The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Who can challenge Alabama?

Episode Date: October 1, 2018

Joel Klatt gives you the team he thinks is the biggest threat to Bama, tells you why Ohio State QB Dwayne Haskins will win the Heisman trophy, and picks the biggest games of the weekend with Matt Leinart. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, hey, hey, welcome to Breaking the Huddle, everybody. I'm Joel Clatt. We are presented by Dr. Pepper member. At every home gate and tailgate, it is the one that fans crave. Here we got short and sweet today. We're going to go through the top 10. We'll have Madden. We'll talk a little bit about the Heisman Trophy, as well as some of those big games around the country.

And then we'll get you out of here. Remember, as always, we'll have some clat back, maybe a clat stat for you later in the week. So pay attention to all the social media that college football on Fox here has. you will be in the loop. All right, here we go. Top 10 as I see them in the country. Here we go. Number 10. I've got West Virginia at number 10 making their way in. Listen, West Virginia is so explosive on offense and their defense is actually playing so much better this year under Tony Gibson, their defense coordinator, Will Greer, legit Heisman campaign. I will be very surprised if they're not 7 and 0 heading to Austin, Texas in the first week in November. That does

mean that they get a big win this weekend. Who knew that it was going to be a huge matchup against Texas Tech in Lubbock? Look for some fireworks in that ball game, by the way. All right, number nine, here we go, Notre Dame. Listen, I felt really dirty about keeping them at 10 last week. I thought, you know what, they really shouldn't be in the top 10 with the way that they've played. All of a sudden, they make a change at the quarterback position, and Ian Book comes out there and they throw a 50 burger up. How about that? I get it. It's Wake Forest, who doesn't even have a kicker that wants to be on the field. But that was a pretty impressive performance from Notre Dame. And because of that, they're going to rise up into my rankings. I think their defense is pretty

good. Ian Book now gives them some explosiveness on the offensive side, and they're going to be number eight. Or excuse me, number nine. Number eight is going to be Penn State. Penn State has been so efficient in the red zone. The most efficient team in the red zone so far in college football this year. Trace McSorley, I love this guy. I'll obviously talk with Matt about Trace. a little bit. There's just something about him, man. There's just something about Trace McSorley. He's undefeated at home. What a huge matchup they have. I'm concerned about their defense. Concerned about their defense. Their offense is great right now. By the way, Ricky Ronnie is their offensive coordinator. He's done an amazing job there after Joe Moorhead left for Mississippi

State. Stanford at number seven. Heck of a win, boys. Heck of a win up at Stanford. Probably should have been 31-7 and you don't come back from that, but it wasn't. And you won. I tell you what, Stanford just continually every single year. They churn out quality teams. They churn out teams that execute well, and now they can beat you in any facet. They can throw it to win with KJack Costello. They can play defense to win. They can obviously come back to win now.

I tell you, that's a dangerous team right there. I would be very concerned if I was Washington in that North Division. All right, number six. LSU. You know what I think about LSU. They're here because they've earned it. Do I think they're the sixth best team in the country? No, no I don't. Your defense has been great. Your offense is going to get boat raced when you face some better offenses later in the year.

But congratulations, you're at number six right now. That's all I have for LSU. Let's go to number five. OU. Hey, Joel, I thought you love OU. I do love OU, but I'm also realistic. I call balls and strikes. What's happening with OU? Their defense is not what I thought they were in the first two weeks of the season. Why did I have them at number two early? Because we know they can score points. I think Kyler is a really good quarterback that can get the ball down the field. like Hollywood Brown. And I thought, hey, guess what? This defense is a lot better than they were a year ago when they were not very good at all. And then it changed. Now, they didn't play awful on defense. And really, that game last week, although no one saw it because it was on pay-per-view, was more about Army than it was against about Oklahoma. They didn't give up really any huge plays.

Their devens played okay, pretty assignment sound. Kenneth Murray had 28 tackles, by the way. That's insane, slept in the ice tub. There's still, there's just something, I mean, how many conversions can Army get? So defensively, you've got to step your game up, Oklahoma. Clemson at number four, they've made the switch. Trevor Lawrence is going to be your starting quarterback, Kelly Bryant. Congratulations. Listen, this is what I've fought for a long time.

You should have the control to make your own decisions as a player in college football, and he's able to do that, and he's going to go and be able to play somewhere else next year. I don't love some of his comments, but really I don't care. I love the fact that he's able to do this. So Clemson, you're a good football team. You need to play with more consistency on the offensive side. I think that'll happen now that you have a stable starter. Number three, I actually have some movement here.

Georgia is number three. I just wasn't overwhelmed with you at Missouri, and I don't think Missouri is that great. This is the bottom line. There is a team that has been more impressive, more impressive generally than Georgia. And that team is the Ohio State. I think Ohio State is the second best roster in America. I think that they've got right now a quarterback that's playing at such a high level that he probably is going to be in New York, might even win the Heisman Trophy.

They've got great running backs. The Bosa injury scares me a lot in particular this week. But Ohio State is really, really good. Last but not least, you know where this is. Don't even have to say anything. That's a great team. If they run the table, they're going to be. be considered one of the two or three best college football teams of all time. And the only

teams that can probably upset them are somewhere in this hemisphere and it's starting to look more like this hemisphere with OU's defense playing like they're playing right now. This is the team though. If I was looking at one team that I would say you've got a shot. They're explosive enough. They've got quality defenders. They've got a coach, all of that that could potentially compete with Alabama. Is it really boiling down to just two? It might It might be. It might be. All right, a little clat stat here for you.

There's a player that all of us are talking about, but I don't think we actually understand just the level of play that he's delivering to us. I think we all know Ohio State is really good. I know that I personally believe they're the second best team in the country. If you looked at what teams have put on the field thus far, I think they're the second most dominant team in the country thus far. And I think they're one of the only teams that could even compete with Alabama at this point and win.

in large part due to the fact that their quarterback is playing insane football. Everyone knows that and everyone says like, yeah, Haskins is playing great. Haskins is playing great. But I don't know if you really know until you hear some of the numbers that this guy is putting up right now. Dwayne Haskins is a manchild. First of all, five touchdowns last week. It's the second time he's had a five touchdown game. Guess what I never had?

A five touchdown game. He's the first player in Big Ten hit. history, by the way, to have multiple five past touchdown games in the first four games of the season. First time. That's incredible. He's got a 16 to one interception ratio this year, and he's completing 75% of his passes. Put it all together, this guy might be playing the best football of anybody in the country, and that even includes Tua. Think about it. The numbers suggest that Haskins right now is every bit the equal to Tua Tunga Vialoa. 75%, 16 to one touchdown to reception ratio and this guy has five touchdown passes in two of his first four games.

That's the first time that's happened in Big Ten history. What? Crazy. Dwayne Haskins, if I were betting right now, I would bet on Dwayne Haskins to win the Heisman trophy. So rather than me rant and rave about something that I don't like or someone that I don't like or something within the sport that I don't like, I want to talk about something that I do like and all of us should like.

How many of us at home, and I want you to participate as well, are you guilty like I am of just being mad when your team loses or mad at the refs call or disappointed that the coach made the wrong decision or why didn't the player make the right play or why isn't our team better than that? Why can't our team do this? Everything's negative, right? You tend to watch sports in a negative light. Even though it's entertaining and we love it, you tend to watch it in a negative light. Who's guilty of that? be the first one to raise my hand, right? Because we want it to be such a utopian thing and experience, and yet there's these innate problems within the sport, and we can't wrestle with that,

so we just focus on the negative and we lament those negative things around the sport, whether it has to do with teams, individuals, or the overall structure itself. I'm maybe more guilty of that than anybody. But then something happened last weekend. And by the way, it happened in the World Cup as well, but I want to focus on what happened in college football. First and foremost, three of my favorite teams are the service academies. You have to understand that in my lifetime, my dad was a Marine. He fought in Vietnam. He was a first lieutenant of an artillery division in the Marine Corps.

And part of what he loved to do when we were little is he would take my brother and I down to the Air Force Academy because we lived in Denver. He would take us down to the Air Force Academy and we would watch football games. And he loved to watch the cadets march in and the flyovers. and it was so cool. So I began to love Academy football, right? I began to love Army and Navy and Air Force and would root for them regardless of who they played. Well, that has gone on in my life,

and then all of a sudden you see how these teams play. They always are upsetting people. The Army Navy game is incredible, and it's such a good feeling to watch these service academies play the sport. They get beat generally when they face the best teams, but then last week all of a sudden went. happen. Army was in it. They were playing amazing football on the road at Oklahoma. They were probably playing the best football that they've ever played or will ever play in their entire lives from an

individual perspective or as a team. They were facing a top five team in the country who had just gone to the playoff and had a Heisman trophy winner the year before and one of the great environments that our sport has to offer. Right? And they were playing unbelievable. This is it. This is their chance. They're going to get the victory that they've dreamt of their entire life. And then it didn't happen. And they got beaten. Can you imagine how crushing that was? They know they're not going to the NFL.

That was it. That was going to be the epitome of their football life was the fact that they were going to be able to say, we beat Oklahoma at Oklahoma. Crushing defeat. Crushing defeat. So as most people would do when you have a crushing defeat, what do they do? Destroy the locker room, rant and rave, curse out their coaches, say I didn't get the ball enough. No, none of that.

Because these men are the best parts of our society. Do you know what they did? They cleaned their own locker room spotless. It was tweeted out after the game. Leave it how you found it. Unbelievable. Just remember. Hours before this, they were losing the most crushing defeat maybe in their lives.

This is it. This is the epitome. This is, they've played their entire life for this moment. And it doesn't happen. And they cleaned the locker room anyways. Leave it how you found it. Unbelievable sportsmanship. If that teaches us anything, it is that we take this too seriously, that we should focus on the good,

and that we should care for one another before we should shout at one another about a sport because that's all it is, is a sport. And I know that we love it, but I love these guys a little bit more. As an aside, as I finish up here, if you know someone that served or is serving, just to tell them thank you,

because that's a hard job, and they often don't hear that enough. All right, my favorite segment of the week, a little clap back for you, Penn State style. Brad Nerdman. Just gonna let that marinate for a second. Brad Nerdman chimes in and he says, PSU is hot garbage.

Shouldn't be in the top 15. McSorley is far from a Heisman candidate. I mean, come on, Brad. Did you leave your brain at the frat? Unbelievable. Let's just go through the details because this one's way too easy. First of all, your name's Brad Nerdman. Penn State is hot garbage.

They're only leading the country in scoring offense, scoring over 55 points per game. Yeah, that smells like hot garbage, Brad. Brad nerdman, he says. I understand that they weren't great early against App State. I understand that. And I understand they weren't great against Illinois in the first half, I would say, last Friday. But did you know that they're thursday? that they're third in the country in scoring margin?

Does that smell like hot garbage to you, Brad? Third, behind only Alabama and Ohio State. Scoring margin. There is not a better indicator of dominance that we have in football than scoring margin. But you're right, Brad. It's hot garbage. Unbelievable. Then you took off on Trace McSorley, and I kind of feel offended by that.

And the reason is because I think Trace McSorley, whether he would bristle at this or not, is kind of like Diet Baker Mayfield. And Baker's my boy. And so you're not going to hit Baker Jr. like that below the belt. Trace is playing some great football. I don't want to just label him as like a little version of Baker. Trace is unreal. Trace, first of all, right now has the longest active streak in the country with consecutive games throwing a touchdown at 32.

He's undefeated at home. This guy is a threat with his feet. He's got six rushing touchdowns, which leads to the country, tied for the lead in the country among quarterbacks for rushing touchdowns. By the way, that's more than Jonathan Taylor from Wisconsin or Bryce Love for Stanford, who are two of the better backs in the entire country. This guy gets it done. He's got a big arm. He's got great feet and he's got great poise and presence. I mean, I want to play with that guy. I want to be his teammate. Trace McSor. I want to be on the field with Trace McSorley. why he's a winner and that's all he cares about is winning. Brad, hot garbage. Unbelievable. Do you realize that your take is the only thing that's hot garbage today? All right, let's get into some Heisman chat. We'll try to save our BIP conversation for a later date.

We start with Goose Fraba. Okay. Here we go. Heisman conversation with our Heisman winner, Matt Leiner. And Matt, it's got a good. be the same guys that we keep talking about. No one's like moving up into that. I mean, it's the same four guys, right?

It's the same four. I put Cole McDonald on the list this week from Hawaii. Showing a little bit. Let me ask you a question. Do you think this is the, so far, through the first three, four weeks this season, the greatest kind of quarterback performances we've seen? Like at the top, remember going in, going in,

it was, exactly. But going in, it was just Jonathan Taylor, Bryce Love, is like, hey, the running back. And now all of a sudden, you got Haskin. who we kind of thought but didn't know, Greer we knew, Kyler Murray's been outstanding, Tua at Alabama. You probably should throw Trace McSorley in the mix. Trace McSorley is one of my favorite players in college football.

I mean, Justin Herbert, you know, but you have a lot of guys. Herbert, I thought, was playing incredible. And then a couple of... I mean, they just gave the game away. They did give the game away. That's a rough one for Oregon. E! How are we doing up there in the Great Northwest? Not very good right now.

So what's separating them? Because here's what I've always said. I want to stick on this husband conversation because now you start to look at like the path. What's the path for each of these guys? It's not just great numbers. They're all going to have great numbers. Right? That's just the nature of college football.

So what's the path? I've always felt like this award is not one necessarily on the field, but it's one in the ballot box. you've got to have great stages and great moments to win it. That's why I'll be really candid. I don't want to say nervous. I don't know if Tua is going to play a close enough game. I don't think so either. To garner the ground swell he needs.

Now he's the leader right now, I would say, in straw poles that I have. But what happens if they blow everybody out and Haskins is playing these great games against Penn State or Michigan? later in the year, I think that could work at to his detriment. I agree. And I think, I mean, look at Haskins this week at Penn State. He's got bigger defining, a chance for more defining moments, I think, on his schedule. The same with Will Greer. I think, you know, even this weekend, Texas Tech, I mean, that's a good game.

But you look at West, and we, I think we might have talked about this on week one. West Virginia had a good chance of going seven, eight, no, maybe. And then that November schedule is brutal. But that's when, that's when, that's when essentially the Hizman's kind of, one in that late stages. He's going to have Texas and Oklahoma in November. And to your point, maybe a big 12 championship game. And to your point, I mean, all of these guys are going to have massive numbers, but you're right. I think two is the one where I think everyone's enamored with Alabama and the SEC and he's a great player. But is he going to have a moment where he's going

to have to come from behind? Is he going to have that he's going to have a play? He's already had a couple plays. They're like, wow. But like Haskins, I think Haskins, in my opinion, has the best with the most stages, with the most big stages. If I were to bet. And I mean, statistically, he's better than all of them too. I mean, it's unbelievable. Look what he did last week in the first half. He was, what, 21 at 24 for like a million yards and a million touchdowns.

And two quarters of football. It was insane. Granted, it's against Tulane. It's going to sound strange. I think the best thing that happened to Dwayne Haskins is that Urban Meyer was suspended for the first three weeks. I think Herman Meyer is a great coach. He's the second best coach of this era. And that's nothing to scoff at because I think Nick Saban is the greatest coach we've ever seen in college football, right?

So Urban's on the modern day Mount Rushmore. I mean, he's accomplished everything. He does have a tendency to rely too much on the East West offense side to side and quarterback run game in critical moments. Ryan Day gets control of the offense and it's like, and I mean, it's like, on the way vertical threat. Do you think it would have been different to start this? It's hard to say. Because, listen, they were vertical with Cardell Jones and Xavier Elliott with Urban on the sideline. So that's why I'm saying.

But, you know, you make a good point. It's interesting. And I'm glad they kept that going when Urban came back. I am too. And to his credit, he even said it, right? He said it in a lot of the press conference. Because people asked him about that very thing. Hey, is the offense going to change the style, you know, to something that you're more comfortable with?

And he said, why? You know, to his credit, he was like, what? No, it looks pretty good. Looks pretty good. So he's the one, man. I feel like, I get it. Two is in the lead right now. I'd probably vote for him right now as well.

But if I was betting at the end, I think Dwayne Haskins is going to win the Heisman trophy. I really do. Dude, he's unbelievable. He's unbelievable. What do you like most about this game? He's pretty, I think he's pretty, He's pretty unflappable, man.

We saw it last year at Michigan, just came in and just bawled in the second half against a good defense. He's pretty even keel out there, you know, and I'm just jealous the way he can throw the football down the field. Like, honestly, like, I love his demeanor because he's not, like, he's not an arrogant kid. He just goes out there. But, like, he's just so effortless, man, when he throws and I'm just like, he's got a howitzer. Dude just, I know. These guys. Who do you like in that game this week?

I would lean towards Ohio State. I understand, listen, the Bosa deal of not being on the field. That's a big loss for them. McSorley, he's got something, man. It's like... That game is always close to. It's like Diet Mayfield. Diet Mayfield.

You know what? DeTreis McSorley is the diet version of Baker Mayfield. That's pretty good. And so it's hard for me to bet against this guy. He's undefeated at home, but they rely on him so much. Although Miles Sanders is starting to... He's starting to play well. How about Stanford Notre Dame?

Those are the two big non-conference matchups. If Ian Book would not have been inserted into the lineup, I would have said Stanford walks. Now, I don't know. I just want to see if he can do it again. He was really good last week, and Wake Forest is not a bad team. I want to see him do it against Adibo. Yeah. I mean, that dude, the corner position for Stanford is a man.

That's a huge match. Here's the thing for Stanford. If you want to boil it down for me, why do I think Stanford has the ability and maybe will go in and beat Notre Dame on Saturday? They have won every style of game. You can't say that about many other teams in the country, right? Like Alabama's won one way,

which is like pure greatness, just like, blah. They just can't be stopped. Just unbelievable. Other teams, just throwing the ball. Other teams, great defense. Stanford's had to do it in a number of ways. They've run the ball for a win. They've passed the ball for a win.

Their defense came out big last week for a win. They're a sneaky good team. I'm leaning both road teams in the top 10 matchups. That's a tough limb to be on, but I'm going to go Stanford and Ohio State. Go out on that limb, buddy. Be different. Be unique. That's right.

Love having you in. And enjoy the games this weekend. Remember, Gus and I are at Northwestern for the Michigan game. Michigan quietly kind of like, hey, remember us? back here remember us back here starting to figure it out Michigan wait for Michigan thank you for watching this has been breaking the huddle I'm Joel Glad he's Matt Leinert remember Dr. Pepper this show is all about Dr. Pepper at every homegate and tailgate it is the one that fans crave enjoy college

football this weekend everybody see you next week