The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - USC holds off Colorado’s rally and Michigan & Texas jump Georgia in Klatt’s Top 10

Episode Date: October 2, 2023

FOX Sports’ lead college football analyst Joel Klatt reacts to the thriller in Boulder as USC held off Colorado’s 2nd half rally to win 48-41. He evaluates where each program is at right now in relation to their expectations heading into that game. Klatt discusses whether USC’s defense will keep Caleb Williams from contending for a title and why a loss feels like a win for Coach Prime. He then discusses another unimpressive Georgia win and gives his reasons why he put both Michigan and Texas ahead of the Bulldogs in his Top 10. Klatt wraps up the show by giving Notre Dame huge credit for finding a way to win in the final minute at Duke just one week after losing in the final seconds vs Ohio State. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today on the Joel Clad show, wild ending in Boulder, Colorado almost pulled the upset. And Georgia, are you okay? 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, hey, what is going on?

I am Joel Clat. This is the Joel Clat Show, and this show is presented by Hampton by Hilton. I hope you had a wonderful weekend. I certainly had a wonderful weekend. It was a great weekend of college football. Okay, a little business to take care of very quickly before we dive into what was a tremendous Saturday. I'm going to get to Colorado, USC, obviously. We'll talk about Georgia, Michigan and Texas, impressive, Notre Dame, all of that coming up today.

If you're trying to follow us on social media, do so anywhere where you social media at Joel Clat Show. I would also remind you that there is a way to subscribe, both audio, wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube. And you've got to do that. And you should do it in both areas because that's your only chance to get these awesome hats. Remember, we've got the Rose Bowl hat giveaway. You've seen me wear these hats. I'm giving away five hats on Wednesday. So Wednesday show that you've only got a couple of days.

You've got to do this. So you've got to subscribe in both locations, both on YouTube and wherever you get your podcast. And then you've also got to leave a review. I'm just saying it probably helps if it's a positive one. But you know what? Be honest because we're all about truth here on the Joel Clad show. Okay. So there's a lot to get into.

That obviously is the cool giveaway. All of you that have come up to me and hit me up on social media, some have hunted down my email address. By the way, I'm not going to respond to that. I love the enthusiasm about the show, the giveaway, everything that's going on. because this season in college football is awesome. It has been an awesome season. And Saturday didn't disappoint.

As you know, I was in Boulder. And so USC gets the win. And before we get into my thoughts on this game, let's hear from Lincoln Riley after the game. Well, Lincoln, 5 and O for you guys. And I know this fan base has waited a long time to have that record again. There were moments in the second half that I want your opinions on. You got the win.

But overall, what did you make of this performance? Yeah, played a great person. Jeff did play very good in the second half. Offense got stalled out. We gave up some big plays defensively where we just simply didn't tackle. Listen, listen, give Colorado credit. Listen, they fought back.

The crowd in here was awesome today. They fought back and got some momentum and we didn't do a very good job finishing. So unfortunately, we had a big enough lead, but hopefully something that's going to have to get better for us going forward. Yeah, it's going to have to get better going forward. Before I talk about these two teams, I just have to say life,

as well as analyzing college football, is all about expectation management. It is. You and I both know it because we have this exact same situation, per se, in real life. Let's just say like you're going to dinner, and there's no expectations for dinner.

You don't even know where you're going to go for dinner. And you wind up at this, like a place, and it turns out to be like, oh, yeah, it's kind of like a steakhouse nondescript, you know, and it's not the best steak you've ever had. but guess what? Like you had no expectations for dinner. And now you're eating this pretty good dinner.

And you're like, man, that was awesome. That was awesome. Why? Because it exceeded your expectations. Now it's your 20th anniversary. And you're going out with your wife and you have this, you have this reservation at the specific place for a specific table for months. You've been planning it.

Okay. Any anniversary, by the way. It doesn't have to be 20. It's a special night. And you've been planning this for months. and you walk in. Table that you wanted, not ready. But they'll seat you at another table.

And by the way, your table at your seat at, probably just fine. But not the one you wanted. Then the dinner is just like not quite cooked the way you want it. Still really good. Still probably one of the best restaurants in town. But it just wasn't up to your expectations. Guess what? You're going to feel very differently about that night than the night when you had no

expectations and you went out and you got a dinner that was equal or even lesser to the one where you had high expectations. Well, this is the exact way that we're going to view these two teams after this game. Everything that we now talk about with USC and Colorado with this game in the rear view mirror is about expectation management. Okay. What is the expectation for USC? The expectation for USC is to win the Pac-12, go to the playoff and compete, compete, compete, for the national championship. In light of that expectation, Saturday was a massive disappointment.

Even in a win, and we'll get to all of that. If you're Colorado, what is the expectation? Man, a bowl would be incredible. It's already kind of icing on the cake. Everything that we could have hoped for has already come true. Yeah, Oregon was a speed bump,

But man, did you see how well we played in the second half against USC? Exceeded the expectation. A lot of people on the buff side were nervous, not in the organization. I'm just saying, generally speaking, in the fan base, we're nervous about what was going to go on on Saturday. Their expectations were low. And because of that, the game ended up exceeding their expectations. So now Colorado has this positive movement and narrative post to 4841. loss. Everything about what I'm about to talk to you is viewed through the prism of expectations

of these teams. Let's start with USC. USC is really good at football. You just have to start there because they have the best player in college football and Caleb Williams. Because of him, they are an elite team and an elite offense. You heard me in particular in the first, first half talk constantly about the way I feel about Lincoln Riley as a play caller, Caleb Williams as a quarterback, the balance that they can display and attack you with throughout their offense. All of that is still true after Saturday's win against Colorado on the road. All of that is true. The one question that we had was about the defense. Was it going to improve from what we saw a year ago? In particular in light of the fact that you,

you're not going to have Caleb forever. And when you have a guy that's a generational talent, you want to maximize that talent. I thought Matt Leinert bring up a great point in the pregame show when he talked about the pressure on Lincoln Riley and USC to win now. I totally understand that. And by the way, absolutely agree. Because next year, it's not going to be this way.

You don't have the best player in college football at quarterback next year. I mean, maybe one of these young kids will be really good, but we don't know that. Do we expect Lincoln Riley to always have good quarterback play? Yes, is it going to be Caleb Williams great? I doubt it. This is one of the best players I've ever covered. In fact, I do think he's the best player I've ever covered at this position. There are very few weaknesses in Caleb's game.

He does everything well. And I brought this up on the broadcast. Let's just put it in scout. terms. Let me talk about like the five things that I evaluate when I'm looking at a quarterback. Number one, his arm talent. Does he have a requisite arm? Obviously, that's true. It's an elite arm. Does he control the game from the pocket well? Yes, Caleb can do that, work through progressions, and I think he's doing it better this year than he has maybe ever. Does he attack the defense and threaten them with his legs? Yes, and he's not even the fastest guy, but he's got the suddenness and the

quickness in order to attack and really threaten the defense with his legs. Can he create? And that's an obvious one. When he's outside of the pocket and keeping his eyes downfield, he can create an attack and hurt the defense in so many ways just off schedule. And then the last one is his mind. I believe I said that right. I was not keeping track,

but is the guy smart enough from a schematic standpoint from a Football IQ standpoint from a situational awareness standpoint to be elite. He's the only player that I've evaluated at this stage in their career, by the way, that is great to elite. So when I'm like on a scale of basically six, sometimes seven, I like to use six. I don't like to use one to ten, but up to six. Like he is a five or a six in every category. No quarterback that I've ever covered in college football is a five or six in every category. So because of that, USC is under an immense amount of pressure to succeed now. And that's why Saturday was a massive disappointment.

It's because that defense played basically exactly what they did last year, exactly how they did last year. Colorado scored 41 points over the last three quarters, 27 in the second half. They scored a touchdown on four of their final five drives. When you look at the statistics last year, USC, not even close to good enough, not even close to good enough. Even though they were one game away from winning the Pac-12 and going to the playoff, they were so far away in that game. It was obvious that they had to get substantially better.

They were a bad defense a year ago, statistically speaking. And we talked about on this program, all they needed to do was become average, maybe even good. And then you were going to have something this year. Last year, they were 94th in scoring defense and 105th in total yards per game. This year, better in scoring defense. And so listen, there is part of this that like, do they have more potential? Yes, they have a higher ceiling on defense, but they're still 63rd in the country in scoring defense and 103rd in total yards per game.

And they haven't even faced close to the meter their schedule. not even close. Remember, they got through the entirety of the season last year and finished 105th in total yards per game. You look at what they just faced. They didn't face anybody from an offensive standpoint until Colorado. And they're now 103rd in total yards per game. That's alarming.

That's alarming. And that's why Saturday was so disappointing, in particular off of the back of what we saw in the ASU game. Now, to give them the benefit of the doubt and all these teams that went on the road and won, you know, whether it was Notre Dame or Georgia or even Michigan, I know they housed them, but like you look at these road teams in college football, it is difficult and they did just win two league road games back to back. One late on a Saturday, one early on a Saturday, right?

So you got the late finish. You have to fly home. Then you got the early kick after you fly out. That's a tough short week on them and they were able to get two wins. However, they have not faced the meat of their schedule. They're 103rd in total yards per game. That's not good enough. You look at what they did against the run and what they did or lack thereof in the passing game, in the past defense.

Folks, Colorado was a non-existent run team until Saturday when they faced USC. They were running the ball for like barely over. 50 yards a game and couldn't do anything from a yards per carry perspective. One of the worst in the country. And they rolled out there. And for a majority of the game, they were running it for five yards of carry. In particular, when you take sacks out. I'm like, whoa.

How did that happen? Then Shudur got loose and he finds true freshman Omarion Miller. These guys go off. He's bringing them back. and like the passing defense, where was it? And now look at their schedule. They're going to face teams that run the ball better than Colorado and throw the ball better than Colorado.

Do respect to Shadur and Colorado, Washington can flat sling it. Michael Pinnix and those wide receivers for Washington is a better passing attack than Colorado, at least at this point, in large part because they're just better up front. so it's harder to get to the quarterback. Those wide receivers are NFL talent on the outside. By the way, Oregon can throw it around a little bit as well.

Then you're going to have to also face the run game of Utah, Notre Dame, Oregon, in a large respect, and UCLA. Man. So you come out of this game if you're a USC fan and it's like, okay, and I talked about this with Florida State and I made this analogy, I said caution lights on the dashboard. There are caution lights on the dashboard going off for USC. and it's because of the expectation.

The expectation is that you go to the playoff. The expectation is that you compete for the national championship. And over the last two weeks, the defense didn't play to that level. To their credit, they all admit it. No one's burying their head in the sand, whether it was players or Lincoln himself. They didn't bury their head in the sands. They said, no, no, no, we have to get better and we know that. And from that standpoint, it's at least a positive you would have to say.

Now, there's one other element to this that we have to talk about. And we have to talk about it because over the seven years that Lincoln Riley has been a head coach, this is the common theme. This is the common theme. In fact, when you look at the statistics, Lincoln's defenses are all eerily similar, eerily similar, going back to his OU days. So it begs the question about style, offensive philosophy, and how this. The offensive philosophy and style impacts the ability to play defense. Now, this is obvious for teams like Michigan who are going to protect their defense at all costs. This is obvious for a team like Iowa that in large respect is great statistically on defense because their offense protects them.

Okay. Wisconsin, you could say this about over the, you know, a large part of the last decade. Utah, you could say this about. The offensive philosophy and style protects the defense. I'm not suggesting that USC and Lincoln Riley need to change style or philosophy of offense. But what I am saying is that once you have the lead and once the race car races out into first place and you've got the lead, there might be a conversation that needs to be had about game philosophy at that point. Let me just take you through this really quickly.

USC on Saturday took a 41-14 lead. 41-14 in the second half. We're in the third quarter, folks. And in the second half, with that large of a lead, USC ran 20 plays against Colorado with the game clock moving. Okay? We all have that picture in our head. six of those snaps when the play clock or excuse me when the game clock was moving they snapped it

when the play clock hadn't even reached 20 yet only two snaps in the whole second half were snapped with the play clock under five 20 snaps the game clock's moving 20 times against Colorado all they have to do is change the timing with which they snap the football you don't have to change whether you're coming up to the line of scrimmage fast or not. You can get into a huddle, wait until eight on the play clock, rush to the line of scrimmage, and then snap the ball. You get the same element of getting vanilla looks in the defense, you know, getting them misaligned. There are ways to change your tempo to, I would say, save time. And when you're looking at over the course of a season, 60 to 144 snaps that you

could potentially remove from your defense, I think that you at least have to have that conversation, in particular when you've got a defense that right now is 103rd in total yards per game and is the question for the rest of the year. So that's kind of the USC thing. And was a lot of this negative? Yeah, a lot of this was negative. Why? Because of our expectation. For them to reach our expectation, all of this has to change, right? They've got to get better from a philosophy standpoint in the second half, at least in my estimation. And their defense surely has to get better. Their corners have got to cover better on the outside, tackle better on the outside. Their corners are the weakness. That's the liability. I think they're decent up front. They're decent at linebacker.

They're decent at safety. The corners are a liability, which scares me for teams like Washington and Oregon. You know, so like this is a team that's got to get better on the defensive side because of our expectation. Our expectation is that they are. are great. In a couple of weeks, we're going to see them have to play Notre Dame. And we're going to see if they can stand in there and go and win a game. You know, remember, if you, if you listen to the program, I talked about this, USC last year, there are three losses. They gave up an average of 45 points. We're not looking for the 85 bears here. We're looking for like, how do we limit a few possessions? How do we limit a few snaps? Once we have the lead, that's philosophy. How

do we get a little bit better in particular tackling on the outside and force someone to earn their way down the field? They did that in the first half, by the way. They forced Colorado to snap it 17 times on a drive and then Colorado missed a field goal. That's a huge win if you're the USC defense. That's a huge win. Okay, let's move on and I probably already went too long and I probably confused it. Let's get into the Colorado. And again, this has to do with expectation. Here's Deion. If you can't see what's coming with CU football, you've lost your mind. You're just a out hater. If you can't see what's going on and what's going to transpire over the next several months, something's wrong with you. This man is an ultimate competitor and after a 4841 loss

in which they made a ton of mistakes, he didn't roll in there and lament the mistakes. He talked about look at how bright our future is. Why? Expectations. Expectations have to be the lens with which we evaluate everything that we saw on Saturday. It's why the USC take is the way that it is. It's why there's a disappointment to Saturday, even in a 48-41 win. It's why when you look at Colorado, you say to yourself, man, they've got something.

Yeah, this is absolutely a team that can go to a bowl. Man, they are recruiting some really good young talent. Look at what Cormani McLean did. Look at what Omarion Miller did. There were more positives in a loss. And let's face it, it's probably because of, which half the positives happened in versus the negatives happened in. If Colorado would have played a great first half and then a poor second half and then lost going away,

and, you know, USC comes back. We're probably thinking to ourselves like, man, I don't know if Colorado is going to make a bowl game. But because of the way this all played out, because of our expectation of what Colorado is and what they can be during the course of the season, all of a sudden, the narrative after that loss to USC back-to-back losses, by the way, is incredibly positive. Colorado trailed by 27 with two minutes left in the third quarter. Two minutes left in the third quarter. Think about that. 41.14.

This is again where that philosophy for USC comes in, but they didn't. They didn't. And they left time and then Colorado capitalized. And they capitalized in a few different ways. Gus kept asking me about the structure of the defense. And the structure of the defense was not all that different. They didn't change a lot of the schematics of what they were doing in the first half and what they were doing in the second half. I thought what was different was the effort, which from the front seven in particular was really good from the defensive line.

And they changed some personnel. And then the effort increased. Cormani McLean goes in the game. He was much better on the outside than what they had in the first half. All of a sudden, you've got guys being disciplined, making plays. I believe that they were challenged at halftime. I really believe this. Urban Meyer put it perfectly on our halftime show during the course of the game.

And he said, if I'm Colorado, I'm rolling in there as a head coach and breaking something because we are better than this and we can play with that team. It was the mistakes. It was the blocked punt. It was the interception. It's two short fields. He would be frustrated because it's like, listen, we gave them this huge lead 3414 at the half. I believe that that's what happened.

because when they came back out, they were playing so much different. And it wasn't because of changes. It wasn't because of adjustments. I thought that the game plan overall offensively was better this week than it was last week against Oregon for Colorado. But mostly it was challenging these individuals to go win their individual matchup. And I think these players responded. By the way, they were incredible.

short-handed. And I don't want to dismiss that on the USC side either. Zachariah Branch not being on the field was a giant deal for USC. Giant. There's nobody on the Colorado roster, maybe Travis Hunter, that could match up with Zachariah Branch. Maybe Travis Hunter. But Branch's absence was felt, even though they scored 48 points. Now, how? Having said that, Colorado had nobody out there. Three starters out in the secondary. They had their best player on offense and defense out of the game.

Imagine, like, imagine that. If you're USC, imagine having your best offensive player and your best defensive player out. Like, let's say it's Zachariah Branch and it's Bear, Alexander, or Mason Cobb, or Bullock. Like, imagine that, right? Like, that's all anyone would be talking about. And rightly so.

Well, that's what Colorado is dealing with. dealing with without Travis Hunter on the field. He's their best offensive player. He's their best defensive player. They also had Shiloh Sanders out. They also had Miles Slusher out. So you're down three guys in the secondary, and they looked like it in the first half.

They were slow. They were lost. They were missing tackles. They weren't winning. In the second half, they insert Cormani McLean. He starts locking it down on one side of the field, and then they were more disciplined in their coverage. There were a lot of times where they were forcing Caleb

to be a runner rather than allowing him to find an open receiver once he broke and Tane out of the pocket. If I were an opposing defense, that's what I would force him to do. Because you're going to die a really quick death. If you're going to come off of the wide receivers, once Caleb breaks the pocket, and then he's going to find him and he's going to create a huge play and a quick strike play. And you saw that in the first half. In the second half, they weren't doing that.

They were basically like, fine, leave the pocket and guess what? run for eight, run for nine. You know, go ahead. What we're not going to allow you to do is find an open receiver down there. And he got frustrated and forced the ball and turned it over. First turnover of the season. That's what was different with Colorado. And that's why I think that there's a lot of excitement moving forward as they were

short-handed. Now all of a sudden you can see a scenario where Cormoni McLean is playing at one corner position and Travis Hunter is playing on the other corner position. And now all of a sudden you're like, oh, man. Like this is this is really good. By the way, on the offensive side, they also found another threat at wide receiver in Omarion Miller. This guy was outstanding.

Outstanding. Seven catches for 196 yards and a touchdown all in the second half. Again, challenging their guys. Who's going to go out there and win? And these guys did, even young players. And that's why Dion was excited. That's why he was upbeat after the game, even in a loss. Again, let's talk about expectations.

That's how we view these two teams. If I was going to critique Colorado, though, my critique of Colorado would be the obvious mistakes in the first half, which can't happen. You can't have a pump blocked in particular when it's just a punter rolling out and taking too long. Shador gave them a short field. I thought that they were, well, tackling poorly, to say the least,

getting out of their assignment on defense in the first half. There were just too many missed assignments and mistakes in the first half. Too many. And that led to them having to make this giant comeback. And then once they were making that comeback, I felt like there was some situational things. Because once you're having to make that comeback, you've got to play perfect. And Shador came close to playing perfect. There's no way that they're in that game.

There's no way unless they have Shador Sanders. He is one of the best players in college football. He's one of the best quarterbacks in college football. His touch, his accuracy, he's tremendous. I love watching him play. We've gotten to do it three times now. I thought that his calmness and his ability to find throws and then make those throws were huge. His ability to run and hurt the defense with his legs and more so his willingness to do that was huge in this game.

It's what I believe made Colorado believe that they could go out there in the second half and actually make this a game is because they had number two. And if you're in the locker room, you have number two and guess what? You can go out there and compete even when you go down 41.14. Now, having said that, the margin of error for him is so small because of how perfect he has to play, in particular after he's down. So the mistakes came in in game situational awareness. The clock management at the end wasn't where it needed to be.

That's obvious. And by the way, he took the blame for that. I was all over Sean Lewis on the broadcast and rightly so. And then Shador said, hey, I was checking the plays. And by the way, that can't happen. They got the ball with like a little under six minutes, I believe. And at that point, they have to think to themselves. we have to score as quickly as we can

so that we can have the option to not on side kick, have a timeout left, and have our defense get off the field. That has to be the goal of that series. And they were, so, so that series then has to be hyper speed. You don't audible in a two minute situation. You just don't.

You call the play and you go. Maybe you'll change the protection. Maybe. Maybe you'll signal a route different. on the outside, but you're not changing whole plays and you surely aren't changing to run plays that are just a gap dive plays in a two-minute situation. So the failure comes in here in two-parts. One is, from a coaching staff, you've got to tell your team and your quarterback that it is a two-minute situation, and then all the rules in a two-minute situation apply. I'm not changing the

play. We're going hyper-fast. That's number one. Number two, even if you're not running your two-minute offense as a quarterback, you've got to know that you can't change the play and you can't take that long. You just can't. They can't run the ball in the A gap on a basically a dive play. It felt like four times on that series. They took forever. And at that point, you're in a coin flip or worse on an onside kick, much worse, actually, much worse. That's situational failure. Comes from the quarterback and the coaching staff. So those are the areas that. that they have to get better moving forward in order to capitalize on this good, good feel that they have even a loss. They've got Arizona State. They've got Stanford in a Friday night home game.

Then they've got a buy. They've got some tough opponents down the stretch. UCLA, Oregon State. Then they've got a winnable Arizona game. Then they got Washington State on a Friday night road game, Wolf and Utah. That's really difficult. Do they have a path to six? Absolutely. I think Arizona State becomes the pivotal game, the pivotal game. I believe Colorado is better than both Arizona and Stanford. Arizona State is likely a win, but they have to go on the road. And we see how difficult it is to go on the road. People just don't play their best. We saw that with Utah and Oregon State this last week on a Friday night. So in order for Colorado to get a bowl game, this is the pivotal game. This is the pivotal game. The other ones are going to be really difficult. At UCLA, I don't know.

might be just too good at the line of scrimmage. Washington State, in particular there on a Friday night, I don't know. And Salt Lake, Utah is one of the toughest places to play in the country. So that's going to be really difficult. That's going to be really difficult. They got to be better in those situations and maybe they could have come back. Hey, it's my favorite time of year. It's football season. And as you know, I take it seriously. So when I'm traveling on the road to watch my favorite teams, I can't risk calling the wrong play with where I stay. Wherever I go, I know that I can count on Hampton by Hilton. I can depend on their comfortable rooms and their warm friendly service and their free hot

breakfast is a game changer. There's no doubt. I love it. I love their waffles. Whether you're cheering on your team from the stands or never leaving the tailgate, Hampton by Hilton will always give you that win. All right. Let's move to Georgia.

And these others, I'll hit a little bit quicker. But Georgia, this Georgia team is not Georgia. as we know them. It's not. The verdict is in, at least in that regard. That doesn't mean they're not good, and it doesn't mean that they're not going to win the SEC and be in the playoff.

But this is clearly not the same Georgia of what we're used to over the last two and three and four years, but certainly the last two when they've been back-to-back national championships. They beat Auburn on the road and good. And by the way, I buy into conference games on the road are hard. Okay? So I'm not going to sit here and say like, Kirby can't say that after the game.

I think it's hard. I think that it's evident when Utah plays the way they do at Oregon State. It's evident when USC plays the way they do at Colorado. It's evident when Arizona is in a one-score game with Washington late. We see how difficult it is to win on the road. That's what makes what Ohio State did against Notre Dame so impressive. It's what makes what Texas did against Alabama so impressive. It's what makes, by the way, and I'll give you credit, even though you hate me, which whatever, Florida State winning against Clemson, even if it was not pretty, kudos.

That's a feather in your cap because it's tough to win on the road. So when Georgia goes out there and they went on the road against Auburn, like, okay, good. You got your win. You were also bad at home against South Carolina. And so now we have data. Now we have evidence. What is Georgia this year? And they are a shell of what they were in the past.

I get it. They're wearing the same uniforms. I get it. They've got the same coach. And I get it. They've got the same star in Brock Bowers. But the heart and soul of what Georgia was over the last two years was a dominant team in the run game at the line of scrimmage and on defense.

And that's not the case anymore. At least not right now. The data suggests that there's something very different. Here's the numbers. Georgia's defense, when you're talking about yards per carry allowed, they've been one of, if not the best, rush defenses in college football over the last four years. If you go back to 2019, they were second.

2020, they were the top. Rush defense per carry allowed. 2021, second. 2022, third. 2023, 67th. It's like, whoa, which one of these is not like the other? 67th. Again, Georgia and name only.

This is not the same team at the line of scrimmage. Georgia has been, as you can see, in the top three in the country, and yards per carry allowed each of the last four years and they're 67th this year. They gave up 200 yards on the ground last week and over five yards per carry for the first time in five years since 2018. Like, it wasn't just that, you know, they faced Army or a triple option team and they ran for 200 yards. And, you know, they ran it 80 times. No, no, no, 200 yards.

Five yards per carry. for Auburn. And I get it like Auburn can run it, in particular with that dual quarterback system. And I get it. Here's the other alarming part. If you go to the other side of the ball, Georgia ran for under four yards per carry against Auburn.

3.6 yards per carry running the football. It's the second time this season that they've been held that low in the run game. It only happened one time in the last two seasons. All right. So think about this. One time in the last two years, they've been held to that point, 3.6 yards per carry. Now it's happened twice this year alone. And by the way, it's not sack numbers.

You could make the argument like, well, he remember in college football, you know, rushing yards per carry is skewed because of sack numbers. Beck wasn't sacked against Auburn. He wasn't. So that doesn't even bring into the equation a negative number in a rushing attempt, which college football has to change, by the way. Can we please stop counting sacks in rushing numbers? But I digress.

3.6. Over the last two years, they've been running the football for about five, five and a half yards per carry. This year, it's down a full yard. Georgia is not the same, folks. Georgia is not the same. That's why I moved them out of my poll,

out of the first spot in my poll. This is a team that is a point differential of zero. in the first quarter. And my top 10 looks different now. And granted, I only moved them to three, but I look at Michigan and Texas and I'm like, okay, you're better than Georgia. They are.

They're better at the line of scrimmage. Those two teams would beat Georgia next week, maybe in Athens. And I know Georgia fans will be incensed at that, but it's the truth because Georgia's not the same. They're not the same. Not this year. And Texas and Michigan are built very differently.

Now, I don't know about some of these other teams. I know Florida State's resume and Ohio State, they won a battle against Notre Dame and Penn State, I believe in and everything. And Georgia gets the benefit of the doubt against some of those other teams. But Michigan and Texas, they've proven it at the line of scrimmage. Michigan and Texas, those two teams, they would be tough to beat for Georgia, really tough to beat. And by the way, both of those teams can play defense and they can cover. And I would assume that they wouldn't let Brock Bowers in the four.

quarter of a tie game run butt naked across the middle of the field. What are we doing? But naked by the way it means open. That was not a literal term, folks, right? Like, obviously. It's just a term like we use in football spaces like, hey, you know, he's butt naked. He's wide open. Brock Bowers was wide open running across the middle. Wide open. How does that happen? Someone's going to slow him down and then Georgia's going to have to lean on the other elements of their team and those other elements are not what they've been over the last couple of years. And that's why Michigan and Texas, they take me up to the first two spots. You look at those two teams and they are really, really good and they are really dangerous. Michigan is a boa

constrictor. This is a team that moves slowly, they move methodically. It's not explosive. It's not flashy. It's death eventually and inevitably. That's what it is. It's like being in a small cage with a boa constrictor. You will eventually die. And they're better this year than they have been over the last two. Their defense has yet to allow more than seven points. And I get it.

Who have they played? I understand. they've allowed 13 points all year outside of garbage time in the fourth quarter. They gave up a touchdown to Rutgers on their first drive and then two field goals versus Bowling Green. That's really it. Their first game against Eastern East Carolina, they scored the first 30 points. Their second game against UNLV, they scored the first 35 points.

Their third game against Bowling Green, they scored the last 24 points. In the fourth game against Rutgers, they scored the last 31 points. In the fifth game at Nebraska, they scored the first 45 points. Like, good luck with Michigan. I'm just telling you. Again, not flashy. Who's stopping that run game? Who's stopping them?

I don't know. Maybe Penn State? Maybe Ohio State? I don't know. Nebraska was the number two rush defense in the country coming into this game this last week. They were allowing 46 yards per game and 1.8 yards per carry. and Michigan ran it 51 times for 249 yards, 4.9 yards per carry. Good luck.

Good luck with Michigan. Just like, man, this team looks good. And by the way, Texas, Texas looks great too. And all offseason, we had this goal on this show to not talk about Texas until they were real. Well, guess what? Texas is real. I said, I'm not going to talk about Texas until they've done something. Well, now they've done something and then they've done something again.

This Texas team is so different than what they've been over the last couple of years. You see, this is the juxtaposition between Georgia and Texas. We feel like Georgia, and we give them the benefit of the doubt and they stay in the top spot in the AP poll, I believe. And it's like, yeah, but they got a lot of holes.

And Texas, it's like, well, we're going to see. We got to wait and see. And all of that narrative is because of what happened in the past. It's based on previous seasons. It really is. It's not based on the games of what we've seen this year, because this Texas team is really good. My concern with Texas was always that they play down to the level of their competition.

In large part, they do that because they weren't great at the line of scrimmage. Because greatness at the line of scrimmage allows you to beat bad teams week after week with very little pressure, effort, whatever you want to call it. that's why the games with Michigan are not close. That's why Bama rarely, if ever, loses to a bad team. That's why Georgia in the last few years, rarely if ever even plays down to the level of their competition. They crush bad teams because they're great at the line of scrimmage.

Now, Georgia's in these weird games where it's like, man, you're sleepwalking through the game. This is the narrative that we've been seeing or what we have been seeing with Texas over the last few years. Why? Because Texas wasn't good at the line of scrimmage. Now, I can't believe I'm saying this, but Georgia's the one that's not good at the line of scrimmage. We're seeing that in the numbers and the data.

Texas is good at the line of scrimmage. And guess how I know, they don't play to the level of their competition. So it doesn't matter if it's on the road against Baylor. They crush them. Now they welcome Kansas in. This is the prime, the prime moment where I'm like, oh, this is such a Texas game. It's the week before Red River. they get Kansas, the perennial basketball school.

And I'm saying like that from their perspective. That's not what I'm saying. It sounds like a shot against Texas. And I'm not to get Arkansas, Kansas. And I'm not because I love Lance Lypole. And I love their team. I was really bummed when Daniels didn't play in this game. I'm sure they were as well.

But this was the classic look ahead game. And Texas didn't look ahead. Why? Because they're great at the line of scrimmage. They play really good defense. And they can run the rock. So guess what? It's going to be hard to beat them.

Even if you're good, much less if you're bad. The last two games, they beat Baylor, 386 on the road, Kansas, 40 to 14 at home. And it rolled up 600 yards doing it, by the way, 300 passing, 300 running. After Red River, Texas doesn't have a ranked opponent on the schedule. I know they got to face K State at home and TCU on the road. TCU doesn't look, you know, all that tough. Texas Tech at home, tech is struggling this year. Texas has, if they win Red River,

they've got the cleanest path to the playoff of anybody in the country, maybe outside Georgia, because I don't know what the SEC is this year. Kidding me, LSU? How is LSU still ranked? I digress, maybe Wednesday, maybe Wednesday. Texas is for real. Texas is this year what Georgia has been over the last couple of years. Great on defense, consistent effort, great at the line of scrimmage.

That's why I don't expect them to lose some. weird game, whereas Georgia might be in some of these weird games even through a bad SEC East because they're not great at the line of scrimmage, which is wild. It's blowing my mind, but that's what the data is saying, and that's what the data is clear with. Okay, last thing before we get out of here. Notre Dame, that was a great win. Listen to this. Balls on the right hash, second down 10 on the Duke 30. Hands off to Estime up the middle, keeps his feet. Come on. He'll do it. He'll score five touchdown irish a heroic courageous comeback late here in durham allows nother dame to fly home with a 2114 win over the blue devils oh that was a great game that was a great game and by the way

i don't know how notre dame had that in them at that moment basically having just played you're at the back end of eight straight quarters of just everything you got. I don't think people understand how difficult that is to play really tough opponents on back-to-back weeks, what it feels like emotionally, what it feels like physically, it's virtually impossible. I'll just say that. It's virtually impossible to be at your best, to execute at your best in the eighth quarter of a back-to-back of just absolute knockdown dragouts. And that's what they did. I am so impressed with Notre Dame. That last series, Sam Hartman, man, that dude, he's a dude.

Man, he got the ball back with about two and a half, two 35 left on his own five-yard line, let a 95-yard drive against the. a really good defense that was laying it on the line. He was making some throws with guys right in his face. He was anticipating windows. He's running it on fourth and 16. I mean, the season is on the line. Everything. Every expectation. Every goal. Everything that they talked about in the offseason. The whole reason to transfer. Everything's on the line. It's fourth and 16. And this dude tucks it and gets there. Oh, so good, man.

So good. After that, Estime breaks through and I believe covers, if I'm not mistaken, right? I think that's why the celebration was like so out of hand. I just couldn't, like, I couldn't believe how well they played. That was all guts. That was like all guts. I was sick to my stomach when Riley Leonard got hurt. I was immediately reminded of why college football is the absolute best when Sam Hartman talks only about his defense, only about his teammates to Holly Row, then expresses concern for another competitor, Riley Leonard, who's sitting in the tent over there getting his leg looked at after he got rolled up on kind of a garbage time snap when he's trying to just force like some Hail Mary's down the field.

and then he stands there and waits for Riley Leonard to come out of the tent. Stands there and waits. Didn't go celebrate with his team. Stand there and wait and just to acknowledge and be like, hey, man, I hope you're all right. That was everything that's great with college football. Sam Hartman is an absolute man. I love that guy. And now he's got a fan in me.

I'm rooting for Sam Hartman because of what happened on Saturday. That was all guts on that drive. He made clutch throw after clutch throw, runs it on 4th. fourth and 16, gives all the credit to his defense, all the credit to his teammates, then stands out there and wants to pay homage to a competitor who played his butt off on the other side and the other quarterback Riley Leonard. Everything that's great about college football, right there. That's what it was.

And that's why college football is the best. And that's why we all listen to this show. This is why I do this show is because that's the moment that I'm here for. Okay, that'll do it for today. Now, Wednesday, remember, Wednesday is the day. It is the giveaway for the Rose Bowl hats. I got them right here. I got them ready for you.

I know you're excited about this. I hear you on social media. I hear you out there. I see you at these games. I love seeing you guys out there at the games. What you have to do to get this hat is to be in the lottery, which we will select the five winners on Wednesday. You have to subscribe both on YouTube and where you listen to your podcast,

not just one or the other on both. and you have to leave a review where you get your podcasts. So you've got to leave a review. Helps if it's good, but it doesn't have to be good. I want you to be honest. Tell us what you think of the show. Tell us maybe why you would love a Rose Bowl hat. Do all of that.

And you're going to have a chance to win one of these hats. By the way, these are not for sale. These are like exclusive, exclusive hats. You can find these no other place on the planet. other than Joel Clashio or if you're a friend of the Rose Bowl with some of those guys, which that's why I got your back. I got your back. I'll do that. Follow us on social media at Joel Clachio, wherever you social media. Make sure to get in on the giveaway.

And yeah, listen, I really appreciate all of you. I love this sport. I love doing this show. Thank you to the crew, everybody back there behind the scenes working hard. And we'll be back on Wednesday. It's Hat Giveaway Wednesday. It's here. It's here. We're giving away hats on Wednesday.

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