The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - The 5 Best games since 2000 + Tebow to Alabama, Saban to Texas & more “what if” moments in CFB

Episode Date: July 6, 2026

Fox Sports’ lead College Football analyst Joel Klatt lists the 5 best games in the sport since 2000 including the National Championship Game between Texas and USC at the end of the 2005 season, a thriller in Lubbock and a historic offensive outburst by 2 future Pro Bowl QBs. He then considers some of the biggest “what if” moments in College Football like if Nick Saban had gone to Texas or if Tim Tebow had not chosen Alabama over Florida out of high school or if Ohio State’s Curtis Samuel had been marked short on 4th Down in OT vs Michigan in 2016 and more. Klatt also lists his favorite CFB uniforms and more viewer-submitted questions in the mailbag. Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/KLATT10 Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Here's some of the great games since 2000. Was it legal? Was it illegal? It doesn't matter. It was a touchdown. What if Tim Tebow goes to Alabama? Does Nick Saban ever even go to Alabama? You give me Bama at home in a big game.

That's a great uniform. Don't tell Brady Quinn, but I love those uniforms. Cleanest thing I've ever seen. And intimidating. Hey, welcome into the show. This is a Joel Clad show. I'm Joel Clad. This show is brought to you by Graduate by Hilton.

We thank them for their support. As always, we roll on here in the off season, getting you all set for college football, 2026. Cannot wait for the college football season. It's going to be epic. I really do think we're going to have a great year. I wanted to do a mailbag episode here in the off season and just get to some of your questions. These are fun questions.

A lot of them history related in college football, in particular kind of, I would call it recent history since 2000. So some of these are fun and certainly debatable. So I would love for you all of these lists that I'm going to go through and things that I'm going to name and rank. I would love your ideas and your thoughts on these. Leave them in the comments down below. We start with Kevin. Kevin writes into the program. He says, hey, Joel, big fan of the show.

You know how every time there's a great game, people always go. That's the greatest game I've seen in a long time. That's the greatest game I've ever seen. Well, as a person who has watched a lot of college football games over the years, what would you say are the 10 greatest college football games ever played since 2000? So not ever, just since 2000. There we go. And if USC, Texas isn't number one, the list isn't.

valid, he says. All right, well, let's see. I'm not going to give 10. I'm just going to start to throw out some of the best games that I've ever witnessed. Again, not ever since 2000. Here's some of the great games since 2000. I'll get to kind of my favorite, but let's just start listing them off. The Bush Push game. Notre Dame hosting USC. USC is the juggernaut and college football. Matt Leinert and Reggie Bush going to South Bend. the grass is high, Charlie Weiss, Brady Quinn, epic game. Absolutely epic game. There's no doubt about it. And then we get the classic ending that they still fight over, by the way. I work with Brady and Matt, Matt. They still talk about that play to this day. Was it illegal? It doesn't matter. It was a touchdown. Reggie Bush shoving Matt liner across the goal line for USC to stay undefeated and stay on their march. They were trying at that point to win their third straight national title. That game was epic. Let's see. How about kick six, 2013, Bama Auburn? I mean, epic. Obviously the ending, but that was just a great game. By the way, Bama also going for a three-peat at that point. And they were in line to do so. What people really forget about that game and that moment is that Nick Saban argued successfully to have a second put back on the clock so that they could attempt that field goal that ultimately wound up short and taken back for six.

one of the great calls in all of college football history. That was certainly, and this list is not complete since 2000 without the kick six game. That was an incredible, incredible game. Auburn lost to Florida State in the BCS title game that year. That was a great game, though, man. I got to tell you, I remember that was locked into that one. Here's one that I'll always remember, and partly because of what these guys have done since,

how about Baker Mayfield Patrick Mahomes in that shootout in 2016? Oklahoma wins it. I believe that game was in Lubbock. 6659. I mean, you talk about the old school Big 12. I remember everybody. The SEC fans just hated Big 12 football because there was no defense played, which is kind of rich now because obviously they have a lot of high scoring games in the SEC.

But man, both teams had over 850. total yards. Mayfield, 545 yards throwing the football, seven touchdowns. How about Patrick Mahomes line? This is wild. Patrick Mahomes, 734 pass yards, 84 yards on the ground for 819 total yards and seven total touchdowns. That's insane. That's insane. It was just a classic game. Joe Mixen ran for 263 on 31 carries. Unbelievable game. Again, oh, you won. that one, 66.59. I'll stay in the Big 12, and this is a really good era of Big 12 football. You could argue that they had the three best teams in the country, at least three of the four best teams in the country. Now, Florida would ultimately go on to win the national championship

and beat OU, but this game doesn't involve Florida and it doesn't involve OU. It was prior to that, and it was Texas in Lubbock at Texas Tech. How about Texas Tech getting a couple of these games? Unfortunately, they were on the wrong, or excuse me, unfortunately they were wrong end of the Mahomes Mayfield game. The right end of this one. 2008, the Michael Crabtree game as Texas Tech holds on to win over Colt McCoy and Texas. And that's the game that kept Texas out of the national championship. If you remember that year, the Big 12's tiebreaker was BCS standings. And they had three 11 and one teams. Texas had beaten OU in Red River. Texas goes to Lubb. loses to Texas Tech on the insane Michael Crabtree play

and then Tech would go to Gaylord Memorial Stadium in Oklahoma and they would lose to Oklahoma. Oklahoma got the benefit of the doubt. They went on and ultimately went to the BCS National Championship game and fell short. They got beat by that Urban Meyer, Florida team. But Tech jumped out to a 19-0 lead on Texas.

Texas comes storming back. They take the lead with a minute 30 left and then they hit Michael Crabtree. tech does on the sideline for the touchdown. The place goes absolutely bananas. That was a wild game. Quick story about that game that I'll always remember at particular. This was a hindsight story. Lincoln Riley has told me that back in the day, Mike Leach used to come out to practice and he would say, today we're only running go routes. That's it. So routes on air, one-on-ones, seven-on-seven, team period. That's all they did.

They ran go routes. So it was all go, four verticals, go routes. And he wanted them to learn how to throw a go route against any coverage. Okay, so it didn't matter if it was cover one, cover two, cover four, cover eight, cover six, brackets. Didn't matter. And he wanted to be able to throw the ball and in particular to Michael Crabtree, regardless of the coverage. So they would practice this and they would do it all day. Michael Crabtree was a Bolitnikov Award winner and he would run multiple miles a day in practice on these practice days running

just go routes, which is crazy. This is just wild. Well, guess what they completed in that game against the coverage that he should have never thrown a go route? They complete the go route over to that right sideline. Crabtree walks into the end zone. Tech wins the game. That was a classic. There's no doubt. But yes, Kevin, my number one game since 2000 is Texas and USC. That game had everything. Texas was on a march. They were undefeated. By the way, yours truly had to play that Texas team twice that year. Once in Austin, once in the Big 12 championship game. Please don't look it up. I'm just going to save you the effort. Texas beat us 70 to 3. They were on a mission. Vince Young was incredible. He was the best football player I've ever seen in person. He was so good.

The defense was good. They had Thorpe Award winners. They had everything on that defense. They could do it all. And they're facing USC who's going for their third straight title. And guess what? USC had it, had it in their grasp. They're at home per se in L.A. obviously in the Rose Bowl, they led by 12 with five minutes to go in that game. They have it. Not only that, but even once Vince Young scores to make it a one possession game, they have fourth down. If they convert the fourth down, they decide not to punt it away.

That defense was not great. That last year of Pete Carroll's run, Matt Leiner just told me, you know, time and time again, if he knew that if they didn't get that fourth down, they were going to lose the game. They go for it on fourth down. Reggie Bush is not on the field. Lendell White gets the carry. He's short. Vince Young goes down.

He scores in the corner of the end zone. Confetti flies out. Texas wins their national championship. That was just an absolute epic game on the biggest stage, on the biggest stage, and two of the better teams that we've ever seen in college football. There are some others that I thought about. The Boise State game against Oklahoma and the Fiesta Bowl. I thought about that one.

That was an incredible game. Probably should have made the list, but it didn't. The Bama Michigan Rose Bowl and Michigan's title year, that was a phenomenal game. And Michigan had a fourth down on the last drive to have to go down and even force overtime. That was a tremendous game. The Clemson-Bama 2016 title game, I believe Lawrence hits Renfro, like no time left in the end zone. Epic game, title game.

That was phenomenal. And then in 06, we had kind of the first game of the century when undefeated Michigan faced undefeated Ohio State, winner was going to go play for the BCS National Championship game. that was an incredible game. And remember the undertones to that game, Bo Schembeckler had passed away earlier that week. And they went out and played that game. And what an epic game it was.

That one was in the shoe. But those are some of my favorite games since 2000. So thanks for your question there. What was that? Kevin. All right, we move on. Cooper writes in. Cooper says, hey, love listening to the show. Never miss an episode.

Thank you. And by the way, be like Cooper. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. And then you won't miss an episode. This time of the year, missing college football. I like to watch old college football games, but get my football fix. I can't help but think of what ifs in some of these games. I'm sure many fans do.

For example, for me as a Buckeye fan, my top two are what if in 2019, we got matched up with the 2019 LSU team. And maybe an extension of that, what if OSU had two questionable targeting calls go their way, one against Clemson that year, one against Georgia the year after? would Ryan Day have three natties and be in Sabin talks? What are your top five college football what ifs? Great question, Cooper, and you mentioned the one. 2019 Ohio State actually for me isn't as big of a what if because Joe Burrow and

LSU were outstanding. I would have loved to have seen that game. I think Ohio State was better than Clemson. I think they got some bad calls and made a ton of mistakes in that game. I think Dobbins dropped a ball or fumbled inside of the 20 yard line. they had what was clearly a catch fumble, get ruled against them. Again, questionable call. The Sean Wade targeting call on Trevor Lawrence, questionable call.

They end up losing that game. They would have still had to play one of the better teams that we've ever seen in history, the Joe Burrow LSU team. The bigger what if for me was Ohio State the 20, what was that, 22 year with Marvin Harrison, and I believe that was the Sugar Bowl against Georgia, where they did not call targeting on that play in the end zone against Marvin Harrison if it's a targeting Ohio State beats Georgia that night. Kirby Smart has said many times and did right after the game in his postgame interview, like we had no business winning that game.

We were lucky to win that game. They outplayed us and they did. That was C.J. Stroud's best game as a Buckeye. If Ohio State wins that game, they definitely win the national championship. Remember, the team waiting for Georgia was TCU, who had beaten Michigan earlier that day in the Fiesta Bowl. So that's the bigger what if for me from an Ohio State standpoint. Not 19. It was actually the 22 season. I'm going to stick with Ohio State. This one was an Ohio State Michigan.

What if? Let's go back to 2016. Jim Harbaugh is in his second year at Michigan. He takes a really good Wolverines team, although they weren't great at quarterback. I believe that was Wilton's spate. But they play an epic game against that Ohio State team. And it looks like they stopped Curtis Samuel. on fourth down.

And it's given to them. Inconclusive in review, and Ohio State gets the first down and then they're able to get the touchdown and win the game. And Urban Meyer gets his win. Jim Harbaugh kind of street continues. And then from there,

the narrative was that Jim Harbaugh can't beat Urban Meyer. And he didn't. And he didn't. But what if Michigan were to win that game? They would have gone on and possibly competed for a national title. I mean, that's a huge what if. I think in particular being so close to that rivalry calling a lot of those games.

We started calling that game the very next year in 2017, Gus and I, and we've called it ever since. And I guess it got like the narratives run thick in that rivalry. And it was for a long time, Jim Harbaugh can't beat Ohio State. Then it was Ryan Day can't beat Michigan. So the narrative thing runs deep. And that certainly would have squashed that early for Jim Harbaugh. So that could have been a big what if. Rieces knows a thing or two about great combinations.

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Back in the day, at Texas, Mack Brown used to, and this is honorable, right? And he gets knocked for this, but this is honorable. He used to promise whoever he would bring in as a quarterback in recruiting. He would say, I'm not going to recruit anybody else.

So, like, I'm not going to go out and bring multiple guys in. It wasn't like it is now. It was different. And he wanted to do that. And I believe it was Garrett Gilbert that he recruited and said, I'm not going to recruit anybody else. Well, guess who else was being recruited and wanted to go to Texas? Two guys. Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin III.

What if Texas would have taken Andrew Luck or Robert Griffin the third? Does Mack Brown leave for a long time? Does Texas go through their slump? Their issue after Colt McCoy was that they were so quarterback driven, from Vince Young to Colt McCoy, then they didn't have a quarterback. What if they had one of those guys? Does Jim Harbaugh ever rise to the level that he does at Stanford without Andrew Luck? That's an incredible what-if.

I mean, Mac Brown could still be at Texas. What if they win two or three titles? What if, I mean, to me, that is an incredible what-if. And speaking of great what-ifs in recruiting, the great battle in recruiting for Tim Tebow, when he was trying to decide at the end between Alabama and Florida. Now, this was pre-Nic Sabin. I believe it was Shula at Alabama.

And Tim Tebow decides to go to Florida. And he's even told the story where he was sick and wanted to throw up in a bag after making the decision and making the commitment because it was that tough of a decision. What if Tim Tebow goes to Alabama? Does Nick Sabin ever even go to Alabama? What if he goes there and Shula starts a round?

run at Bama. Is Tim Tebow a Heisman trophy winner at Alabama? That is an incredible what if and it could have turned all of college football history because again, college football history will always mark the Sabin years as as a pillar point in the history of our sport. If that never happens, I mean, who knows what goes on at that point? So the Tebow recruitment was a big one. And then I'm going to stay with Nick Sabin because there was a moment back in, I believe it was 2013. Nick Saban had won three national championships at Alabama, and he had won one at LSU. So he had four national titles under his belt.

And guys, I'm telling you, that deal of him taking the Texas head job post Mac Brown was, I mean, all but signed sealed and delivered. It was right there. They were looking for real estate actively. in Austin, Texas. Like, it was, it was happening. The problem was that everybody at Texas got so excited and then the news started to leak. And it became overwhelming to the point where Saban had to go out there and be like, you know what? Nope. I'm not going. I'm staying right here at Alabama. Now, Bama fans will probably push back on this. But that is the story. That is absolutely the case.

It was that close. I mean that close for Nick Saban to leave Bama and go to Texas. What happens then they ended up hiring Charlie Strong and going through a huge dip. Charlie Strong to Tom Herman before you ever got to Steve Sarkeesian and then this recent run that they've been on. Does Bama win three more titles without Nick Saban? Who's the coach at Alabama? All of these are incredible. Obviously he's such a great coach, probably the best in the history of the sport. And his movement sparks a lot of what ifs to me. I mean, you could even go back. What if he never left LSU? Those are some great what ifs. I like to play that. game as well. Again, if I left one out, throw one down below. Maybe there's a game. What if the

kick six never happens and Bama gets a third title? What if Lindell White actually gets the first down? You know, those are games that we just talked about. There are huge games because of those results. What happens if the results were different? One last one that I wanted to throw in there on a game. And this one just stuck out to me right now because it was a national title. And I really believed this team was going to go and win it. What if Colt McCoy is never injured in the national championship game against Bama? Now, Mark Ingram hates this. I've brought this up to Mark Engron because he's like, we were fine.

Our whole game plan, we were going to get after him. And that was our game plan. We didn't think he could handle the beating that we would give them. That's fair. That's totally fair. But that was a really good Texas team. They had been great the year before, held out of the national championship game because of that BCS tiebreaker that I was just talking about.

earlier. They were 11 and 1. Then they come into that next year and they are rolling, man, and Jordan Shipley and Colt McCoy and they go in there and they're running right down the field and then bam, Colt McCoy leaves with an injury. Now, they ended up playing decent, but Bama was able to just play conservatively, run the football. Ingram was fantastic in that game and Nick Saban got his first national championship at Alabama. What happens if Mack Brown wins it with Colt McCoy in that year? Like does Bama still go on their run? What happens in recruiting after that. That's a great what if from a game that I'm thinking about since 2000. Colt was so good. I love Colt. He was one of my favorite players that I ever covered or watched.

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Thank you, Hillary, for writing in. We encourage everybody to write into the show. Hey, Joel, big fan of the show. hopefully you'll make a trip up to Ann Arbor this year. I would say that's a good bet, Hillary. That's a really good bet. Obviously, you've seen your fair share of college unies. Which ones are your favorites and why?

I love this question. I love uniforms. Now, I'm going to show my age a little bit here because most younger people, and now I'm not young, which is a little bit hard. I'm 44, but I'm realizing like I'm definitely middle-aged. And there are moments now I'm not proud of when I let that old man creep in and I start screaming at clouds. I mean, it's just true. It happens to all of us. I try really hard not to let that happen, but it happens. It happens. I am a traditionalist when it comes to uniforms. I love the classics. I love the classics. Maybe it's nostalgia. I don't know.

maybe it's the fact that like I harken back to when I fell in love with this sport. I can remember I have a brother who's six years older than me. His name's Jason. My dad, Gary, was a high school football coach. And my favorite memories as a kid were sitting in our basement in Arvada, Colorado and watching college football. Now remember, I was born in 1982. So my formative years are right when Colorado was great, 88, 89, 90. They win a national title in 1990. And so I'm watching Colorado play. That's one of my favorite uniforms, the old school home Colorado uniform. But the uniforms that I would see on television, like those are the ones that I go back to it. I'm like, yes, that looks and feels like college football. I know that the young guys

and in particular guys that play now love the new uni. They love the, what do they call them now? The alternates. I don't even like, does Oregon even have an actual home in a way uniform? I don't think they do. They just have like uniforms, plural. like eight of them. So here are my favorites, though. Here are my favorites. Alabama. What a classic uniform. The number on the helmet, the history, the tradition. I love the Alabama uniform. Now, I'm partial to their home uniform. I like both, but I'm partial to their home uniform. You give me Bama at home in a big game. That's a great uniform. I love that one. What's another one? USC at home? Absolutely. Now, I didn't.

love when they went with the metallic face mask. I was like, ah, come on, man. Like, this is classic. Just go with the classic. I love USC's home uniform. I think it's iconic. In fact, they came into Boulder. Granted, it wasn't their home uniform. But my first year in college football, I was just a walk on. I was a true freshman after playing baseball. And USC came into town. That was Carson Palmer's year. This is 2003. Troy Palomalu was a safety. And they brought their like pep band. So it wasn't their full band, but they brought their band. And I remember watching them play. This is early Pete Carroll days. And one, Troy, Troy Palomalu was incredible. Carson Palmer was incredible. But the uniforms, man, I was just like, oh, those uniforms are absolutely epic.

I love Notre Dame's uniforms. You give me the gold helmet, man. And I've gotten fortunate enough to be able to call a few Notre Dame games when they've been on the road, in particular, I have Big Ten opponents. I believe one in Soldier Field in Chicago, we called them against Wisconsin. I did a Notre Dame game. I believe. it was up in East Lansing against Michigan State. Man, when I hear Wake Up the Echoes, you give me a fight song and that uniform with the gold helmet, I'm in, I'm absolutely in. Don't tell Brady Quinn, but I love those uniforms. Penn State, you bet, man, give me a Penn State all day long. I'm partial to two-toned uniforms if you haven't figured that out, by the way.

I don't like a third color on uniforms. I don't think it looks great. You give me a two-color uniform, and I'm probably in. Again, I'm an old guy, but Penn State's home uniforms are amazing. By the way, great home environment as well. Tradition, everything. It's epic. Here's one that is a little bit new age, but in a throwback sense, and you're probably going to have to either Google this

or we'll throw an image up here if you're watching on YouTube, hopefully. The Mighty Oregon Throwback. So they wear this now currently, but it's kind of a throwback. It's a modern twist to an old look Oregon uniform. The mighty Oregon throwback is spectacular. I mean spectacular. I'm in. I'm absolutely in.

I don't love here's, I will say this about Oregon's uniforms. Everyone says like, oh, Oregon's got the best uniforms. Old man yelling at the clouds. I get it. I get it. But I did not love when Oregon played Ohio State for a national champion.

yet. And all they were in was white and silver. And I think some black. And it's like, I couldn't turn. If you just dropped me from Mars and I had been like, let's say I took Elon's rocket up to Mars. And then I come back after a few years. And you're telling me like, oh, hey, here's the national championship game. And I didn't know what was going on with like uniforms. I couldn't have told you it was Oregon playing Ohio State. They looked too different. I would have been like, well, is there green? That's Oregon? What do you mean? That's Oregon. It's white and silver. It looks like the Raiders.

I didn't love that. But the mighty Oregon throwback, I'm in. I'm in on that. My best uniform ever, though. And it does pain me because, truth be told, the last game I ever played was against this uniform. the all-white Texas Road uniform. Oh, cleanest thing I've ever seen. Cleanest thing I've ever seen. And intimidating. I mean, they all look faster.

The white helmets with the white face mask. The Texas Road whites are the best uniform in college football, period. According to me. Hillary, I hope you agree. I'm sure you probably like one of the Michigan uniforms. I like those as well, but they didn't make my list right there. All right. Paul writes in. He says, hey, Joel, I know you played baseball as well as football.

I was wondering if you ever called baseball games. Are there any other sports or events that you would like to call some day? Good question. I actually did call some baseball. Way back in the day, the Big 12 had me call some baseball games. And so I've done that. And then I was actually at first an analyst for the Colorado Rocky. on their pre and post game show right after I was done with minor league baseball and football.

And then I was actually a host for the Colorado Rockies pregame and post game shows, which was difficult because they were terrible at the time. They've remained fairly terrible ever since. But to be the home broadcast pre and post game show for a team that's going to lose close to 100 games, not easy. Not easy. Earned my television chops back then. What other sports or events would I like to call?

I mean, there's only one. I want to, if you say it's out of college football. Listen, in college football, my dream is to call a national championship someday. Hopefully that happens. I don't know. That has to do with contracts and everything like that. I don't know if it'll ever happen. I would love to call a Rose Bowl game.

That would be, I mean, I wear a Rose Bowl stuff all the time. I don't have one on right now, but you see the Rose Bowl hats all the time. I would love to call a Rose Bowl game. I think it's the most iconic sporting contest and venue that we have in American sports. So that's within college football. Outside of college football, is there one event that I would love to be an announcer for? yeah, it's the Masters. Obviously, like, obviously.

I would love to call a Masters. That's never going to happen, but you know what? I don't know. Maybe. No, it's probably not going to happen. I do love golf. And the Masters is my favorite event, non-college football in the sporting landscape. Adam writes in,

long-time listener and huge fan, appreciate what you do for the sport, and always look forward to the podcast for your instance, and breakdowns. Thank you, Adam. I appreciate that. But Adam's a subscriber. I'm sure. I hope you are as well. I wanted to reach out because I have had an interest in getting into coaching in the near future, not looking into anything crazy, like at the collegiate level, more so youth leagues and possibly high school teams. Wanted to ask and see if you had any advice for someone aspiring to go into this. Where to start, books to read, videos to watch, coaches to learn from online, etc. That would

help me get started. Any and all help is greatly appreciated. That's a great question. Okay, so I'm the son of a coach. My brother is a coach right now in a very good one at a high school called Meade High School in Colorado. Coaches in a lot of different sports had the greatest impact on me in my life. And so, one, I commend this and I fully endorse you. If you have a passion for coaching, go into coaching. Now, you asked about basically like, how do I learn the game if I want to do that?

me back up because before you learn the game, you have to love to learn the kids that you're going to coach. There's an old coaching adage. My dad actually had this sign and I've probably read this sign a million times and he had it up in his coaching office. He coached at Pomona High School in Arvada, Colorado. And I was with him all the time. He didn't let me actually play organized football until I was in late middle school, almost a freshman. And so I was with him all the time and I would be in their coaches offices and I would watch film with him. And it's where my love of the game really started in childhood, watching football with him, college football at home with my brother and then being around him and his teams.

And he had this sign and it's always resonated with me. And it's been absolutely true for me as a player. And that is the sign red, I should say, no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. And so first and foremost, I would just say, Adam, learn. to go out there and love the people that you're coaching, care about their success, then learn how to coach them better at whatever skill or schematics that you guys are running. Now, I can't tell you to go learn from a specific coach or a specific book because I don't think it's necessarily

about generalized knowledge, although there's some generalized products out there. Because when it comes to football, you're going to be trying to run a specific system. And the key to football. All levels, the key to football, is that greatness is realized through the attention to details. Okay, so whatever schematics that you learn from the coaches that you're learning from, or whatever systems you're trying to run, is that you have to hold your players accountable to the details. Hold them accountable to the details. That's how you love on them as people. So you first, you care about their success. I want you to succeed as a person, first and foremost, and you discipline them well, and you hold them accountable. And then you hold them accountable. And then you

hold them accountable to the details of the system because that's the only way that you're going to be a successful football team is details. So for instance, let's say we're running 322 Y stick. Okay. So Y stick is the tight end is going to be on a little out route. But you've got a Z receiver that's on that side. And however you're getting a flat control, maybe it's a full back out of the backfield, maybe it's some sort of motion. But basically the read is one to the flat or flat control, two to the stick and then three to the checkdown on the back side. Well, here's a detail that often gets overlooked on 322. The Z receiver, in this case, who's on that right side of the formation,

let's say we're in a right formation, he has to have an outside release. Has to have an outside release. Why? Because the corner that is on him, whether it's two or three, you don't want his eyes turning back into the quarterback so that he can view what's coming at him from the backfield, the flat control, or the tight in on a little out route. So you don't want his eyes going there. so your wide receiver out there has to outside release.

If he outside releases, now the corner is going to at least turn with him for a moment, and now you can execute the play behind him. So those Z receivers not technically even in the route, although he could be alerted against bump. But again, that's a detail. But he has to have an outside release. Sean Payton, when he was installing this play, this specific play in New Orleans Saints minicamp.

I was with him in mini camp, in OTAs, right out of school. and Sean Payton called it a bus ticket release because if you don't release outside, then you're on the next bus leaving town. So that's a detail. That's just one specific example. Be attuned to the details of whatever system that you learn, care about the kids, and then hold them accountable. I hope you have a lot of success, Adam. We need better and more coaches that, one, care about the players that they're coaching and two, hold them accountable to the details. I hope that that helps, again, not a lot of specifics as far as the system goes, because, again, It matters which specific system you're trying to run. I hope you guys enjoyed this. I love hearing from you guys in the mailbag.

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