did we see in the third quarter? We saw fourth gear. And you know what, folks? That was really explosive. It was dominant both sides of the ball, defensively and offensively. And they just put the game away completely. No doubt about it.

That was as dominant a quarter of football as we've seen anybody play this year. And it's just because they wanted to. They started throwing the football down the field, as you just saw on those YouTube highlights. Julian Sand was remarkable. And his efficiency, his accuracy down the field. We know the type of talent that they have a wide receiver. Everyone talks about that.

I've talked about it for a long time. And they don't always just sit there and say, okay, we're going to get after it and go down the field. And they did in that third quarter, man, it was impressive. A couple of 57-yard catches from Tate and Smith, Sand throwing absolute dimes down the field. They got the run game going a little bit. The defense is totally suffocating. And all of a sudden, it's like, yep, this is not a game. anymore. Now, obviously, Penn State is struggling after firing James Franklin. Ethan Gruncomeyer,

you know, doing his best. That is an offense that had some success running the football on the perimeter in the first half, got away from that in the second half. But it was just too dominant of a football team. And that's what I was waiting to see from Ohio State. I think the country was waiting to see and we got to see it. And that should open everybody's eyes. I think that's a warning shot to everybody in the country is like, hey, by the way, we still have this. We might be driving around this season in third gear and might just be controlling games. Our tempo is slow. We don't expose our defense to many snaps.

All of these things. We play complimentary football. All these things are going to pay huge dividends in terms of a long season, potentially playing 16 games to try to win a national title. And yet, when they needed it, it was just like, boom. And games over. And it's like, okay, wow, wow. And that third quarter, in particular from an offensive perspective, Julian Sane is an incredible player.

He just is. He is an incredible quarterback. Three in completions. By the way, two of those were throwaways. He has three touchdowns. And everything that he does, it's controlled, accurate. He does it with urgency. He's very smart. His eyes are always in the right spot when you're watching him on film. the ball is always in the right spot.

When I talk with opposing defensive coordinators, they all marvel at his quick release and, you know, not only his coaches, Sayans coaches, but even the opposing coaches, Jim Knowles in this respect, the defensive coordinator from Penn State, talked about how quick he processes and his release. And they say he might even process information quicker than he releases the football. So all of those things are incredible,

which starts to lead us to this like Heisman discussion because Julian's saying right now is your betting favorite to win the Heisman. He jumped Fernando Mendoza and Ty Simpson this week. He was third coming into last week, had this remarkable performance in particular in that third quarter against Penn State. And now all of a sudden, he is the betting favorite to win the Heisman Trophy. He's leading the nation with 80% completion percentage. He's leading, by the way, by almost 7.5%.

Next closest is DeMond Williams from Washington. He's second in yards per temp. he's first in passer efficiency rating, this guy gets it done. I believe that it's the most elite passing game in college football. And that even takes into consideration, Alabama, which is an elite passing team. They can throw it wherever they want. Down the field, short, they've got tied ends, they can throw it to the backs. This guy is really, really good, really good.

And it led Ryan Day, his coach, to have this comment specifically about the Heisman and his quarterback after the game. You know, I don't know. I shouldn't say I don't know what else is out there. I've watched them from afar. I think there's some really good quarterbacks across the country this year. There's a lot of good quarterbacks in the conference. And so, you know, it'll be told when the season's over.

You know, I think it's easy to, you know, be it whenever week eight, week nine, week 10, and try to make, you know, proclamations on where guys are. I think we have to see, you know, what the season, you know, holds for us and the progress that's made. And then we go from there. And I think even when you look at, you know, the Heisman Trophy, you know, it's sort of after the season's over. And there's still a whole bunch of football to be played afterwards. So I think that's unique, but that's the tradition. But I do think that if Julian continues to play the way that he's playing, he deserves to be in the conversation at the very least.

There's no doubt about it. There is no doubt about it. And one of the things that I really appreciate about Coach Day and obviously I'm around all these coaches and these programs during the course of the year, which pinch me. This is an incredible job and career. But I will tell you this, that I think that the best thing that Coach Day does is that he doesn't take any specific day or game for granted. A lot of coaches will talk about, oh, well, we just got to go one. day at a time, this or that. But then in their next answer, they will immediately jump ahead. And Coach Day never does that. And, you know, football teams, and in particular in this modern

era, are a little bit like restaurants. Now, I've never owned a restaurant, but I have several friends who do. And they've told me that restaurants, you have to almost breathe life into the restaurant on a daily basis. You've got to care for it, breathe life into it, because nothing is just going to happen because. And football teams, in particular in college, are a little bit like that as well. You cannot take anything for granted. And Coach Day doesn't. And so that's why his answer is so measured right there. A lot of football left. A lot of football to be played. We'll see if he keeps progressing. And he throws the if in there, not just like, oh, yeah, he's definitely this. Our team is definitely that. If we keep progressing, if we continue to do what we've been doing, then we will be

in a position to potentially reap the rewards of that. It's really a case study and really great leadership from a coaching standpoint, and it's one of the reasons why this is such a good team and will be there in the end. There's no doubt. Speaking of the Heisman, I would just say this, and I'll start talking about the Heisman more as we go on here in the month of November. You know, obviously Simpson's going to be involved. Fernando Mendoza is going to be involved. I think Marcel Reed is going to be involved, the quarterback at Texas A&M, and rightly so, all of those guys. And so it's going to turn into this kind of like SEC Big Ten type of conversation to some extent at some point. And I think my thought would be at some point,

the SEC vote will break a specific way to Simpson or Reed, in particular if they play each other in the SEC championship game. And those votes are supposed to wait until after the SEC championship game, or at least they should. Some people vote before that, but I think we should see all of the games that we possibly can before the vote is done. And then you might get Mendoza against Sane, if, like, let's just say for sake of argument, Ohio State were to beat Indiana and let's say, you know, Alabama were to beat Texas A&M, and it's like Simpson and Julian Sagan.

I think what you would have is a narrative, in particular from the southern contingent, that, hey, Julian Sane has Smith and Tate and all these guys, and he might not even be the best player on his own team, whereas Simpson is kind of the catalyst, the MVP, if you will, for Alabama. That would be, I guess, I don't know, not even, not a fear, but like I could see it playing out kind of in that direction. But we'll see what happens.

And again, he's playing great. A lot of these guys are playing really great football. So that's Ohio State. Then there were a lot of games with playoff implications, these teams that are trying to fight and claw and scratch and keep themselves in line to potentially be the third, fourth team, maybe fifth team from their conference to be included in the college football playoff. There were a lot of these games. One of them specifically, Tennessee and Oklahoma, like that was both of them sitting on two losses, almost kind of a play in, play out style of game. Certainly almost you can say like an elimination game. And, you know, going into this week and this month, I started looking at Tennessee and thinking to myself, man, you know, the schedule really lines up for them after Oklahoma.

I could see them going 10 and 2. I love what Aguilar was doing. Obviously, they're explosive on the offensive side. And I thought, you know, they've got a good chance to go back to the playoff. I didn't love that OU can't run the football very well outside of John Mateer. Tennessee's got them at home. Tennessee hasn't lost at home unless it's to Georgia in quite some time. I thought it set up really well for the volunteers.

And the beginning of that game, they played like it. Tennessee early in that game was all over Oklahoma, outside of a couple of really key snaps, very key snaps. But if you look at the first half, Tennessee outgained Oklahoma 255 yards to 99. They were dominating on the field and on the film. And I went back and I watched the coach's film of this game. They were totally dominating them. OU had no chance offensively.

They're barely crossing the 50-yard line at times. It's Meteer putting a cape on his back trying to scramble around. And Tennessee was up and down the field. Now, there's a couple of big mistakes in there, namely the sack fumble. OU gets, you know, scoop and score, and all of a sudden it's a tie game. So those mistakes all the sudden put Tennessee in a position where they've outgained Oklahoma 255 to 99 and yet trail 1610 at half. terrible interception right before the half from Joey Aguilar. And it's like, it's a couple of snaps away from being 20 to 3, Tennessee.

They're driving down to take a multiple possession lead when the sack fumble occurs. And it's just a total misdesignment by the right tackle. Don't know what he's doing. He blocks down to double team and a little RPO. There's nobody left to the inman on the line of scrimmage. Sack fumble, boom, great recovery and score by OU. and then you have to give OU a lot of credit because not only did they make a couple of those plays, the interception before the half, the sack bumble, take it back for six, but their defensive line

made life really difficult on Joey Aguilar the entire night. So now all of a sudden, Aguilar starts feeling the stress of the score. He's not relying on the success that they've had up and down the field in the first quarter and a half, two quarters, and he starts playing his worst football. He's behind on flat routes. He's throwing the football down the field into crowded areas. like, where's the offense that I saw early in the game? And it never materialized. And this is kind of right in the wheelhouse of, I think, some of our, or maybe my specific criticism of Tennessee in their offense. You see, when you run this offense, and this is the technical team, it's like a deep choice offense. So the wide receivers have a lot of deep choice

routes. Art Biles ran this famously at Baylor and Tennessee has really majored in this offense and this is what they run. So in order to run the football, they like to spread everybody out and then try to run the football. And then they try to throw off of a little bit of play action, maybe RPO, and then allow their wide receivers to choose whether they're going to hook routes up or continue deep. But when you're reliant on deep choice, what you don't get to do as a play caller is dictate the picture. And so there are certain structures that Oklahoma is playing that Tennessee has really taken advantage of in the first quarter and a half of that game. And then all of a sudden, you can't call things to specifically attack those structures because you're reliant on these

18 to 22-year-olds to make the choice in their routes down the field. So they're killing them on in-breaking routes in the first half, killing them on in-breaking routes. And then all of a sudden, all these reeds turn into go routes. And now they're just floating the ball down the field because you can't dictate as a play caller how you're going to attack the structure. And to me, that's a problem. They also use a very fast tempo and pace to their offense.

They snap the football a lot. What that leads to with the aggressive style is that it leaves your defense exposed. And that's ultimately what got them beat was the fact that they don't play complimentary football. They're out there and they want to be the top scoring offense in the country, and you know what? They can do that. But in order to score 50, you've got to put your defense at a disadvantage,

which is what happens to Tennessee. And so this is why Tennessee struggles in big games, because these other teams are going to play complementary football. And some of them really understand how to win big games. It's not about just scoring 50. It's about winning. Okay? And so when you get into this position,

you've got to take care of the other aspects of your team in order to win. And Tennessee doesn't do that. Let me give you a quick example. Ohio State could go out there and score 60 points. We saw that in the third quarter. They have that gear. If they wanted to go score 60, they could do it. If they wanted to throw for 500 yards, they could do that.

But they don't. Why? Because they're protecting their defense. They're minimizing the snaps on their defense. They understand that this is a long season, and that's not all it's about. And so they play methodically. They run fewer snaps intentionally on offense in order to remove snaps from their defense. Let me give you the numbers behind this.

Ohio State's defense faces right now 57 snaps per game. Tennessee's defense faces 73 snaps per game. That's a significant margin. in particular when you average that over a 12-game regular season. Think about this, folks. Think about this. Over a 12-game season, Tennessee's defense is going to see 192 more snaps than Ohio State. Well, obviously you're going to be in positions where small mistakes will beat you.

And that's exactly what happened. And I don't want to just make this about Tennessee because here's one thing that I will also tell. you. OU's defense is very good, and their defensive line is excellent. And they were making life difficult on the Tennessee offensive line. Their secondary players made a lot of plays. They made Aguilar feel their presence. Therefore, he started forcing the football. He turns it over, and then all a sudden Tennessee loses. So now the question is, can OU make a run? Well, you still can't run it with their running backs. And unless Meteer is great, they really don't move the football all that well with their offense. Really, their only true drives, they always need a scramble from a tear,

a long scramble, some 10-plus yard scramble from mature in order to get the ball into position. And now Oklahoma is going to have to go to Alabama. They've got to face Missouri and they've got to face LSU. Can they go through that unbeaten? I'm not sure. Will three losses get them in? I don't know. I really don't. I think that there's going to be too many quality 10-and-2 teams, even with OU's schedule. And I understand their schedule. And I understand their has been horrendous. They drew the short end of the straw with the scheduling agreement in the SEC. They've got to buy at Alabama, Missouri, and LSU. I think that they have to win out, can they? Not with the offense that I just saw because they're going to run up against a team

that is going to play a more sound, complimentary style of football than what Tennessee just tried to do at home on Saturday night. That OU defense is real, though. They are absolutely real. Another game with huge implications for the playoff was that Vandy Texas game. And Texas holds them off 34, 31. And if you just look at the box score, you're thinking to yourself like, wow, you know, Texas survives and what does this actually mean? And yet, when you watch the game, Texas totally dominated that game. Totally dominated that game.

It was not a close football game until the fourth quarter. And unfortunately for Texas, this is kind of a microcontractive. of what their entire program and season is right now, which is, we know they're really good and there are moments of dominant play, but then all of a sudden there's enough lackluster play where we've got massive questions moving forward. Again, a microcosm of their season. Texas led it, excuse me, 3410 through three quarters. They were outgaining Vandy 388 yards to 185.

Totally dominant. Their defense had played really well. Javier is trying out there. He's scrambling around. I love watching him play, by the way. But like Texas is the far better team. They're figuring it out on offense. Arch is playing his best football, second straight 300-yard game. He's got three touchdowns in that game. He was pressured less than 20% of the time, which was the huge issue in particular if you go back to that Florida loss on the road. That's by far the least this season of amount of pressure on Arch in the pocket.

And partly because they switch some things around. on their offensive line. So they moved to their center, Cole Hudson, over to left guard, and they feel like that switch has made them better in particular in pass protection, which has allowed Arch to play a lot better, which he has, which he has. And that offense was explosive. There's no doubt. Then you get to this fourth quarter. Okay, so all of that is true. 388 to 185 out gaining them through three quarters. It's 34 to 10. And then you get to the fourth quarter, and it is pretty clear mop-up time. It is so similar to that Miami Florida State game from earlier in the year when Miami is dominating Florida State. And then Florida State just

starts putting together these long drives where they're scrambling for first downs. And then all of a sudden, there's a unsportsman-like hit out of bounds, and they get 15 more yards, and they're fighting and they're scratching. But at no point did we ever believe that Florida State was going to come back and win that game. And candidly, based on the film, there's really no point where I'm like, yeah, you know, like Vandy's got a real shot in this game. It's such an outlandish comeback that they're trying to orchestrate. And the defense is just playing super soft, heavy, heavy, well, not heavy, but like very soft umbrella zone coverage. So there's little holes in there. They're giving up a first down here and a first down there. Then all

this sudden, Texas blows a coverage because the corner doesn't sink on a wheel route on the right side. And now you're like, oh, my gosh, it's only a 10-point game. But don't worry, now it's fourth and 19. And Vandy's got the ball on their own, you know, two-yard line, fourth and 19, and they get it. And you're like, they're not really going to come down and score. And then, lo and behold, we're sitting there and we're sweating over an on-side kick. And it's like, okay, I get. 34, 31, and it's a tight game, I guess, but no, it's not. Texas is much better than they have played all year long. They were a far superior team to Vanderbilt and nothing to take away from Clark Lee and what Vandy has done.

But now you've got to look at Texas and you think to yourself, can they actually do this? Can they actually pull this off from where they were in the middle of the year for the struggles that they've had, those two poor performances in wins, on the road in SEC play, one of them at Kentucky. You're like, can they do the, can they win at Georgia? Can they beat Texas A&M? Can they run the table with Arkansas mixed in there? And here's the thing, folks. If you just watch the first three quarters, you would say, yeah, yeah, they might have a

chance to do this. And part of that also is the fact that although Georgia is only a one-loss team, they continue to just chase the balloon next to a cliff. I mean, like at every moment of this year, you feel like you look up in the second half and Georgia is trying to come back from a deficit, an SEC play. The one that would scare me is Texas A&M.

But Texas is, that's obviously a rivalry game. You kind of throw everything out that's happened. That one's going to be in Austin. So that one will be interesting. Can Texas actually pull this off? You know what? It's not going to shock me at all. because that team is still really talented.

Can they put it together? We still haven't seen them put together a real four-quarter game every facet. Is that coming? Do we see that play out? If we do, maybe, maybe. Can they beat Georgia at Georgia? Yeah, they could possibly do that. Do I think it's going to happen?

I don't know. I don't know, but it surely could. Again, those first three quarters were dominant, and Arch is playing his best football. So just watch out for Texas right now. A couple of teams in the Big Ten that are trying to keep themselves afloat in the same mold as these others, like Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Texas is Michigan and USC with a chance to get a 10-and-2 record, and in particular with the games that they have ahead of them, if they were to win those games,

they would certainly be playoff bound, and they've just got to get themselves to that point. So Michigan wins an ugly game against Purdue. 2116. And trust me, it was, it was an ugly game. No one surrounding Michigan is going to be like pounding their chest over this game, but they are able to win it. Now, big news before the game that none of us had really heard yet, Justice Haynes was in a boot. And now the news is, is that he's having foot surgery, and it's going to be Jordan Marshall going forward. Now, they said Haynes might be able to come back at some point this year. But, uh, you know, Justice Haynes, who has been one of, if not the best running back in the country up to this point, is now going to be out for the foreseeable future for Michigan.

And they're going to have to lean on Jordan Marshall, who was outstanding, by the way, against Purdue and has been outstanding, really the entirety of the year. So it's not like they've got nothing left in that backfield, but certainly hurts their depth. This team, Michigan, is battling right now two things that are really hard to overcome for any team. youth and injury. And they're not the only team battling this, but, you know, of the teams that are really pushing for a playoff spot, they are the most youthful team, not only in the Big Ten, but of any of the teams pushing for a playoff spot, they are really young. They're starting six freshmen on the offense, three offensive linemen, Jordan Marshall is a redshirt freshman, Bryce Underwood is a true freshman, and then Andrew Marsh is a true freshman on the outside. So you've got the three up front, you've got the three skilled position players. six freshmen on the field starting for Michigan.

They've also now had a bunch of injuries on the defensive side, in particular at linebacker. You had Cole Sullivan. He went down at linebacker. Jimmy Rolder has gone down. Barham has gone down. Like a lot of guy, McCulley goes down the wide receiver. All of these guys, they're going to have to bring up more young players. They're going to get more youthful.

And because of that, I think you saw some of the detail and the execution. fall away. I thought that they blitzed too much against Purdue. That might have been tried to protect some of those linebackers, the young ones that were in there playing at that spot. But this is still a team that because of the style of football that they play and the fact that their offensive line is playing as good as they have played all year, they're going to be right there. And if you look at their schedule, the only real game that you're like, I don't know, is that Ohio State game at the end of the year. year. And obviously, they're going to lean on the fact that they haven't lost to Ohio State since

2019, but a winnable slate of games through November, and now it comes down to just Bryce Underwood continuing to develop. They need to develop him as a passer. I have not seen the amount of development from Bryce Underwood as a passer as I'd like to see. His footwork is still poor. He still misses way too many passes high, partly because his arm angle is way too low. You know, there are things that he has to do a lot better to become a really great college football quarterback. Right now, he's relying a lot on skill and on talent. And that only is going to get you so far because there are things that you've got to do from an efficiency standpoint, from footwork, release, accuracy, and touch that are what I would call constants. They have to be there. And those are things that

he's going to have to develop over the next few weeks. And candidly, it still looks a lot like the first few games. And so I'm a bit surprised that I haven't seen more development from Underwood. Obviously, the talent is there and just his physical ability and also their ability and their maturation as an offense is far past where they were a year ago. A year ago, they were really poor on offense. They're much better now, so I'm nitpicking a little bit, but he needs to develop as a pastor. USC, they get a win on the road against Nebraska. and I know that people are going to be like, you know, 2117 at Nebraska is really ugly. Yeah, I don't disagree with that.

But, is OU going to apologize because their win was ugly over Tennessee? You know, I mean, like, their offense didn't play great. What are you going to say if you're OU? Damn right, we went in there and won. Well, that's what USC is going to do. in particular for Lincoln Riley, who's 3 and 8 in his last 11 road games going into that night game in Nebraska. Nebraska is a 6 and 2 team coming into that game. And all of a sudden, this offense, which has been so balanced and so potent,

falls totally flat in the first half. And you're thinking to yourself, here we go again. Nebraska takes the football and goes right down the field, running right at their defense. and with what happened at Illinois, with what happened at Nebraska, what has happened over the last few years, in particular on the road, there is a huge challenge going on on the sideline, which is you sit there and you've got to fight this human instinct to say, here we go again.

And you know what? USC bounced back. And they played really well. And they won a game in which their quarterback played terrible. Maiava had his worst game of the season by a pretty wide margin. Pretty wide margin. And what did they do? Outrushed Nebraska.

Ran it for 200 yards. They weren't great defensively against the run, but they did enough. They did enough. And they win the game. After their history of coming up short on the road, three and eight in their last 11, they do it by running the football. I love the trajectory of this program. I don't know if they're going to go to the playoff.

I would not pick them in the game at Oregon in Otson Stadium. But when I look at what's going on here, this is more foundational and has more upside for the future than them just throwing the football 50 times and going out there and trying to outscore people like they were doing a few years ago. This is more sustainable. And the defense is going to continue to improve. They're going to get bigger. And so the trajectory for them, I really love. I really love. And if Maiava plays well and they've got this in their back pocket, like, hey, we can do this.

We can go on the road. We can be tough. We can run the football. Then, you know, maybe they steal a game. Maybe they steal the Oregon game. Like, I'm not going to pick them in that game, but the trajectory is there for USC. And now they get to hang on. So here's OU hanging on.

Here's Texas hanging on. Michigan hanging on. Here's USC hanging on. And as we get into November, these games and the importance of these games that these teams play are going to ratchet way up. Because all of these teams have the talent and the roster to win every game ahead of them. Okay, even their rivalry games, even the tough ones. Yeah, Texas has a gauntlet with Georgia and Texas A&M. Yeah, you know, we get that. We know OU has a gauntlet. They've still got Alabama. We're We know Michigan still has Ohio State. We know USC still has Oregon.

But there is enough there in some of these performances where you can sit there and you can say, maybe, maybe. Maybe they can hang on 10 and 2 and potentially get into the playoff. Let's get into my top 10 after this last week. 10 to 1, as always. And I'm going to start at number 10 with Texas Tech. I thought that was a big win over K-State. I really did. in particular because early in that game, K-State kind of answered the bell.

They are playing much better football than they were early in the year. And Texas Tech, they grew up in some ways on the road. They are not playing, I don't think, their best football, but they're playing really tough-oriented football. They're running it. They're doing everything that you need to do. Their defense is playing quality. So I love that they went on the road and they got that when they stay at 10.

BYU is at 9. They play at Texas Tech this week. Can't wait for that game. That's going to be a monster game. I think BYU is as gritty as any team in the country. Kalani Sataki, probably the most underrated coach in America. I know he doesn't get talked about a lot in some of these job openings, more on that a little bit. But he probably should.

It's one of those things that is just such a good fit at BYU that I think people, and maybe rightly so, just assume that he wouldn't take another job and maybe he wouldn't. At number eight, I'm going to go with Notre Dame. I actually am dropping them a spot. That was an ugly win. You all think that I have Notre Dame too high anyways. I'm going to keep them in there because at their best, they're absolutely a top 10 team,

not a doubt in my mind, was not great on Saturday. It was ugly. So I dropped them down a spot. Keep them in my top 10 at number eight. At number seven, Ole Miss took care of business. So I still like Ole Miss. Trinidad Chamblis is a guy that I think fits Lane Kiffin really well. Now, one thing to watch out for for Ole Miss down the stretch is you're seeing

a lot of other coaches that are high profile that will absolutely be targeted and mentioned for all these job openings and they're taking their name out of the hat. Three specifically. Dan Lanning said absolutely not. I'm at Oregon. Matt Ruhle signed an extension at Nebraska and Kurt Signetti signed an extension at Indiana. So the longer that Lane Kiffin doesn't sign an extension at Ole Miss or come out and absolutely emphatically and definitively like Dan Langing did turn these jobs down and say, I'm not going to go anywhere, the distraction is going to creep up at Ole Miss. That would be my worry for Ole Miss and this team is the distraction of what's going to go on.

Because listen, Florida is coming after Lane Kiffin, period. LSU will absolutely talk with and try to interview Lane Kiffin. There's not a doubt in my mind. In fact, I know one of them for a fact. So the longer this goes, that could be a distraction, just something to watch out for. Georgia is going to be at six. They went another close one. What to make of this team, man.

I don't. It's like it's Georgia. But is it Georgia? I think that we get too wrapped up. in Kirby's history at Georgia and the great teams. And so are we measuring this team against that? Because they are clearly not the 21, 22 Georgia Bulldogs. Not even close.

They're much more similar, almost identical to last year's version, which had a lot of flaws. And you could even say maybe in some respects overachieve, but then got exposed because of those flaws. by Notre Dame in the playoff. I think Georgia just has a high floor. We talk about this in the draft, NFL draft conversation all the time. And we talk about like high ceiling, low floor, you know, a guy that has high potential,

but man, if it goes south, it could go really south. Well, I think Georgia right now is one of those teams that has a low ceiling, really high floor. because they're really talented. They're really talented. But there's something missing. And so, like, it's going to be hard to beat them, but they have some, like, major flaws. How many games are we going to sit here and just be like, well, they got to come back in this game, and they got to come back in this game, and they got to come back in this game.

And we can say, like, they're hard to kill, they're resilient. All of that is true. but at what point does then it come back to haunt them? At some point it will. At some point it will. Because Florida's got a chance to kill Georgia. Now, they didn't. They drive it all the way down.

It's inside of 10 minutes. They've got a three-point lead. Lagway is playing pretty well in this game. He's scrambling around. It's second and two at the 19-yard line going in. If they go in and score and make this a 10-point game, man, you know, this Georgia offense, maybe they can come back. Sure, we've seen them do some remarkable things, namely at Tennessee early this year. But it makes it really difficult. They stop them on

second down. Back doesn't get aggressive. Now it's third down. Lagway looks like he gets it. They mark him short. Now it's fourth down. And Florida goes for it. Right decision. I firmly believe this was the right decision. And they just hand the football off right into the middle of the offensive line, where Georgia had shifted into the middle, and they run it right into the teeth of the Georgia defense and get stopped. And guess what's going to happen? Of course Georgia's going to go down and score. Like, that's as soon as they stop them on fourth down. And, you know, this was the discussion after the game from the Florida side about that fourth down. No, no, no second thoughts. I think we'll take a look on film and see what happened. I haven't had a chance to look at or review it

yet, but obviously critical, critical play for us. But never going to second guess it. And our guys, you know, we had to go for it. We had to go for it. If you kick a field goal, you're still down. If they go down to score, you're still down a point. So we'll take a look and see where we went wrong, but no second guessing as far as what the play was called.

Yeah, so obviously that's correct. You have to go for it because a field goal, it's still a one possession game and a touchdown puts you down a point. I get it. It's not about going for it on fourth down. It's just like, did Lagway have a read and he gave it? Because it didn't look like he had a read. If I'm calling that, DJ Lagway is going to be the focal point. It's either quarterback power with as many lead blockers as I can get in front of Lagway, or it's Lagway with a decision with a player in conflict on the edge, like a zone read. where he's reading the defensive end. Well, if he was reading it, he made a poor decision

because there's nobody on the end of the line. And he just hands the football off, no lead blocker. Like they're running duo. I know that doesn't mean anything to anybody in here, but like duo is basically like a non-lead style kind of double team. Some people call it power without the polar. You're kind of like blocking down. And then the linebacker has to kind of pick his gap.

And it's like, is Duo really your call right there? What are we doing? Like, if it, why isn't that a read? Why isn't it quarterback power? That's what you're going to have to go back and ask yourself if it's from the Florida perspective. All right, let's move on. Top five now.

At number five, I've got Oregon. I think people have questions about Oregon, and that's fine. I think that there are questions about a lot of these teams, by the way. Oregon's still very good football team. Bama and that passing game is so good. I still love Bama. I still love Ty Simpson. They have to run the football better at some point.

I know their fans clamor, like they run it fine with Jam Miller and I disagree. I think that they're going to need to run it better and their defense needs to get better. A&M is a complete football team. That's clearly a top three football team. Love what Marcel Reed has done. They've won in several different ways. Can't wait to watch them down the stretch. Indiana is going to be my number two team.

They beat Maryland 5510 behind 367. rush yards. That's their fifth 300-yard rush game of the season. That offensive line's going to win the Joe Moore Award. That's going to be your best offensive line in the country. I mean, there are no holes with Indiana. And they've been battling some injuries now. Eden Fisher didn't play their linebacker. Sarat was battling, I think, a hamstring at some point on Saturday at Maryland. He's their wide receiver. He's a very, very good player, all-American caliber player. He's going to be in line for a Bolitnikov finalist style. If, they're healthy, that's going to be a tough team to beat. The two best teams in the country are

Indiana and my number one team Ohio State. And they are on a collision course for the Big Ten championship game. Those are your two best teams in the country. I think all due respect to Texas A&M, which is right there as well. But man, the complete nature of both Indiana and Ohio State pretty significant and they stand out to me. My almost category, the teams that I considered, and I know people are going to chuckle of this, I considered Texas at 10. because they handled Vanderbilt. I mean, that was supposedly a top 10 Vanderbilt team, which, I mean, okay, that's fine. But they handled that team through three quarters.

I considered Oklahoma, that defense is real. I considered Louisville there, but I landed at Texas Tech and BYU in my 10 and 9 spot. Let's get into our weekend check-in presented by graduate by Hilton, hotels made for fans, in all of your favorite college towns. I love these places. You've got to go stay in a great-in. graduate. They're fantastic. And they are college. So when you go to a place for a game and you travel to a college town for a game, stay to graduate. It's going to make your entire trip that

much better. Let's check in on the coaching carousel. There is another opening. Auburn has fired Hugh Fries third season after losing 10-3 at home to Kentucky. He went 15 and 19 at Auburn, six and 16 in SEC play. All six SEC games this season were decided by 10 or less, if you're looking for a nugget there. They went one in five in those games. And now he's the eighth power four head coach to be fired. And now Auburn is open.

And we kind of knew that this was going to happen. Auburn is one of those places that pulls the trigger often. I don't think Auburn is a great job. In fact, if you look at it and you stack it up against the others, so now we've got these eight jobs open. We've got LSU Penn State, Florida, Arkansas, UCLA, Oklahoma State, Virginia Tech, and Stanford. It's not better than those top three, LSU Penn State and Florida, in that order. Probably better than Arkansas.

probably, and then better than UCLA, Oklahoma State, Virginia Tech, and Stanford. So it's right there. It's probably the fourth or fifth best job open in the current cycle of the eight open. Here's the thing, okay? Like, it's not a great job if you're not even the best or biggest or most important program in your own state. I, you know, like, sorry I'm not sorry. That is what it is. And Auburn has a little brother complex.

They just do. They're not Alabama. And it's not even close. And yet they want to be Alabama. So they feel like their expectations, and they operate from a booster perspective and a program perspective, as if like, well, our expectations are that we're Alabama.

But you're not. You're not. even the championship, but I know they played for a championship against Florida State, but even the national championship that they won, it's like, hey, guys, you had Cam Newton. You know, like, you had Cam Newton, who was, I can't think of another player in college football that almost single-handedly dragged his team, you know, to a title like Cam Newton.

That defense was one of the, that in the 19-19. LSU defense statistically were a couple of the worst defenses to win national titles in the last 20 years. You know, so like, I think that the expectations at Auburn don't line up with the reality of what Auburn is. That's a program that is not even, you know, the best program in their state. Obviously. Obviously. Alabama is in your state. Alabama is Alabama. One more national titles than anybody. You know? I mean, that's, so that's just kind of what it is. And cue all the Auburn fans, although there aren't as many as the other big programs. It's a small school. All right, that'll do it for today. Again, we've got Rankin's releases, rankings release on Tuesday night. So I've got my full reaction right here on the Joel Clashio on Wednesday morning.

So come back on Wednesday. I will tell you everything that I firmly believe, it's generally when I get most crabby and cranky, to be quite honest with you. You're going to get my absolute full-throated, honest opinion about these committee rankings because we record right after they release. And so generally I'm all like lathered up about it. And I probably should calm down. But I'm not going to. You can follow us on, subscribe on the YouTube channel, please, if you would, at Joel Clashio. And then follow us wherever you like to show social media, adjole Clashio there.

And yeah, come back on Wednesday. we'll have picks and previews on Thursdays and we'll be back then everybody have a great week