The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Week 2 Reaction: Oklahoma takes down Michigan, CyHawk, Florida upset & more!

Episode Date: September 8, 2025

FOX Sports’ lead College Football analyst Joel Klatt reacts to Week 2 of the College Football season. He breaks down what he saw as Oklahoma beat Michigan including whether the Wolverines have an identity crisis and if there should be concerns about Bryce Underwood. He explains why he loved what he saw from John Mateer and his OC Ben Arbuckle but also considers whether Oklahoma’s blueprint for victory is sustainable for the rest of the season. Klatt then revels in the scene at the CyHawk game this weekend as Iowa State continues to be one of the best stories in the sport. He considers what Florida’s loss to South Florida does to Billy Napier’s job security and why things could turn worse very soon. Klatt then looks at teams like Clemson, Georgia, Penn State and LSU who all struggled through their wins vs lesser opponents in Week 2 and discusses whether there’s cause for concern for the future. 0:00-2:26 Intro2:27-22:09 Oklahoma beats Michigan22:10-32:25 Iowa State wins Cy-Hawk32:26-36:18 USF takes down Florida in the swamp36:19-50:24 How concerned should Clemson, Georgia, LSU & Penn State fans be? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Are we back on the hot seat, Billy Napier? I sense that they have a bit of an identity issue. In a lot of ways, I thought he was their best offensive player on the field. And as a true freshman, that's pretty remarkable. He gave me very early vibes for some of the better quarterbacks that I've seen in college football. Rocco Beck is a really good player. And they have full trust in him to win it when the moment gets big in the fourth quarter. They know exactly what they need to do to go play in the postseason.

is why we love college football. Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome into the Joel Clatt show. I am Joel Clatt, and we are back. We are presented by graduate by Hilton. We thank them for their support, as always. They are tremendous partners, and a big reason why we can bring you this show

each and every week, three times a week. And here we go, week two of college football. I know it wasn't the same as week one, but, man, we had some great games, and we're starting to learn more about these teams throughout the country, and we're going to get into some of those today. We'll save some of that for Wednesday as well.

But we've got a lot to get into. Obviously, the big one in Norman. We'll talk about that. I'll break down that game. I saw the Sihawk Trophy as Iowa State takes down Iowa for the second straight year. Florida, what is like, what? Are we back on the hot seat, Billy Napier? What are we doing at Florida?

We'll get into that. And then, like, cause for concern or not concerned with some of these teams that we think are really good, that we think are top 10 caliber teams that did not play well. in week two versus inferior opponents. We'll talk about that going forward. Hey, just remember, subscribe to the show on YouTube. That would be awesome. Hit that subscribe button if you like what you hear.

And then invite a friend. That would be sweet as well. And then leave a comment below. And again, I know I haven't been in in a couple of weeks. I'm going to do my very best this week to get down there in the comments and answer some of your questions. So I'll just give a shout out. If you have questions about this episode or anything in college football, throw it down into the comments.

I'm going to do my best Monday and Tuesday to get in there and answer some of those questions. So I'll be in there for that. And then wherever you like to social media, we're there, we're out there. Our content lives online all week long, all year long, all season long. You can follow us at Joel Clatio wherever you like to social media. Let's get into the Michigan Oklahoma game to start things off. That was clearly the biggest game of the weekend. And it didn't disappoint.

I thought it was a tremendous game. Sloppy at times on both sides. Impressive from the Oklahoma side. And what do we make of Michigan? And they're brand new freshman quarterback, Bryce Underwood. We've got to get into all of that. So Michigan goes down. They fall to the Sooners 2413.

And let's start with the Wolverines on this one. Because I know that there's a lot of you, Michigan fans that listen to the program. So let's talk about Michigan at first. The number one thing that I think is a concern for me about Michigan after watching that game against Oklahoma is that I sense that they have a bit of an identity issue. And that's a problem because Michigan largely has built their program since COVID, obviously, but built their program on identity. And who they are and the way that they play and their philosophy has been foremost. It hasn't been leading with talent, even though they had a really talented team win the national championship.

It has been leading with philosophy and leading with identity, namely this physical, run it well, play great defense, win the line of scrimmage identity. And that was an identity that, quite frankly, fell short on Saturday night on the road against the Oklahoma Sooners. Now, we'll get to Oklahoma in a moment because there's a lot of positives to take from this if you're Oklahoma. But first for Michigan, the identity issues leaving this game, I think leave a lot of question marks surrounding the program and like, where do you go from here? And specifically on the offensive side. Let's just throw out a couple of things that maybe we know now. Maybe they don't have the offensive line that we think that they have.

I did not think that the offensive line played well. Now, just so that you know, I did watch the actual coaches tape of the Michigan offense against Oklahoma on Sunday. And there were a lot of glaring mistakes from the offensive line. And that's clearly not the offensive line that they had in 22 and 23 and certainly not even last year in 24. So you go into this year now and they're trying to retain the same. identity, but they don't have it on the field. And I think that that can be a problem. They also, by the way, they don't have the running backs and wide receivers that they did

in those years. Now, they're not bad at running back. And I think that there were some glimmers of hope, namely the long run coming out a half time. That's a solid run. I think it's more of a concern on the outside. The talent on the outside is there. The details on the outside are not there.

I'll get into that in a little bit more. And then more so than just the actual ability of, let's say, the offensive line and their physicality. I didn't love the game plan from Chip Lindsay, the new offensive coordinator. This marriage of Chip Lindsay, who is, and I'm going to try to choose my words carefully here, spread oriented and has been maybe a bit more of, let's just call it, more finesse than Michigan has been in the past, this marriage of something like that to what Michigan wants to. what Michigan wants to retain from their great runs since COVID, which is this physicality up front, I found that that marriage on Saturday night really didn't fit. Okay, some of the things that they did well was what they have done well for the last four years. Some of the things that they really struggled with were clearly new,

and namely the side-to-side offense, the screen offense that you saw that has been brought from Chip Lindsay, I did not think that that marriage fit well. And they're going to have to find their way of who are they going to be? Which road are they going to go down and which philosophy are they going to major in? Because to be great on offense, you've got to major in a philosophy. You've got to major in an identity. And right now, I think that there is a bit of a tug of war with which identity is going to rule out with Michigan. And I'll just give like a word of warning. And I know Michigan fans are going to shudder at this. And I know that this man had a lot of success post-Jim Harbaugh.

David Shaw had good success after Jim Harbaugh. But if you really study what went on there, it slowly deteriorated from a physicality standpoint on the offensive line to the point where Layton David Shaw's tenure at Stanford post-Jim Harbaugh, they were a totally finesse, pass-oriented team. Okay, so now that Jim Harbaugh has left Michigan, you're two years removed. now this is the second season since Jim Harbaugh left to the National Football League. And the question then for me is, can you retain that physical nature up front? Can you do it?

And that's going to be the question moving forward. Let's just take it from a numbers perspective. Outside of that 75-yard run on the first play of the second half, they ran at 31 other times for 71 total yards. That's 2.3 yards per carry. That's not good enough for a team that wants to major in physicality. That's what they want. Sharon Moore wants their identity to be.

They need to be better than that. Now, they can do a better job from a game plan's perspective. Now, let's get into a little bit of the game plan and then the personnel. The wide receiver group right now at Michigan is a bit of an issue because they don't threaten the secondary. There's no deep threats. There's no structure of passing game that's going to force the safeties to cover deep. So when that happens, guess what the safeties get to do.

Play really close to the line of scrimmage. And when they do that, you can't block them. You see, running the football, yes, it's a mentality. Yes, you've got to be physical, but it's also just a math game. It's literally just a math equation. Do they have more guys than you can block? That's it. That's it.

Almost every single run-pass check that a quarterback handles at the line of scrimbage is predicated on that. Numbers. That's it. And Oklahoma was not threatened at all by the wide receiver group from Michigan. therefore they had plus numbers in the run defensive box all night long. So the safeties were unblocked and down close near the line of scrimmage, making contact two, three, four yards down the field.

Therefore, there was no room to run. No room to run. If you look at some of the Michigan teams that had a lot of success, they at least had a threat, whether it was a tied in, whether it was a wide receiver, whatever passing game that they had when J.J. McCarthy started letting the ball loose down the field. and all of a sudden those safeties couldn't quite get up near the line of scrimmage. And so the three-yard run turns into a five-yard run and a six-yard run,

which means that second-and-seven turns into second and four. Well, Michigan has to live in second and four, in particular with a young quarterback. So that's what was going on from a nerdy run ratio's perspective. But then it was also the game plan. So the personnel didn't threaten the defense, but also the game plan. Michigan ran so many tight sets, what I would call is bunch sets. Well, when you run bunch sets, the defense can do what? It can condense, all right?

I always think of, I don't even know what they're called. Do you know those like, I don't know, they look like a mesh ball? If you're watching on YouTube right now, I'm trying to use my hands. And they go from like small and then they can get large and they expand and then they can get small. And then they can expand a little bit. Almost acts like a balloon. A balloon can be small and then it fills up with air and it gets expanded. Well, that's how defenses work.

So when you condense your set, what you do is you take the air out of the defense and they condense down with you. Well, when that happens, all 11 players for the defense are typically within 8 to 9 yards of the line of scrimmage. Well, Michigan was doing that all night long, inviting Oklahoma down super low and then never taking a play action shot right down the field past that defense. So they were just trying to run the football into a condensed defensive set. Now, to me, that's a bit banging your head against a brick wall. You see, when you are trying to create big plays, if you're trying to create a threat or a conflict for the secondary, what you have to do is invite them to condense in order to take a shot.

And then you spread them out and you expand the defense in order to run it. And Michigan didn't do that. And so from that standpoint, I thought that their game plan was, I'll just say, like, poor. the details on the outside report, there's a lot of room for improvement for Michigan. I don't think it's a panic situation yet because there's a ton of things to coach off of that film. If you're the offensive line coach, if you're the running backs coach, if you're the quarterbacks coach, whoever it is watching the film, you're going to have a different plan moving forward from Chip Lindsay, at least I hope they do.

And then you're going to be able to coach a ton of detail from the wide receivers on down. All right. I thought that not having Marlon Klein was a big takeaway from them. He's clearly their number one option in a passing game and not having him out there, again, negated any sort of threat that Oklahoma's defense would have to be aware of or have to respect. And once they didn't respect it, again, everybody up near the line of scrimmage and then you can't run the football. The one area that they did succeed running the football was when they got back to like old school Michigan. Okay, so here's what happened. early in the game they had two extra offensive linemen on the field.

So they were actually playing with seven offensive linemen. And they ran the ball okay. Now, Joel, you just told me you can't condense a set to run the football. Yes, but you can with extra offensive linemen because you're adding gaps that the defense has to be responsible for. So the safeties are no longer just extra hats in the box, but they are actually specific responsibility towards a gap in the run fit. Again, a lot of technical terms to basically tell you like, if you want to condense, do it that way with extra offensive linemen.

They ran it decent early a couple of times, and then the big run to start the second half, guess how many offensive linemen they had on the field? Seven. And when you have that, what do you have? Extra gaps. Oklahoma did not adjust to the extra offensive lineman. Therefore, the cutback lane was wide open.

Nobody there, and it ends up being a 75-yard touchdown. So if you want to run it, run it that way. And if you want to condense with skill position players, like full-backs and tight ends, condense in order to play action and throw, and then spread out in order to run. At least that way you get the defense to expand and or declare their coverage, which makes a life a lot easier for their quarterback. Now, let's get to the quarterback.

That was a long discussion, and we didn't even really talk about Bryce Underwood. Let's talk about Bryce Underwood. Nine of 24 on the day, and if you just look at his stat sheet, and a lot of people are going to just look at his stat sheet, you're going to come away with that and say, Bryce Underwood didn't play well, and he's not this or that. That's not the case. I actually thought Bryce played a lot better than his stat line. The film suggests that.

I want to be very clear. That does not mean he played perfect. There's a ton of room for improvement for Bryce Underwood, namely his pocket awareness, his ability to change speeds on his throws. When you got a young quarterback that has that type of physical ability and stature, a lot of times they throw a fastball every throw. All right?

And playing quarterback, you've got to have what I would consider. to be pitch selection. What are you throwing? You've got to be able to drive the football and throw the fastball. You've got to be able to layer the football, throw the football with touch in intermediate zones. Very difficult to do, but it's a learned skill. And it's something he'll certainly develop. And then you've got to be able to throw with touch down the field. Okay, so all of those areas are development issues. And Bryce tried to throw a lot of footballs, whether they were supposed to be layered or with touch down the field, and he threw fastballs. Okay, so his ability to change speeds, his pocket awareness, all of that's going to increase.

His defensive recognition is going to increase. I'm not concerned about Bryce Underwood. In fact, in a lot of ways, I thought he was their best offensive player on the field. And as a true freshman, that's pretty remarkable. He gave me very early vibes for some of the better quarterbacks that I've seen in college football, where I'm like, okay, I see it. there are glimpses where you're like, oh my gosh, that's tough to defend. He makes a couple of different decisions, whether it's in like an RPO decision or a pitch

selection decision and big plays are going to be there. And as he gets better, I'm just telling you, I think Bryce Underwood is as advertised. Regardless of stat line, you will hear a lot of really poor analysis. around the country this week that Bryce Underwood is not who he says, you know, says he is and he's not the number one player because everyone's going to just look at the stat sheet. But the film suggests otherwise. Small tweaks, small development, and it will be there. Namely, like I said, pocket awareness and then the change of speeds. All that recognition will happen. Defense, I thought they were put in a precarious situation. I thought the defense actually played pretty well for Michigan. They forced Oklahoma into a situation where they had to run their quarterback 19 times.

because Michigan basically took the running backs away from the Sooners, and John Mateer had to put a cape on his back, and he did. And credit to him and credit to Oklahoma for going that direction in that game. So I'm not concerned about the defense. The only concern I would have for the defense is that if the offense does not grow, and more specifically, if the offense does not run the football better, then the defense will be exposed to more snaps. I used to talk with Jesse Mentor all the time.

now the coordinator with the chargers there with Harbaugh. And when he was at Michigan, we would have long conversation. And by the way, Mike McDonald before that, and we would have conversations about the complementary nature with which that entire program was built. And namely, it was the offense's job to limit the snaps on the defense. Not necessarily the defense's job. Now, you've got to get off the field on third down, certainly.

But the offense's job was to sustain. sustain drives, convert on third down. Even if you're going to punt on that series, you get a first down or two, and now all of a sudden that defense gets to rest and clock runs, which limits the total number of snaps. If they can do that, then the defense should be fine. If the defense is exposed, then we'll see more of what we saw on Saturday. Now let's get to Oklahoma.

John Matier was as advertised. I really love what I saw from John Matier. And this is what I was talking about all offseason when I was excited about what they got in the transfer portal and the combination of John Mateer and his offensive coordinator. So as a quarterback, you have to understand, like, the offensive system has to be a part of you if you're going to play your best. And generally speaking, if you're trying to learn a system, it's really difficult to play your best because you're thinking. And you can't really think at quarterback. You have to react. And what I saw from Mateer on Saturday is that he's in reaction mode.

Why? Because this is the offense that he ran at Washington State. So Arbuckle coming in as the coordinator allows the quarterback to play free and fast. And that's what he did. And he was terrific. Now, not perfect. And he'll look to the interception and maybe a couple of decisions on third downs and say, I can play better.

And yeah, that's probably true. But I tell you what, man, he played with some serious courage, serious courage. they put the ball in his hands. Now, their plan, I thought, was really good because let's go back to kind of the condense and expand of the defense. Well, early in the game, what did Oklahoma do? They threatened the edges and they threatened down the field on Michigan. Therefore, the rest of the game, Michigan had to respect the edges, the talent, the speed, and the deep threat of Oklahoma because they got hurt by those early in the game. What can you not do if you're respecting the edges and the deep portions of the field.

Play your safety's low. You've got to declare. So what can you not do? Add an extra hat to the box. If you can't add an extra player to the run fit, guess what the offense can do. Run the quarterback. There's no one there for the quarterback.

And that's exactly what you saw. So the sequencing of game plan from Arbuckle was outstanding and allowed Oklahoma to run the football effectively with their quarterback. Now, not with their backs, but with their quarterback. So, Mateer has an incredible day. He was running it all over the place on Michigan. And my one concern would be that 19 carries is too much. You're not going to be able to go through the rest of their SEC schedule,

in particular their SEC schedule and give the ball to Matier 19 times as a runner. I don't think that you can do that. Now, positive side. One of their most impressive drives was the last drive, Michigan had to have a stop and couldn't stop Oklahoma's run game. That's when you have some semblance of knowledge of what your offensive line really can be. And they certainly were solid on that drive. 16 plays, 12 of them runs, only four passes, took eight and a half minutes off the clock.

That's a championship-style drive. So Oklahoma fans have got to be thrilled with what they have seen from their offense and namely their quarterback. I'm more bullish on them now than I was in the pre-season. season, mainly because I look at their schedule and we see some of the teams play on that schedule and you're like, okay, like, I can see it now. The hard part is that if you're trying to go through that schedule and Mateer's getting 40 or 50 touches, right, like 19 in the run game and another 30 throwing the football, he's going to be exposed too much. Their schedule

still includes Auburn. It still includes Red River with Texas. It still includes South Carolina. it still includes Ole Miss. So it's going to be tough. And, you know, what are you going to do? By the way, not even to mention Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri, LSU. Like, geez, they're going to have to run the football with their backs a lot better because Mateer can't put on a cape in every one of those games. All eight SEC opponents that they face this year are now ranked inside the top 25,

including their last seven games. That's as of right now. So can they do it? No, we'll see. Auburn in a couple of weeks. That's a big game for them. They need to win that one. Jackson Arnold, their former quarterback,

they've got to beat Auburn. And their last seven is Texas at South Carolina, Ole Miss, at Tennessee, at Alabama, Missouri, and LSU. Good luck. Good luck. Michigan, I don't quite feel the same way about their future schedule.

So even with a loss, I'm not quite as concerned. Oklahoma, great win. They're going to have to continue to get better in order to face that schedule. Because again, Mateer can't go and face that schedule the last seven and have the ball in his hands 50 times. That's too much exposure. Way, way, way, way too much exposure. But defense looks good, looked fast. And if I'm an OU fan, I feel really good about what happened on Saturday night.

All right, let's move on. Sighawk was incredible. I tell you what, being in Ames last weekend and Ohio State, Texas, the weekend before that, I'm so lucky. Gosh, can I just for a second just tell all of you how thankful and blessed I am to be able to do this and that we all are to just be able to enjoy college football? the scene in Ames was awesome. It was awesome.

It was Americana. It was collegiate. It was college football. And I loved it. I loved it. I love when these rivalry games are not in neutral sites. Like playing on campus is phenomenal. The grassy knolls up each side, they were packed.

The stadium is packed. The student section is booing every time that they see an Iowa fan walk down the stands. It was awesome. And I thought that the game was terrific. Now, do both teams struggle in areas? Yeah, but I don't care. I don't care. All right. Is this the number one team in the country? Probably not. But what Matt Campbell has built at Iowa State is special. In his 10th season, he's sitting here with a program that has now taken care of K-State in a regional game, really, you know, what, three to the last four years or so. They have now been able to beat Iowa in a similar sense, now two straight years.

They have got a culture of family and toughness, development. You've got walk-ons on the field out there that are making plays. They get players that are overlooked by bigger schools that then can go out there and develop and by the time they're juniors and seniors, they become NFL players. You know, they are. incredibly sound fundamentally. Details are off the charts. I love watching both of these programs. You can say this about both these programs, which is why they play such tight games. You know, 16, 13 here, I knew it was going to be a tight game. And it comes down to this. It really does come down to this.

Rocco Beck is a really good player. And they have full trust in him to win it when the moment gets big in the fourth quarter. I said it in the open of the show with Gus. We continued to talk about it during the course of the game. And then once it got down to it, it's like, that's what Iowa State wanted. All they wanted and all they kept talking about is the fact that they wanted to be close in the fourth quarter because Rocco was on their team. And lo and behold, with about what was it, eight minutes left, guess who jogs on the field in a 1313 game? And I'm just thinking to myself like, they're so comfortable with this because of their confidence in their quarterback. And I just give a ton of credit to Matt Campbell.

into Rocco Beck. Rocko Beck is one of the better players in the country at the quarterback position. I think that he is an NFL player. He reminds me a lot of Brock Purdy. Okay. And I know Brock got selected late in the NFL draft, but like he is smart. He is accurate with the football. The way that he talked with Jenny in the interview after the game, I'm like, yes, that's exactly the type of guy I want in my building. And just a lot of respect for him and his family. I know Anthony Becked fairly well from calling those UFL games. I really respect the way that they go about business in the sport of football.

They're about ball. They're not selfish. They're humble. And Rocco played awesome. I loved it. When he jogged on the field and it was just calm on his face, our director did such an amazing job. Rich Dewey is our director on our show.

And Chuck McDonald, our producer, our entire crew, by the way. We have, you know, Jeff Peel is one of the great sideline cameramen, low cameramen in the sport, really, in football. He was getting great shots. Wyatt was getting great shots. All of the guys were doing incredible. Bobby on the low end zone, like these guys were doing incredible work.

And late in the game, when I'm talking about the belief in the quarterback and the calm that he has on his face and the confidence that he has in himself and the control that he has over the game, the shots that they were getting and taking of Rocco's, like, face and the close-up, They were beautiful. I know that's a geeky television thing, but I just wanted to give a shout out to those guys on my crew. It is time to take a trip down memory lane, though,

because presented by graduate by Hilton, nostalgic stays in your favorite college towns. We take a trip down memory lane because for two straight years, we've gone out there on Conrardi, the kicker, gets trotted on the field for a 54-yard field goal. He's like, yeah, you bet, man, I did this last year,

comes tie ball game, home stadium, 54 yards, bang, right down the middle. What a kick, 54 for the second straight year. That is our memorable moment of the weekend as Conrarty kicks it through and a big thanks to graduate by Hilton for the nostalgic stays in your favorite college towns. Conrarty was terrific. He hit from 63 last week. By the way, as a quarterback, if I'm Rocco Beck, and I know I've got someone like that on my sidelines, which, by the way, I did. When I was a quarterback at Colorado, our kicker was Mason Crosby. I felt like if we crossed the 50, we were in range. Like he was so good.

Mason was incredible. And Conrardy is that way for Iowa State. So Beck knows once he crosses the 50, he crosses the 45, he doesn't have to take a chance with the football. So he can play things safe, not take a sack, and know that I can check the ball down. And even if I don't get a big play, we're in range and we can get points. and that's exactly what happened with the big kick right there. Iowa State now, they're going to be right there in the Big 12. I really like what I see from Utah.

I think Texas Tech is going to be very salty. Can't wait to see them play a jump up in competition here in the next few weeks. And those three teams, at least for now in the Big 12, have really showed me something. Last thing that I would just want to say about Iowa State and that scene on Saturday. Okay. A lot of people, a lot of people disparage our sport because our sport has some chaos. Our sport and its structure has some chaos.

It can be part of the beauty of it. It can be part of the frustration of it. We had the BCS and then we had the 14th playoff and now we have the 12 team playoff. And we're talking about, well, let's expand it even further. And people get frustrated with that. But let's just take for a moment and just try to take a snapshot of what the 12 team playoff provided to us on Saturday. and more specifically for the scene in Ames, Iowa. If that scene happens, which it has before, years prior, close win, Iowa State wins, and it's like, that's awesome, and it's a 14-playoff, it's kind of like, yeah, that's cute. And now we're all happy and it's fun.

But not now. Not now. Because when I see a game like that, do I see Texas and Ohio State? not. The skill is just different. And we know that. But guess what? That game still means something and matters because now I can look at Iowa State and say to myself, hey, could they get that Big 12 access? This is why access is so important. And we need to move away from selection because the scenes like we saw in Ames, Iowa, because that win means something. And now that fan base, that building, that head coach and that quarterback.

They know exactly what they need to do to go play in the postseason for all the marbles. That's what I love about it. Is that on Saturday, the 12-team playoff made that feel bigger. It was a bigger event. It was a bigger win, and it matters more.

Now, because of the path that they have and the access that they have, if they can go and win the Big 12. Now, it wasn't a great day for the Big 12 overall. We'll get to that on Wednesday, but it was for Iowa State. And that's why I love the 12-team playoff. And it's why it made last year so amazing.

And a scene like Saturday, I just wanted to take that perspective, that snapshot, and remind everybody of that. Quickly on Iowa, I think it's going to be easy to blame Grinowski for what happened on Iowa. But when are we going to stop blaming the quarterback at Iowa and start to look at the fact that, like, hey, the O line is fine. They just don't have the skill on the outside. When you can't threaten a defense, it's the exact same equation, that Michigan dealt with against Oklahoma.

When you can't threaten a defense, it becomes incredibly hard to play offense successfully. It's almost impossible. I dealt with this at times during my career. I thought that the O-line did their job. They ran it decently. They protected Grinowski really well. They just didn't have wide receivers that could create any space, and that's the job of the wide receivers and skill position in general.

They didn't have somebody that could win. They didn't have somebody that could get down the field. Now, they didn't help them out. I thought that their game plan also suffered and the fact that they didn't at least take a shot. Now, you don't need to take a shot that's just willy-nilly, throw it down the field to prove that you can. I was calling for during the game a double move,

a slant and go, an out and up. Why? Iowa State was sitting, heavy sitting in the coverage on those wide receivers because there was no deep, deep threat. When you don't have that, man, I tell you, it's such a narrow path to victory. you've got to be so good up front. You've got to create the right formations in order to create second downs that are manageable and third downs that are manageable.

You get against teams that are better than you, and it's like, well, how do you move the chains? And so that's where I'm at with Iowa. I think Iowa is still a really tough out. I love their defense. I liked what Grinowski did, and they just came up short in a game that was always going to be close. Always going to be close. We need to get to Florida. So Florida is right back where they were at this point last year.

All that goodwill that Billy Napier built up late in the season with the young quarterback DJ Lagway, the wind streak that they had, quality performances that they had, the win over Ole Miss, all these different things, is now kind of like out the window. and why is it always some sort of ridiculously dumb personal foul that we're just like, ugh, it doomed Dan Mullen. Remember the shoe throw? I remember that. And now we've got Spitgate or Bull Spit, whatever we're calling this one.

And this personal foul extends the drive and South Florida is able to go down there and they win the football game. Now, we'll get to South Florida in a second. but this was supposed to be the easy part of the schedule for Florida. Remember, like Oklahoma, Florida's schedule is horrendously tough. And now it looks even tougher. Now, I do think South Florida is a really good team. But look at what they have left on their schedule. Eight of the last 10 games are against ranked opponents as of right now.

The next six games that they have, here they are. If you're watching on YouTube, they're up on your screen. At LSU, at Miami, Texas. By the way, those are all top 10 teams and bona fide top 10 teams. At A&M, maybe one of the most difficult places to play in college football. Mississippi State. They just beat ASU. Georgia.

Four top 10 in the next six games. Four. They also have FSU at the end, who's the top 10 team right now, and who we thought would be a much easier game. So where's the break for Florida? There isn't one, and we're right back where we were at the beginning of last season. That is just got to be maddening for the Gators, all right? In particular, because they've got this quarterback that they believe in,

and then you lose to South Florida. That is a tough loss right there. a very tough loss, in particular with the way that their offense played. Now, on the flip side of that, USF, South Florida, whatever we want to call them. Credit to Alex Golish, their head coach has built something that is very, very salty. They hammered Boise State. No one talked about it because it's just kind of like out of side, out of mind. We're all enamored by Ohio State, Texas, and Miami, Notre Dame, and Florida State, Alabama,

and LSU Clemson. And here's South Florida. They beat Boise 34-7 and now a win in the swamp against the Gators. I think the American winner is likely going to be the group of six team out of that gets the birth into the playoff. I think it's a decent league. They play at Miami this week. Could they pull off another upset?

Now, they're going to get Miami's full attention or should get Miami's full attention, in particular after the way that they've played in their opening two games. Alex Golish has done a terrific job, and that's a team that all of us should be looking at pointing, and now they've got serious resume builders even outside of their conference. So South Florida is clearly on their way to potentially a playoff berth, and I'm here for it. I love to see teams that can develop, that can improve, that have a coach that knows what he's doing, and can go out there and win football games. But, man, that was certainly an outcome, wasn't it?

certainly an outcome. All right, here's how I wanted to finish today's show, because I thought about, like, well, there's a lot of games I want to touch on. And then I realized that they all fall into this category of, like, well, there's teams that took care of business and there's teams that did not take care of business. So let's take the teams that did not take care of business, at least the way I would estimate it or analyze it. And like, let's think about this in terms of like, are we concerned about some of these sluggish performances. So, namely, here's what we saw. What do I make of the Clemson performance or the Georgia performance or the Penn State

performance or LSU? And specifically because we have direct comparisons to what teams like Ohio State, Oregon, Florida State, and Tennessee did, which was go out and handle their business. Now, before I get to those teams that were impressive, you've got to get into this game of, like, Are we concerned about what we're seeing? Like, should we be concerned? Remember, I just will say, it did take Oregon a little bit of time last year to get their feet wet and start to play the way that they eventually played. They played really poor early in the season, ended up beating Ohio State.

Granted, they did not win the national champion chip, but they were the number one seed going into the playoff. They were the undefeated Big Ten champion. So all of that is still available for some of these teams. Now, Clemson can't be undefeated, but Georgia could certainly develop into a team that is much better than the team that we saw beat an FCS Austin P team 28 to 6. Penn State could clearly be, in particular with their experience, a better team than the team that we saw up 10-0 at half against FIU. They won that game 27-0. Clemson, we'll see, but they were down 16-0, and the offense did not look right. And we'll start there.

If we're going to be concerned or not concerned, we start with, I'm concerned about Clemson. This was my national championship pick. I don't even have them in the top 10 anymore. I told you I was not concerned about them after their loss to LSU because I thought LSU was really, really good. Now, LSU, we'll see. They did not play great against Louisiana Tech,

only beat them 23 to 7. I know Brian Kelly was not happy about that. But there's an issue with Clemson's offense. Cape Clubnik has got to get this together. They just have way too many peaks and valleys. We don't see the sustained success and a sustained quality play and excellence out of their offense, and I think that's a problem.

So concerned or unconcerned, Clemson, I'm concerned. And it's that. It's the lack of consistency out of their offense's performance and specifically their quarterback. Georgia. man, I don't want to be concerned about Georgia, but like, come on, come on. It's not just the score either. They beat an FCS Austin P team 28 to 6.

Here's what concerns me more. Why did Gunner Stockton need to throw the ball 34 times against an FCS opponent? What? I don't understand that. He was in the game well into the fourth quarter still throwing the football. That's a problem. That's a concern. This is FCS level competition.

You're at home. You're Georgia. Gunner Stockton should not be throwing the ball 34 times. I'm just going to put it to you very bluntly, very bluntly. If Julian Sane or Dante Moore at Ohio State or Oregon, would have thrown the ball 34 times against Austin P. They would have scored somewhere around 1,000 points. So to only score 28 is alarming.

Should we panic? No. Am I going to move them way down? No. I'm just saying they better develop. Concern about the way that they finished the half. Georgia ran five plays from the one-yard line at the end of the first half didn't get into the end zone.

How? How? You should be able to just hand the football off and drive an FCS defensive line into the end zone, 10 yards into the end zone. I know that there was a weather delay and there were some of those things. And like, I get that. It's hard for me to explain away your quarterback having to throw the ball 34 times. I don't like it. I don't like it. That's concerned for me. I'm concerned about Georgia. doesn't mean they can't be great. It just means that I'm concerned for them right now. Penn State, up 10-0 at half against FIU? Here's the problem with that.

It's like you're experienced Penn State. You've got veterans on that team. And what I know about playing inferior opponents is that it's a focus issue. It's a concentration issue. It's a detail issue. It's an urgency during the week issue. And the urgency of your team cannot come from your head coach.

Now, sometimes it can, if you're Nick Saban or maybe Kirby Smart or some of these coaches. But generally speaking, the tone of your practice is held within your leadership and in your locker room. So when you play like that, it tells me that your main leaders were not focused during the week. And that's a concern. Drew Aller was sloppy, 19 of 33 for 200 yards. He did not look great. They don't have any real tests before Oregon comes to town. So if you're looking at that, you're like, well, do I really know about Penn State? Not really. Do I know about Oregon?

I kind of do. I kind of do. That team had one bit of motivation and maybe not even in context that the person providing the motivation was meaning it. But Mike Gundy says one thing about the price of their roster. And Oregon's like, okay, bam, motivated, urgency, leadership in the locker room. So where is that for these other teams? LSU only beat Louisiana Tech 23-7. I'm not as concerned for them as I am for the other three.

And the reason is because I just saw them go down to Clemson. Now with Clemson being behind Troy, 16-0-0-and-I'm like rethinking my whole life. Like, get your life together, Clatt. Like, don't you? I thought I saw that with my own eyes. I thought I saw that they were really good. And I'm going to maintain that they were really good. And I have to understand that, okay, these are kids.

and you're not going to get consistent level play every single week. These are not constants. Teams play well and they play poorly and it's always going to fluctuate. I understand that. But the really motivated teams and the teams that have great leadership generally don't fluctuate as much. And that's how we get to these other teams. There's something about a locker room that goes out and takes care of business.

It tells me that it tells me that the team is owned in the locker room and it's not owned in the coaching staff. That's not a knock against the coaching staffs of these teams. It's actually high praise because every coach will tell you that the teams that they have to pull along the entire year are the hardest ones to coach. But the ones that are self-motivated are the ones that can go out there and have a really great crisp, detailed week of practice with urgency even when they're playing grambling.

So now we look at teams like Ohio State and Oregon and Tennessee and Florida State. and they went out and took care of business. Ohio State scored 70 on gambling. Julian Sayan was nearly perfect. Again, if Julian Sayan would have thrown 34 passes against Grambling, they would have scored 897,000 points because it was up and down the field. He looked great. He was on time. He was in rhythm. They were getting the ball to Smith. They were getting the ball to Carnell Tate. They were getting the ball to Bo Jackson at times. And I loved what I saw from Ryan Day late in that game when Bo Jackson kind of like does a freshman move reaches the ball loud, maybe playing a little bit undisciplined football, and he let him know about it.

And I'm like, man, that reminds me of Nick Saban, screaming at guys, up, you know, 70 to nothing. And you're like, hey, man, like, take it easy. This is a windy, sir. And he's like, no, ah. So I like what I see from Ohio State. They beat Texas. They come out the very next week. No let up whatsoever.

They let their quarterback throw the ball down the field, which he didn't do in week one. So now you're starting to see a bit of development from a young quarterback, just a redshirt freshman. And then you also see that from a team like Oregon, just destroyed Oklahoma State. 69 to 3. It was 41 to 3 at half. It wasn't a ballgame. Two of their first, what, five snaps of the game were 80-plus yard touchdowns. Their quarterback looks legit. This is a stronger, armed, more dynamic quarterback than they've had each of the last, what, two or three years. Even more so than Bo Nix, who was a first round pick, even more so than the third round draft pick, Dylan Gabriel. Dante more looks like a legit guy.

Like he can throw it. You think back to like his tenure at UCLA, they couldn't block anybody in front of him. Anybody. And now he goes up there to Oregon with that talent around him. And they're going to be dangerous folks. Again, just a little motivation. Mike Gundy says, you know, like,

I don't know about playing rosters that are that expensive and this and that. And Dan Laining is like, really? Really? Okay. How about this? It's like, I don't want to poke Dan Laining ever because that team can be motivated in a hurry. Florida State scores 77 on East Texas A&M. So no letdown after the huge, massive win over Alabama. They didn't sit there and they say to themselves like,

hey, look at us. Look how great we are. No, no, no. They went out there 77. Largest margin of victory, by the way, in Florida State history. Tennessee scores 72 on East Tennessee State. I like what I'm seeing from Tennessee. Now, I just want to clarify one thing because I know the Tennessee fans like, we probably don't have a great relationship. That's fine. Everything that I said about Josh Heiple and the offense does not mean that that offense cannot be really good in college football. It absolutely can. And Hendon Hooker proved that. The Baylor offenses under Art Bryles proved that. There have been offenses that use this system that are incredibly potent.

All right. So I didn't say anything about how good the offense can be. said that that offense doesn't technically develop a quarterback very well for the National Football League. True statements, both of them. And this team looks like a very motivated team and a team that, to be honest, I kind of like this week. The way that Georgia looked against Austin P. was terrible. Not motivated. Stockton has to throw it 34 times as a starter against an FCS opponent. Meanwhile, Tennessee's out there putting up 72 points. I really like that. I really like that. And this offense can and is and will be potent to the rest of the year.

I like what Joey Aguilar has done. This is a team that Josh Heipel has gotten ready. They've recruited well. So this can be and probably will be a pretty successful team. And listen, I think that place is going to be on fire against Georgia. And Georgia might be walking into an absolute buzzsaw this week. Because what I saw is a team that was very ready to go out there and prove a point, which they did. It speaks to, and this is the highest compliment that I can pay, it speaks to an

internal standard. There's an old coaching adage that you treat losers like winners and winners like losers because teams that have lost need their confidence to be built up. And you need to show them like, hey, this is not as bad as you think it is. Look at just the small tweaks that we can make in order to win. And then winners, you've got to bring them down. because it's never as bad as it seems and it's never as good as it seems. So coaches of really great teams are constantly trying to grind on those teams, right? And you treat them like losers and that's not good enough and we can't do that. We're going to get blown out.

And you're trying to create urgency. And when a team has an internal standard of excellence, then the coach doesn't have to do that. And these teams, the way that they played in week two of the season, at least right now, in a small sample size, prove to me that they have a very high internal standard. So compliments to them. That'll do it for today's program. We've got a lot to get into on Wednesday.

Folks, I still have to get into how Alabama bounced back the entire week for the Big 12, which were some big wins and then some really devastating defeats for the Big 12. We've got to get, how about Ryan Stob from Colorado, third string quarterback comes out there, balls out for them, granted against Delaware, but I'll touch on that as Coach Prime may have found his quarterback for the future, and we'll see how they play that out during the course of the rest of the season, among some other things.

And then we're going to have huge games to pick and preview come Thursday. So we'll be back with another Joel Clash show on Wednesday. Make sure you are here for that. Subscribe to the show on YouTube. Hit your notification button. You'll know when all of our content drops. Follow us on social media, wherever you like to social media at Joel Platt Show. And always remember, have a great week, folks, and thank you for listening.