The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Underrated CFB Stadiums, Best Road Trip Snacks, Favorite Golf Courses & more Mailbag Questions

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

FOX Sports’ lead College Football analyst Joel Klatt opens up the mailbag to answer questions submitted by fans of the show. This episode goes all over the place from Klatt’s most underrated venues in College Football to his go-to snacks for a road trip (along with a hard definition of what constitutes a road trip). He also answers questions about the best golf courses he’s ever played and whether NIL is actually changing the product on the field that much. He also addresses more serious topics like balancing work and family as well as dealing with doubt in our lives. 0:00-2:13 intro 2:14-7:07 Favorite snack/drink at a gas station 7:08-9:58 Running back role in modern cfb offenses 9:59-14:19 Who will have an SMU type season and an FSU type season in 2025? 14:20-18:53 Top 3 favorite golf courses Klatt has played 18:54-22:18 Is NIL the end of competition in CFB? 22:19-24:27 Top 5 underrated venues/environments in CFB 24:28-26:36 Balancing life on the road during CFB season & family 26:37-30:20 Dealing with frustrations and doubts in faith 30:21-31:24 Outro Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So you're talking about an incredibly favorable schedule for a team like Illinois. I think that they're next year's Indiana. They're next year's SMU. 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, what's up, everybody? Welcome into the Joel Clad Show. I am Joel Clad, and we are very pleased to be brought to you by Hampton, by Hilton. We thank them for their support as always. Hey, wherever you're listening, please go rate and review us. And if you're not on YouTube yet, please go over there, subscribe to the channel, and hit that notification button so that you will know when all of our content drops on YouTube. We are a digital show, a digital video show,

and that's the best way to consume all of our content. And we do have things over there that are exclusive to YouTube, like the Understanding Football Series. So if you have not gone over there to watch the Understanding Football Series, all about schematics, making you smarter about the game that you love. You need to get over there. And then social media, we're on social media as well for you. At Joel Clat Show is where you can find us on social media.

So all of that going on. Hope you liked the mock draft. That was always fun. And you know that we're going to continue to provide draft content as the draft process kind of rolls along leading up to the NFL draft. We'll continue to cover college football. But I wanted to take a brief moment because we haven't done this in quite a long time and do a mailbag.

episode and answer questions about college football, maybe the draft, maybe life, anything and everything that you wanted to throw at us, we're going to answer right here. And I wanted to do more than like the token three or four. So I'm going to try to get through quite a few questions here today and try to race through them a little bit. And thank you also for giving those questions to me on X. You can follow me personally on X at Joel Clatt. Okay, let's get started.

I want to do these in random order. And then I told the crew to kind of surprise me a little bit so that it can be a bit authentic like a true mailbag. So here we go. Let's go to the first one up on the big board. And it comes from, I don't know, kegles and bagels. Is that right? Okay. Anyways, you stop at a gas station in the middle of a three-hour road trip.

Timeout. Stop right there. Three hours is not a road trip. I live in Los Angeles. That's called a commute. If you're stopping in the middle of a three-hour drive, I question your endurance. That's just me. But I appreciate your heart for what you're about to ask.

I think the question goes on, what's your snack or drink of choice? I have to change the question because three hours is not a road trip. So we're going six hours. Six hours is a road trip. So basically driving from Los Angeles to Phoenix. Like that's a road trip. Three hours, you know, I can get to like Palm Springs. I can get to Las Vegas.

That's not a road trip. That's a drive. Okay. So now that we got that under our belt, let's actually answer the question. You're on a road trip, six hours, not three. What's your snack slash drink of choice? I love this.

I see this. Some people give these. There's a lot. I'm kind of a convenience store connoisseur, if you want to call it that. Here's why, though, here's why, is that when I played minor league baseball, and those of you that don't know, after high school, I was drafted, I played minor league baseball for three seasons before going back and playing football at the University of Colorado.

Okay, during those three seasons. Like, for instance, I was in the Pioneer League. I was stationed in Idaho Falls, Idaho, for one of those seasons. And we would be every three days on a bus trip. And those bus trips happened overnight. Okay? So there's not a lot of money in minor league baseball. Certainly not back then.

And so our dinners at times were the bus on a longer than three-hour road trip, mind you. They would just stop at a gas station and be like, all right, bus leaves in 15 minutes. And you would stop and you'd have to get out at the convenience store. So I know what I'm doing when I go into a convenience store. And folks, you got to keep it simple. You got to keep it simple.

Some people go in there and they think like, oh, yeah, I'm going to do the new like nerd ropes. No, no, you will be devastated. Your stomach will be churning two hours later if you do something crazy like Tostito's Caso, which I've tried before. You can't do it, though. It might look good in the moment, but you've got to keep it simple. So here's where I'm going.

And this is, again, like loads of experience. I probably have more experience in a convenience store than you have possibly fathomed. You go in and you find only two drinks. You only need two. Water, coffee. That's it. You do anything else? You're going to have a sugar crash.

You're going to fall asleep at the wheel. Water, coffee. I recommend keeping it black coffee, but I can't expect you all to be perfect. So just water and coffee, okay? Water and coffee. Then you go for the snack. The snacks, also I'm going to keep it simple. I'm going to go sweet and I'm going to go salty.

But the sweet can't be too sweet and it can't be too much. So regular size, not king, king is, that's just too much. Like, I'm not a savage. Regular size Snickers. Regular size Snickers is where we're going. If you have a three musketeers, I question everything about you. everything about you. In fact, if you get into my car with the Three Musketeers, and it's not at least a Milky Way, if you're not at least to a Milky Way,

I, I, we, the road trip's probably done at that point. And then the last thing, and this is for sustainability, is that you drink your coffee first with your Snickers, then you go to the salty. You don't want to go salty and then go to the sweet. You go sweet first with the coffee. So you got your, your sugar rush, you've got. You got. your caffeine rush, then you start sustaining yourself with water and hydration. And last one, dill pickle flavored sunflower seeds for the duration and for the wind. And you're welcome. That's how you do it.

That's how you road trip. That's how you properly road trip. If you don't do it that way, I don't really know you. I don't know. Throw me your comments. How do you do this? If you say nerd ropes, you might as well die on the side of the road. You can't do that.

You can't do that. I've seen, I've saw it way too much time. I've tried to do pizza. I've tried to do chips and queso. And you should have seen me in the bus driving from Casper, Wyoming, back to Idaho Falls, Idaho in the year, what was it? 2020, no, not 2020, 2001, summer of 2001, we're over the Grand Teton switchbacking around, and I had just had chips and queso for my dinner. You can't do it.

You can't do it. You can't get greedy. You got to keep it simple. Water coffee, regular size snickers. dill pickle sunflower seeds, and it's science. Next up, Ragley writes in. Two years ago, there was a large concern in the NFL that the running back role was diminished and salaries were decreasing.

What is your opinion about the running back role in modern college offenses and preparing these players for the NFL? That's really good because I actually think that we've had a bit of a resurgence from the running back position. And I think that it's based on really two factors. Let me go into the first. Do you remember at the beginning of the season there was all this talk about cover two?

Hey, by the way, you should probably go over to the Understanding Football series. If you don't know what Cover 2 is, I teach it in depth. You'll know exactly what I talk about. When I touch on these football terms, if you don't know, go to the YouTube page, subscribe and watch Understanding Football.

I've got a whole coverage episode for you and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. So Cover 2. Cover 2 is a safe passing cover. with two safeties back, and the offense is going to have what's called run ratios. When you have run ratios, you should be able to block everybody in the run front on a run play. So what happens is that in the NFL, they went from post-safety defense to open defense, middle of the field open, two safeties back.

You can block everybody in the run front. So everything is cyclical. As defenses have gone to middle of the field open, offenses have gone back to running the football. So now it's more in vogue to run the football. that trickles down to the college level as well. That's part of the reason why we've had a bit of a resurgence from the running back position. There's also this other element, and that is, I believe that we are getting more hybrid-style running backs that create threats in the passing game. And the reason is because they have the opportunity for the best mismatch on the field.

It's really hard to gain a distinct advantage with your wide receiver over a corner or even a slot player over a safety. because those players are generally from a margin standpoint fairly equated. But if I can get a running back locked up with a linebacker, that's advantage me from an offensive standpoint. And so as offenses have evolved and wide receivers, they don't have as much of an advantage and running backs do, then the ability for the running back to be a threat in the passing game has increased at both levels.

And so now the importance for offenses of all levels to go out there and have not just wide receiver threats, but running back threats, has gone up. So dual, the way defenses play, and the opportunity to create mismatches in the passing game for a dual threat hybrid-style running back, all of those are very beneficial to the offense, which is why I think we're having a bit of a resurgence

to the running back position at both levels, but that certainly starts in the college game. That was a good question. Ragley, way to go. All right, next one. Joey the acre 24 or The Acre? I don't know. I don't know how to read names, but whatever. Joey, what's up?

He says, who do you think can have an SMU-type season outside the top 25 and the preseason get in the playoff? And who is most likely to have an FSU-type season and let a lot of people down? Maybe not to the extent FSU did this year, though. Okay, Joey. there are some really good ones. And let me also point out that I do think that parody has really arrived in college football. And so I think that we're going to get surprises every year, which is great. Indiana, SMU, Arizona State.

You know, it's not just SMU. Like, that's the thing is Arizona State was picked to finish dead last. Indiana was picked to pick the finish almost dead last in the Big Ten or dead last in the Big Ten. And they both made the playoff. SMU was part of that discussion. So what do we have for next year? Well, we will have teams like that. But there is no doubt.

Two reasons. One is the dispersion of talent across college football is greater than it has been in recent past. And the other is that there is a severe imbalance of schedules within conferences because of the size of the conferences. So you're going to get experienced teams that all of a sudden get the benefit of the right schedule and you're going to have Indiana's and SMUs all over again. And we're going to have those every single year.

Here's a couple to pay attention to for next season. And I talked about these in my way too early top 10 for next year, which is also up on YouTube. Go check that one out. Illinois. I think Illinois could be a sneaky team next year. And here's the factors. They're coming off of 10 wins.

season. They beat South Carolina in the bowl game. Luke Altmeyer's back at quarterback with the entire offensive line. So now you're getting that veteran presence that I think is very important. Beulamah ball is working in Champaign. And then here comes the kicker. Their schedule is favorable in conference. So if you were to say, like, Joel, who are the four teams that you say run the Big Ten? Well, right now it's going to be Penn State. It's going to be Oregon. It's going to be Ohio State. It's going to be Michigan. All four of those. Okay. Two of those. just won national championships in the last two years. Illinois misses three of them.

So they miss Penn State, Oregon, and Michigan, and then they get to play Ohio State at home. So you're talking about an incredibly favorable schedule for a team like Illinois. I think that they're next year's Indiana. They're next year's SMU. Another team, maybe next year's Arizona State, although they're going to have more hype in the preseason

than what Arizona State did with Kenny Dillingham last year, Baylor out of the Big 12. Baylor could have a really solid year. They were two and four to start this last season, and then they totally turned it around. They won their last six games of the regular season before losing their bowl game to LSU. Dave Oranda, whose history is being a great defensive coordinator,

went back to calling the defensive plays. I think that that helped them quite a bit. Sawyer Robertson, their quarterback, got things going in the second half of the year. He finished over 3,000 yards and 30 total touchdowns. So watch out for Baylor. And then as it relates to the last part of your question, and I know you're kind of, Joey, you're talking about it as well. You say, like, what about an FSU type season?

Maybe not to the extent of this. That's the point is like, we're not going to see that again. I don't think the historic collapse of FSU we've never seen before, and I don't think we're going to see it ever again. I really don't. Now, is there going to be a top 10 team not play well? maybe those are really hard to predict because they're in the top 10 at this point for a reason. If I thought that one of those teams was going to fall off, then I would preemptively put them down in the rankings.

So this is the problem with trying to identify a team that maybe won't have a great season that we're expecting to have a great season. Florida State was the first ever preseason team to lose 10 games in a year. Like, I don't think we're just, I just don't think that we're going to see that anytime soon. So Joey, appreciate the question right there. Let's move on. Cochiche. Is that how you saw? Anyways, I think it's Brett.

Let's go with Brett. I think his name is Brett. He just throws a golf question at me, which I am here for. Top three favorite golf courses you've played. I can't stop at three. This is one of those. It's just like the road trip thing.

It's like three hours isn't a road trip. Top three isn't a list. So I've got to go top five. And candidly, I don't know if it's enough because I'm probably, I'm going to leave one off. that is devastating to me. Devastating. So here it is. I will give you, in order, I will rank them, number one to five. My favorite course that I've ever gotten to play is Oakmont Country Club in

Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh. It's where the U.S. Open is. And in 2016, when Fox had the U.S. Open, I was doing some of the digital production for them. And I got to go play Oakmont just weeks before the U.S. Open, and it was like wrestling a grizzly bear, and I loved it. It was the most difficult course I've ever played, and I loved every moment of it because it was straightforward. It was right in front of you, and I thought it was absolutely fabulous. So, Oakmont was my top course that I've ever played. Number two, and I'm lucky, guys, like I've gotten to travel around because of that work that I did with Fox on the USGA product, I got to travel around and play some of the best places in the country. So Oakmont was number one.

Number two, National Golf Links of America. Way up there on Long Island, up there kind of in the Hamptons, right next door to Shinnock Hills. National Golf Links of America is incredible. I won't bore you with the story, but let's just say I had a chance to break 70 for the first time in my life on that day, on that round, and I may have gotten misclubbed by a caddy on 18. Might be that guy to blame the caddy. You know what? He misclubbed me.

I don't know what I did. I hit it over the green. Like, you can't tell me it's, no, it's playing 260 when it's playing 240. I, I, shot 70. It was devastating and I loved it every moment of it. And you might be thinking to yourself like, shut up. And I'm like, okay, I understand that. Number three, Pebble Beach. Again, played this right before the U.S. Open when we had the U.S. Open product in 2019.

I thought Pebble Beach was in. insanely incredible. That stretch from 3 through 11 is the best stretch of golf on the planet. It was an absolute treat and got to play with, it was an interesting group. I was playing with Shane Bacon and the Ms. from WWE and Chris Harrison. And then we had a fifth and it was, oh, I can't remember her last name. Kira Dixon. And she had one like Miss America. So we were playing with Miss America. So we were playing with Miss America. The Miz and Chris Harrison. Awesome. I loved it.

I loved every minute of it. So that was Pebble Beach. The week of the U.S. Open in 2019, I got to tag along and play my number four, of course, which is Cypress Point. That was insane. That's some of the best golf on the face of the planet. And everyone knows that.

And if you ever get a chance to play that, that's obviously a bucket list. And then here's the number five one. And this is a bit controversial. Okay? You have to keep in mind. My favorite spot on the planet to go play golf is banded in Dunes in Oregon. If you have not gone up there, oh my goodness, you've got to go up there.

And my favorite course of the abandoned properties is the core Crenshaw designed band and trails that goes back away from the ocean through the trees. It's incredible. That's heaven. That's heaven. In fact, sometimes, like, if I want to close my eyes and think of heaven, I think of, like, like eight through 12 at Bandon Trails.

And if you've played it, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Those are it. Those are my five. Oakmont National Golf Links of America, Pebble Beach, Cypress Point, and Bandon Trails. There's a clear omission here, and it's just because I haven't played it. So, you know, just throwing it out. There might be one down in Georgia

that I would love to play at some point. But, you know, Kanda Liza Rice. Konda Leza Rice, you know, play a round of golf if you want. Talk about college football, geopolitical events. I mean, I'm up for whatever. Whatever you want. Let's move on. I can't read these at, what is it? Libermaniac 11, Liber, whatever. Okay. Goes on to say, I've had an argument with a friend who says NIL will be the end of college football because the same programs will win every year. I counter that there have

always been six to eight top programs any year that can win the natty and nil hasn't changed that any thoughts i love the question i actually firmly believe and you're missing a part of this nil plus the transfer portal i believe is is spreading out the parody in college football it's driving parity is is what i should say um i thought any number of teams could win the national championship this last year. Obviously, Ohio State turned into a supernova, and they had a great roster. And yeah, they went and they won the national championship. But look at what we saw in the playoff.

You know, ASU taking Texas to the brink, Notre Dame beating Georgia. We've had back-to-back national championships outside of the SEC. And with northern schools in the Big Ten, with Michigan and Ohio State, Oregon was the number one team in the country on the West Coast. Penn State looks like they're going to be really good. Notre Dame's not going anywhere. SMU out of nowhere goes to the playoff. Indiana gets a roster.

Here's what I'm trying to tell you is that I actually believe that we have more parity in the sport than we've ever had before for two main reasons. There's no more sitting if you're a really good player, which means you can't stockpile. Think about it. If to get the most amount of money in NIL, you have to play and start, then you're not going to sit behind somebody at a blue chip program. So those programs can no longer stockpile talent, keeping it away from other universities. So now you're going to have more talent across the spectrum in college football,

which is going to drive parity. So the great programs have become a little bit worse, and the good programs have become a little bit better. And so now you're getting an evening out of the boats here in the harbor, And I think that you're going to have, like next year, any one of 15, 17 teams that can't just go to the playoff, but could potentially win a national championship. And I firmly believe that. I firmly believe that.

This is one of the reasons why I keep stating that we're at the dawn of the golden age of college football, because we are entering into, and next year I think is going to be a great example of this. We are entering into seasons in which we can clearly point at between 8.5. and 12 to 15 teams and say any one of those teams could potentially win the national championship. And just in our rearview mirror a couple of years ago, we could point at three. Like, maybe. So the fact that you cannot stockpile talent by sitting great players as backups because they have the freedom to move and the freedom to move with payment,

I think has changed the game totally. So I think it makes college football better from a parody standpoint. We move on. Joel, what are the top five most underrated venues slash environments in college football? I've done these lists before. I've done like my best venues. And listen, and you kind of touch on it here, Mr. Dunaway. Venues are driven by environments.

And environments are driven. by matchup. So in a lot of cases, it depends greatly, like, what game you're going to either see or call, in my case. There are some venues that I either played in or have called games in that were just so iconic that I was like, oh, man, this is incredible. The old Cotton Bowl to do the Red River game is one of those. I played, as a senior, we played Miami in the old Orange Bowl Stadium in September. That was incredible. So, you know, there's the history, but the underrated portion of this, I think, is fascinating.

So I'm just going to go with underrated venues here because environments, again, are driven by matchup. I think a great underrated venue is Kinnick Stadium in Iowa. That is a great underrated venue. I think it's a terrific venue. I think Folsom Field in Colorado is underrated. Fans are right on top of you. They've gotten it going there. It's a good student section.

Husky Stadium for U-Dub up in Seattle. That is a beautiful stadium that is very loud. The setting, their redo, it doesn't get talked about a lot, but it's one of the great venues in all of college football. Otson, I don't think, gets its due, because everyone just talks about the big stadiums. Oh, LSU at night and the shoe and the big house and, you know,

Bama and Athens and all these places. And, yeah, those places are great. But underrated, I think Otson's, stadium for being what, just over 60,000 people. Like, it gets loud. It's phenomenal up there. So those are, those are a few of them for me. I think the most underrated would be Kinnick in Iowa. I think that that's a really cool venue, a very cool venue. All right, let's move on. It says, Nick comes up and he says, how do you balance life on the road during the season with your family? It's a good question. I've talked a little bit about this.

it comes down to three things. Structure, rhythm, and discipline. And you have to have all three. So if you just wake up and you just have a to-do list and you're just driving towards finishing tasks, I've learned through my history that that will drive a wedge into family life because the tasks become your end all for the day

versus structure. So the structure and the rhythm and then the discipline to adhere to that. So what I've done in my life is that I build out the week so that I do the exact same things and the exact same time of day on each day. I know what I need to achieve during those hours. And I know that if I'm not in those hours, I don't need to think about work. Therefore, at 5 p.m. on a Monday or Tuesday, I'm not thinking about work at all.

I'm not worried about watching film. I'm not a coach. I've got time blocked off to watch the amount of film I need to watch. Okay, so when it comes time to be a dad, I'm a dad. When it comes time to be a husband, I'm a husband. And we block off time to go on a date. And I know that sounds regimented, and I'm not talking about making my family some sort of checkbox.

I'm just talking about compartmentalizing when I work and when I'm spending time with my family. Structure, rhythm, and discipline. Once you understand the rhythm of your work, once you understand the structure of how you need to go about your week, then it's about the discipline to adhere to that. And what I try to do is phone in the other room. I don't have Twitter on my phone. If I'm on Twitter, I'm on my laptop or my computer, which means I have to be sitting at my desk. So I'm not just frivolously scrolling through things on my phone.

If I'm with my family, I'm with my family, and I'm doing that intentionally. That's a good question. I really like that. Morris Troier says, have you ever dealt with doubt and frustration from your faith? Oh, interesting. He says, been in a season of real frustration and just not feeling it despite reading and praying over the word. Just moved across the country by myself and just struggling. Any advice would help appreciate what you do.

Man, I hear you. That's deep and personal. and I appreciate you asking me that in this kind of public way, Troyer. So here's, I mean, here's what I would say. Have I ever dealt with doubt with doubt and frustration? Yeah. Yeah. And so have some of the most influential figures biblically.

Moses dealt with self-doubt, not wanting to lead his people out of the promised land. Elijah dealt with fear and doubt and despair at times. Thomas, of course, is one of the disciples, and he's famously called doubting Thomas because he didn't believe it was Jesus until he put his hands in his wounds. Peter dealt with fear, great fear and doubt, denying Jesus on the night of his crucifixion. But it's not just biblical figures. All of us are going to deal with like if we're believers are going to deal with doubt and fear regarding our faith. Like, okay, here's an example. Jalen Hertz.

What do you think Jalen Hertz felt like the night Nick Saban pulled him in the national championship and 2-0 went in and won the game? Do you think that that kid would have believed you if you said, hey man, don't worry, you're going to win Super Bowl 59

and be the MVP for the Philadelphia Eagles? There was probably a good deal of fear in doubt and frustration with Jalen Hertz. But, like, he teaches us a great lesson, all of us. And that is he kept it simple. He talked about this last week, John 13-7 was like his go-to. So John 13-7 says, and he said this in his interviews, you may not know now, but later you will understand.

And that scripture comes from the book of John in chapter 13. And what's going on is Jesus is about to wash the, he's washing his disciples' feet. So here's like the teacher, and he's turned into the servant. So he's become the lowest person in the room washing his followers' feet. And Peter is like, what are you doing? Stop doing this. And Jesus tells him, like, you may not know now, but later you will understand.

And what he's trying to say there, Troyer, and this is very specific to what you're doing with, is that no matter what happens, Jesus is telling Peter, he will come down to you. He's a descending figure. You're not having to ascend to him. So regardless of how hard you try to climb or what you try to do, you will fail. There will be frustration, which is why Jesus descends to you. He becomes that servant and he descends to you. All right.

And that's the only way that I get through it. That's the only way that Jalen Hertz has gotten through it. And that's the only way that those biblical figures have gotten through it is that you just turn and you allow him to descend to you. because he takes all of your fear and your doubt and your sin and everything, and he closes you with his righteousness, and there's nothing you can do other than have faith in him. That was a deep answer.

I appreciate you guys sticking around for that one. That'll do it for our mailbag. Thank you for everyone that throws us these questions. Continue to throw us these questions because during the draft time, throw us some draft questions during college football, throw us college football questions on my ex account. the IG account, any of those out there because we love to answer these. So whether it's life, whether it's college football, the draft, keep them coming,

and we're going to continue to do a few of these questions as we roll through these episodes. Getting close to the draft and then in the offseason. Also, by the way, give us feedback on understanding football, subscribe to that channel on the YouTube page and give us feedback. What would you like me to talk about next? I'm going to come out with the personnel groups, formations, defensive front structure, all of those things. That's going to be in the works next.

And then give us feedback on what you would like to see and hear moving forward. That'll do it. We'll be back soon. Don't know exactly when we'll be back, but we'll be back soon with another episode of the Joel Clat Show.