The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Why the Big Ten wants to schedule the SEC & Klatt’s 10 favorite matchups he wants to see

Episode Date: May 25, 2026

FOX Sports’ lead College Football analyst Joel Klatt recaps his time at the Big Ten Spring Meetings and gives his biggest takeaways from what he learned this week including a potential Big Ten-SEC scheduling agreement if the Playoff expands to 24 teams - and he explains why the coaches in the Big Ten want that opportunity. Klatt then lists his 10 favorite Big Ten/SEC future matchups that he wants to see in this potential format – from Ohio State traveling to Tennessee to Lane Kiffin returning to Los Angeles to face USC and more. Klatt also reacts to the news that Ed Orgeron is back at LSU, joining up with Kiffin once again - this time in the NIL recruiting world. 0:00-1:09 Klatt’s takeaways from Big Ten spring meetings1:10-6:40 Big Ten conference is 100% supportive of 24-team CFP6:41-11:01 24-team CFP would lead to big ten/SEC scheduling agreement11:02-13:28 Will the SEC join the big ten in support of the 24-team playoff?13:29-16:39 concern among big ten coaches about unsustainability of current landscape16:40-20:07 How would a federal bill impact college football?20:08-25:48 Big Ten-SEC matchups Klatt wants to see25:49-28:28 Lane Kiffin brings back Ed Orgeron to LSU staff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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expansion. We get this mindset that these coaches don't want to play tough games, and yet all of them were telling me the exact opposite. Please give us this scheduling agreement because it would be great. It would be great for fans. It would be great for college football. Back then, we used to walk through the back door with the cash.

Just outward. Hey, welcome into the show. This is the Joel Clad show. I'm Joel Clad, and this show is brought to you by graduate by Hilton. We thank them for their support as always. Hey, listen, we roll on here in the offseason. Last week, I was at the Teranea in Palis Verdes, just south of Los Angeles for the Big Ten spring meetings. And so what I wanted to do is just come here and

tell you what I was hearing and what I learned at those meetings, because I thought that there was some profound things that I learned that I didn't really know going in. So I know that you guys will be interested in that as well. So these are kind of like my top things that I learned during the course of the week, the spring meetings for the Big Ten. Number one, and I think this is the one that everyone knows and it got the most publicity, but it is absolutely true. The conference is 100% every coach that I talked to, every athletic director that I talked to, 100% behind the 24-team playoff model. Now, I understand that like that is unpopular in a lot of circles from fans' perspective, but this conference is fully behind it. And there's a lot of other entities throughout

college football that are firmly behind it as well. They continue to, I would say harp on this idea of the definition of success. And there's a large concern from the coaches and the athletic directors about that middle section of college football, the middle class of college football, and how we get them to continue to spend and invest at the level that they're doing now if they don't feel like they have any path or access to the playoff or meaningful games in November. And you can agree or disagree, but that's certainly their sentiment. And it's a 100% sentiment throughout the Big Ten. Even the top coaches,

like a guy like Ryan Day, Dan Lending, these guys, does it behoove them to go to 24? No, they don't need to go to 24 at all. They didn't really need to go to 12, but that's where we're at. And this is, these are programs that certainly don't need to bring the others along.

They're going to be just fine. And yet, it's a consensus even among those top coaches that, yes, the expansion is necessary. Now, thing that those two in particular talk about is the length of the season and when we finish the season. Part of this 24-team model, of course, is getting rid of conference championship games. And so starting the playoff a week earlier or even multiple weeks earlier, starting the season week zero or what we know of is week zero. And then you start the playoff right away and you

try to end the season right at or near January 1st. This is something that they all really want, in particular at the top end, these guys like Lannning and Ryan Day, because then they can compete, then they can go and build their roster and they don't have to deal with the idea of retaining players during a playoff run, retaining coaches during a playoff run. That's something that Dan and I talked out length about the difficulty that he had just with both of his coordinators, Tash Lepoy and Will Stein, getting jobs and trying to build their rosters at their prospective programs, Cal and Kentucky, during the week that they're trying to go and compete against Indiana.

They all like the idea of the first two rounds being at home. obviously the eight teams get a buy and then they would still have a home game. The next eight teams would have home games. They like that idea. Bigger payouts as you go, trying to tier the payout system in order to incentivize the regular season,

get those top seeds, allows you to play further into the playoff. And that's a way that they feel like they could curtail the regular season. It's interesting because when I would bring up this notion and this is where everyone goes that's against the 2014 playoff, that the regular season would be devalued,

they look at me like I have, 18 heads. They're like, what do you mean the regular season would be devalued? It's being devalued currently because none of us want to play tough regular season games, in particular in the non-conference. And listen, that's that's a fair point. There's no doubt it's a fair point. And then they all believe that the seating and the levers of the player in the format of the playoff in terms of buys, home games, that that would incentivize play deep into November. And, you know, you can agree or disagree, but that's what they're talking about. And the Big Ten feels like they're more suited to win playoff games.

They're better at the line of scrimmage. So they feel like they would do better as a conference as a whole in an expanded playoff. Now, for the record, I just want to be sure that everyone knows this because last week I tried to give you all the information of why and who is arguing for the 2014 playoff. I'm still a believer that the 14 team model with automatic qualifiers is the best possible model.

In that model, and I did a show months ago, talking about this model and the format that I believe would be best for college football. And a 14-team automatic qualifier model, you would have four autos from the SEC and the Big Ten. You'd have somewhere two and a half with the ACC and the Big 12. Notre Dame would have to play a play-in game. Obviously, the group of six, they would still play in their championships. And you would have a play-in weekend in conference. So you would have one versus two for the championship and the SEC in the Big Ten. you would have three versus six, four versus five.

And so what you're doing is that you're expanding access because all of those teams would have a game in order to go to the playoff. So they're essentially playing playoff games. You're expanding the field of meaning, the definition of success without expanding necessarily the playoffs. I wouldn't have eight buys. I would have two buys for the champions of the SEC and the Big Ten.

And the only caveat and why this is almost certainly never going to work, and I totally understand this, is that the ACC and the Big 12 are completely unwilling to sign on to a mob. that admits that they're less than the other conferences. So that's why we're at this position where they're trying to gain consensus around college football with an expanded playoff and not force those other two conferences to admit that they're less than. Now, I think it would retain the regular season.

It would expand the meaning of the regular season. I think that it would create meaning and access for the middle class of college football. Again, I did a show on this. You can go back to that episode. We'll provide a link. and you can hear in-depth my arguments of why I think that model would be my favorite. But again, what I learned in Big Ten Spring meetings was that this conference is 100% on board with expanding to 24. Another thing that I learned is that this league, the Big Ten is fully in support of, fully,

and desires a Big Ten SEC scheduling agreement. They want it. They want these games to be scheduled in the non-conference. They want them to be tiered. So the best teams in the Big Ten and the best teams in the SEC would play against each other on an annual basis. The middle tiers of the conference would play each other. The bottom tiers of the conference would play each other. And that's something that I felt like was a bit of a revelation.

You know, we get this mindset that these coaches don't want to play tough games. And yet all of them were telling me the exact opposite. They want that. They want that agreement. And they hope that it can come to fruition. I think that's something that was a little bit eye-opening for me. Now, clearly we know at the top in the Big Ten, they've owned college football over the last three years. The last three champions, three different schools, all from the Big Ten.

But there's also a sentiment that the narrative surrounding college football, and I fall into this, we talk about, well, the middle of the SEC is still stronger and it's a deeper conference. And there was a lot of pushback on that out at spring meetings from the Big Ten. They said, look at the record. Look at the record. And I know people will say bowl games don't matter and you're not going to get your best foot forward from every single program. And you might be true on that. But if you're going by the pure numbers, the Big Ten is not wrong. Right now they're 4 and O versus the SEC and the CFP over the last three years.

The Big Ten went five and two in non-CFP bowl games versus the SEC over the last two years. So there's a sentiment that they're like, they want to fight the narrative on the field. They don't want this to just be talking heads talking about, well, this conference is definitely better. The committee has their say as well, and all these teams from the SEC get in. And the Big Ten is sitting there like, let us prove it on the field. We want a scheduling agreement. We want to play these games. The coaches talk about the quarterbacks in the league, in particular this year, how deep they are.

There was a lot of talk about the roster of coaches, how deep the roster of coaches is. Think about the coaches that they added in the Big Ten. Kyle Whittingham in Michigan. Matt Campbell at Penn State. Bob Chesney at UCLA, Pat Fitzgerald at Michigan State. You even look at what we would. consider kind of the bottom of the conference. Barry Odom at Purdue, highly thought of.

David Braun at Northwestern, highly thought of. So there's an idea that the depth of the Big Ten is being undersold nationally, and a way to fight that would be a scheduling agreement with the SEC. They also feel like their brand of football is better, which is why they're winning these games in the postseason, and in particular in the CFP, they feel like they have the advantage of the line of scrimmage, which was not the case during the same.

Saban run, obviously, the defensive lines and offensive lines in the SEC were far superior in college football for a long time, you know, a decade plus. But now that's not the case. As the SEC has gone more to the air raid, the Art Brile style, deep choice routes, the Gus Malz on spread run game. What they don't have is the ability to just line up and play at the line of scrimmage. And you've seen them struggle in those games. Alabama, Indiana was a great example of that in the Rose Bowl. Indiana didn't need to throw the football at all in the second half. ran it 50 times in that game, 50 times. And there was some sentiment as well, I said, well, why do you think that is? Why do you think that shifted so quickly? Obviously,

NIL and the transfer portal allow them to go out there and build at the line of scrimmage. So that's number one. And number two is you're always going to target who's at the top of the conference. And their brand of football is going to influence the way that you build your roster. It certainly happened in the SEC when Alabama was ruling the SEC with Nick Sabin and the physical brand of football that they played. And there was a little bit of homage to what Jim Harbaugh and Michigan did. And it was such a physical line of scrimmage brand of game that they said the entire conference had to go that way. And so now the entire conference is better in that spot than they have been in previous years. So I thought that was a little bit interesting. By the way,

at the end of the episode, I'm going to give you what would be my favorite Big Ten SEC matchups, the ones that we just have to see as fans. I think you would get excited about that. Another thing that I learned at spring meetings is that there is a growing feeling that the majority, the heavy majority of the SEC coaches and athletic directors would also favor the 24 team model. Now, this is a bit of a departure of what you would hear in particular from the four letter. And there is a sentiment from the commentary that you get that the entire SEC, the entire SEC, the, SEC's partners vehemently against this. But as I was talking with the coaches, they all, to a man, said, no, no, those guys down there, they want this as well. I got these two numbers, and I thought this was telling. I had multiple coaches tell me that 90% of the coaches in the SEC and 100% of

the athletic directors in the SEC favor a 24 team model for playoff expansion. That makes this next week in Destin so interesting because there is a sentiment, at least amongst the Big Ten coaches, that the meetings between Greg Sanky, the commissioner of the SEC and his coaches are going to be contentious because the coaches are going to be pushing for one thing. Greg has publicly, obviously, stated something very different in opposition of the 24 team model and that they might not have a consensus down there in those rooms. So the meetings in Destin for the big, or excuse me, the SEC spring meetings, very interesting, very interesting. It should be noted.

Greg works for the presidents of the SEC, just like Tony Pitini works for the presidents of the Big Ten. And if the athletic directors and coaches get their presidents on board, Greg Sankey's not going to be able to fend off all of his bosses. He's got 16 bosses in the SEC. If they all come up to have 12 of those guys come up and say, no, no, no, no, this is what we want. Then the SEC's tune is going to change.

And there was a sentiment among a lot of the people in the Big Ten that that could happen. Now, I don't know if it will. I don't know if it's even inevitable. But again, the two numbers that I heard that I thought really kind of blew my mind, to be honest with you, 90% of the coaches in the SEC, 100% of the ADs in the SEC favor a 24-team model playoff expansion. Do with that what you will. And again, the meetings in Destin could be very, very interesting.

By the way, those coaches also would love to fill their non-conference with better games, better matchups, fill up their stadiums with an SEC Big Ten kind of challenge. I'll go through those matchups in a little bit. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMDM and Game Sense remind you to play responsibly, 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly.

If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor, free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. A couple of other things that are a little bit more under the radar, and they might be interesting to you. They're certainly interesting to me. We've heard so many people, including myself,

talk about the current era of college football is unsustainable, how this model is unsustainable, paying players what we're paying them. These rosters, many of them north of 25, some of them north of 30, some of them into the $40 million range. Now, we know that RevShare is right around $20 million, and that's kind of a floor. That's a minimum.

These coaches say, no, no, no, rev share is zero. The rosters are whatever you're spending over the rev share. And we've all said, and certainly anybody that's around the sport knows that that model is somewhat unsustainable. You can't go out there and raise $10, $15, $20 million from boosters annually. See, it used to be in the old system. You could get that money, but it was on a once every 10-year basis, once every five, year basis, redo facilities, some major capital project. And you could go out there and get the

boosters excited. You could get the big checks written on a once every five or 10 year basis. Now you're asking for those every single year. And so this unsustainable model and some of the coaches, if not the majority, started to talk to me about, hey, we talk about this unsustainability. That's coming faster than you think. And they feel like without guardrails put into place, And without the ability to give multi-year contracts or without the ability to limit some of the movement, not all, but some of the movement of these players so that every single player is not a free agent every single year, that that unsustainability is going to come to a head maybe as soon as December. And so this next transfer portal window could be very interesting if we don't get some model that everyone agrees upon. Now, they all lament the fact that the College Sports Commission, again, this is very end of the weeds. The CSE, the College Sports Commission hasn't really worked.

They feel like it should be able to work. There's been a lot of work done on it where you would have to go and you would have to submit every deal that's over the revenue share as a legitimate NIL deal. You saw that case with Nebraska a couple of weeks ago, if you're reeling into college football, where those via an arbiter were thrown out. What Nebraska did is that they raised a pool of money via advertisers and they said, we're just going to sign players with this money and then work out the details of what the player is responsible for and who the company actually is attached to it later. And the arbiter said, no, no, that doesn't work. So what Nebraska is going to go back and have to do is they're going to have to take those

NIL deals and they're going to say, okay, this is the company, this is the player, this is what the player is responsible for, and then they'll resubmit it. So it's just a paperwork deal. And we're seeing that kind of come to fruition. But again, the funny money era is evaporating and it's evaporating fairly quickly. They want longer term, more sustainability. They want longer term contracts for more sustainability and the ability to sign players to multi-year deals and know that those players are not going to move. So without that, you know, December could look very different.

I don't know what it's going to look like, but there was certainly a sentiment surrounding that in those spring meetings. And then lastly, and again, this is very in the weeds. If you love college football like I do, you've probably heard a lot, if not just a little bit, about this Senate bill where, as we know, intercollegiate athletics and everybody within intercollegiate athletics, they have gone to Congress. And they've said, hey, Congress, can you help us fix this? We've got an unsustainable model. We need help. We need guardrails. and we certainly need a cohesive set of rules that will apply to everyone so that we're not

operating within so many different jurisdictions. What do I mean by that? Well, right now, largely, schools operate based on state law. Well, as we know, via our constitution, state laws very widely. So the variability of how everybody operates in college football is become very frustrating for everybody within college football. And so they've gone to Congress and they want some sort of umbrella rules that they can all get under. But here's the problem.

There is a healthy fear and reluctance to what this Senate bill might look like. That's something I thought that they would all be like, man, and we just hope we get this Senate bill. There was a lot of apprehension, a lot of apprehension around what this bill might look like because the power players in college sports are not in the room. This bill is being written by senators. and they don't have necessarily a say. You see, I would say college leaders were very much involved in the bill that they were trying to write and create within the House. They don't have that access within the Senate. So this bill that we're starting to hear a little bit about, and I don't know many of the details,

and hopefully I can get some of those details soon, but no one knows really the details because they're not in there orchestrating, writing some of these bullet points. So the healthy fear remains. And here's, let me just give you an example. Why would they be fearful of this? Well, if you don't know what they're going to give you, and all of a sudden they start getting involved in areas like, for example, tampering. All right. So let's say the Senate in the bill gives some sort of rule on tampering.

Well, do we know what that means? That means that if you're in violation of tampering, you're against a federal statute. So coaches are like, well, is that going to be like a federal indictment if we're in tampering? So once you get this set of rules, you can't unwind them. You see, if you put the CSC in place, you make an NCAA rule, it doesn't work, whatever. Like you can start to move the apparatus in order to change some of those rules. But if you get guardrails and you get a shape or an umbrella that you don't like,

and it's from the Senate and it's federal, how do you change that? So there's this idea that there would be very little flexibility in what they actually gave them, and they don't know what they would possibly give them. So again, the example stands. Would we all love tampering out of college football? Yes, you bet. Do we want it to be a federal indictment? I mean, some of you might be like, yeah, yeah, I would like that.

Coaches don't want that. Coaches don't want that. So a healthy reluctance and fear of what this might actually be. And again, the opportunity to unwind a rule or an element of a bill that comes from the Senate would be almost impossible. You'd have to go back to Congress. You'd have to get 60 senators on board. And so, again, there's that reluctance. So that's really what I learned.

I thought that was where the biggest takeaways. But now what I wanted to do is just walk through quickly because let's do something that's fun. Listen, that's all like nitty gritty and behind the scenes. You want football and you want to long for the first. football season here in the off season. So let's do that. Let's take a look at what would our favorite matchups be if we got an SEC Big Ten scheduling agreement. There are some amazing ones. And obviously, the storylines would roll deep. Let me just start one that might be a little bit under the radar. But as soon as I say, you're going to be like, yep, I definitely want that. How about South

Carolina, Illinois? Bealuma, Beamer 2. Remember that Citrus Bowl at the end of the 24, 24 season, when there was some bad blood there and in particular with the way the game ended. I want this again. There's no doubt. So I would want to see that game. Again, that one might be a little bit under the radar. It might not be the best one possible.

But certainly the storylines would run deep. How about Georgia at Oregon? Kirby's got to go face Dan Lannning in Otson Stadium. Yes, I'm in on that. Remember, Lanning's first game as the head coach of the Oregon Ducks was against Georgia. I believe that one was in Atlanta in 2020. and Georgia just beat them up, 49 to 3. I'd love to see Kirby go up and face his former assistant,

his former defensive coordinator in Otson, and watch Georgia play at Oregon and Eugene. That would be awesome. We heard a lot in the playoff a couple of years ago about Neeland North. And listen, Tennessee fans, to your credit, you showed up huge in that playoff game. There's no doubt.

There was more orange in the stands than I saw of any other color in my history call on a college football game. in Columbus at the shoe. I want to see Ohio State go and return the favor. And like Ohio State at Tennessee. Like I want that game. There's no doubt.

Oh, man. Donovan Jackson, he had a great quote on Tennessee fans' presence at Ohio Stadium. He said it made us feel some type of way coming up to Wormuts. And when we were getting booed, he said we were like, wait a second. What did they call it, Neeland North, something like that? Yeah, that was lame. So even the players understood it. I want to see that match up.

That would be an awesome one. How about this one? LSU at USC. Lane back in L.A. Yep. Yep. You bet. You bet. Lain's obviously been back to L.A. but not in an official capacity since he was left on the tarmac as the head coach of the USC Trojans. Bring him back LSU at USC. Yep. I want that every day of the week. I want it every year. That would be phenomenal. Please give us the scheduling agreement because it would be great. It would be great for fans. It would be great for college football. That matchup, that would be phenomenal. How about bringing back an old rival? Nebraska, Oklahoma used to be, I would argue, as good as any rivalry in college football, maybe second only to Michigan, Ohio State throughout the whole big eight days and even in the big 12.

This was a marquee Thanksgiving weekend matchup. Bring back this one, Nebraska, Oklahoma. I would want to see that in a Big 10 SEC scheduling arrangement. How about USC Texas? the classics. I'm just hitting all the classics here. USC Texas, absolutely. I want to see that one. Obviously, that Rose Bowl with Leinert and Bush and Vince Young, maybe the greatest game that we've ever seen in the history of college football.

And you get those colors on the field at the same time. It would just like drip with nostalgia. We'd be thinking about that. Keith Jackson on the call. Oh, Nelly. And I want to see that match up. That would be an obvious one. So let's hope that happens. How about this one?

this would be a good one. Indiana at Alabama. Sig going back to Alabama where he got his start, not really his start. I mean, he was a tenured coach, but he got his start in a big way under Sabin as the recruiting coordinator for Sabin in his first year. I want to see that one. Plus, it's a rematch of last year's Rose Bowl. So Sig back in Alabama, that would be a great one. This one's time sensitive, and so it wouldn't happen unless we could do it this year. But for example, in this freedom of movement. How about a quarterback going to his former school? How about Nico I'mali-A-Ava going back to Tennessee?

Yes. Yes, I want to see that one. How about Nico and Chez going to face Josh Heipel in Tennessee back in Knoxville? I'm sure those fans would just welcome him. Welcome Nico back with open arms. Because that one ended so well. There's no doubt. I would love to see that match up. I would love to see the Urban Bowl.

Give me Ohio State, Florida. You know, Urban won a championship with both of those schools. I want to see the Urban Bowl. I think that one would be phenomenal, Ohio State, Florida. And then my last one, and I think this one would be a really good one, because he had a lot of success, got him right here, precipice of a championship, and then left for the bigger and greener pastures of the SEC and Alabama. Kalin DeBore back in Washington.

Alabama goes back and plays in Husky Stadium, and Kalin DeBore has to face his former team. Again, no one is saying no to these. and even the coaches won them. Certainly in the Big Ten, and I'm starting to hear that that whisper is growing louder in the SEC. That would be great for college football. That would expand the importance and meaning of the regular season.

We would have more quality matchups. We all want to see this. Let's hope that they can land on a format for the postseason that would encourage a scheduling agreement like this because all of these matchups we would be here for. Again, some sort of pod system where good faces, good, middle faces, middle and bottom faces bottom. All of that would be fantastic.

There's no doubt. One other element here on the show, and this one comes courtesy of Lane. Lane's making good moves down at LSU. I'm telling you, I'm starting to get a little bullish on LSU. How about he decides to bring back Coach O to be a special assistant and basically recruiting coordinator, if you will, even though he's not going to have like recruiting coordinator title. But this is just an epic handshake.

Look at these guys. And they've got a long history together. They coached at USC together under Pete Carroll. They were at Tennessee together. Coach O back at LSU where he won a national championship with Joe Burrow. And he's back and he can enhance or help their recruiting operation. And I love his comment from back in December, I believe it was. He has zero guardrails now.

He used to have, air quotes, guardrails back in the day. And he gave this incredible quote about NIL. He says, back then we used to walk through the back door with the cash. just outward, outward. And now we get to walk through the front door with the cash. This is what I find so funny, is that everyone rolls their eyes and the people in the SEC get so mad

when you start to say, like, what happened in college football over the last three years? And it's like, well, now it's legal for everyone to pay their players. And they're like, oh, whatever, this or that. It's absolutely true. How do you think they stockpiled all that, How do you think you get a five-star player to sit there as a backup? You pay him.

Like, come on, come on. Let's not bury our head in the sand. That's what was going on. Now it's legal everywhere. And here we go. We've got what I would consider to be a better era of college football. More parity. I'm in.

I'm absolutely in on more parity. So those were my takeaways from the Big Ten Spring meetings. Very interested to see what happens in Destin this week at the SEC. Spring meetings. It could be profound and it could land with a dud. We don't know. So again, I think that this week is one of the more important weeks that we've seen in college football and for the future of college football in quite some time.

And we'll see what those coaches and Greg Sanky come up with in Destin at the SEC spring meetings. Thanks for joining us here in the offseason. We encourage you to subscribe to the program here on YouTube. We're going to be dropping episodes every Monday the rest of the offseason getting used you set for college football. If you're listening to this as a podcast, wherever you get your podcast, rate and review us. That would be awesome.

And then follow us on social media. That would be great as well. Wherever you like to social media at Joel Clatchel. Hope you have a great week. I'll be back with you next Monday for more Joel Clatcho as we roll on here in the offseason.