The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Joel Klatt: I Can't Begin To Tell You How Bad I Feel For UH

Episode Date: September 23, 2020

Joel Klatt: I Can't Begin To Tell You How Bad I Feel For UH

From first pitch, getting set for the first pitch to final out. And that is the ball game. Your Astros play exclusively on Sports Talk 790. Flagship station of your Houston Astros. 133, Sports Talk 790. The Matt Thomas show continues. One of my favorite parts of the week, as it's been the last handful of years, is spending 10 quality minutes with our buddy Joel Clyde of Fox Sports.

Joel, I'm in clinical depression mode right now, my friend. Dude, I can't even tell you how bad I feel for the Houston Cougars football team. Like, I felt sick last week and talked with Dana at length after the cancellation and talked with them at length before the cancellation about how close it teetering on losing, you know, from a psychological standpoint, the team. You know, and to, they're asking them to do things that are uncommon for college-age kids as far as not socializing and trying to, you know, maintain social distancing and everything like that. And he was so fearful even before the Baylor game, which is one of the reasons why he accepted the game in the first place. He thought they were close to losing the kids, you know, not from a committed to the program standpoint, but just the, what are we doing this for?

You're asking them to do things that are completely uncommon. And so now to get this news about the North Texas game, man, I mean, you talk about this is past a punch in the gut. This is just a throat jab of all throat jabs. Well, unfortunately, it's popping up. Ross just talking about the Tulsa game got canceled. I hate to ask you this, but are you going to be a little leery about jump on a plane and going to Norman this weekend? I mean, do you feel like you've got to call everybody just to make sure it's worthy of you going on a trip again for the second street week? Well, I certainly make my calls, but I also have started preparing for multiple games,

which is something totally new to my normal regimen. So I've looked over and made a chart for the Texas Tech, Texas game just in case, you know, and basically I'm hoping that OU and Kansas State play, although I know that Kansas State is close, that they have struggled with some of their testing and positives, and more than anything, it's the contact tracing, that is, you know, really rearing its ugly head. And I think that the frustration within programs and certainly within the young people is that if you are identified in a contact trace. So let's just say, for example, you know, you and me, and even though we're just over the phone, let's say you test positive.

And then you say, well, hey, I spent 10 quality minutes with Joel Klaas. And so they come to me and they say, hey, you're out. And I'm like, well, I've never tested positive. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Well, I feel fine. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Well, let me take another test right now. And I test it.

Let's say I test negative. Nope, doesn't matter. You're still out. Well, let's say a test negative the next day. It doesn't matter. I'm still out up to 14 days. I have to sit out because you said you spent 10 minutes with me and I can't test my way out of that. You know, when you're trying to explain that to an 18 to 22 year old who has no symptoms,

the person who tested has no symptoms, that begins to be kind of twilight zone type of stuff. And that's what they're struggling with so much. And I know we're trying to do this out of the abundance of caution. But I think that that policy across some of these universities is just really hindering their ability to compete. So do you feel like, as you look, you primarily have worked with Big 12. You're supposed to do the Baylor game this week. You got a Baylor game. You got Oklahoma this week.

is every conference consistent with the contact tracing or is everybody treating it differently? And is that part of the problem? That is part of the problem. This goes to the problem with, you know, college football is the only entity out there that doesn't have some sort of overarching governing body and pre-negotiated policy in terms of the procedures of the COVID protocols, you know, like the NFL does or major league baseball, the NBA or the WNBA, or so on and so forth. So just to give an example, I asked Chris Kleinman, the head coach at Kansas State, before our first game, I was like, well, so who sets those protocols for you about contact tracing?

He's like, well, we do. And I'm like, whoa, wait, wait, wait. It doesn't come from the Big 12. He says, no, every Big 12 school is different. And I thought to myself, hold on. That means that every individual school across the country is setting its own standard. And that brings into question, Matt, at least in my estimation, are we getting transparency from every single team?

You know, I know some we are. They're canceling their own games, which is hindering their own best interest, but others seem to be playing right through it. And I've heard this from several different people that some of these lower level conferences and their teams are, one, not testing as frequently, and two, they don't have as strict contact tracing rules, which means that they're going out there and playing games, that then are hurting the other team as the other team tries to move forward.

And I think we're certainly seeing that in the Big 12, which is one of the reasons why I think a lot of people in the Big 12, if they had to do it over again, would have not done conference games or excuse me, non-conference games. I think that the SEC, when it's all said and done, Matt, is going to come out of this looking really smart with the way that they did it. Because not playing through the return to campus from normal student population and playing just within your conference, I think is going to, to some degree, alleviate a lot of the problems that we're seeing in the Big 12.

All right, let me ask you this, and I feel like we've been part psychologists on this. If you're Dana, and Dana's, my program is the extreme because we've had one cancellation after the other, there's got to be a hint of, and he even told me this last week, F this, we keep hitting each other, we're tired of hitting each other, we keep getting ready, We keep spending time in the film room. We keep getting ready to get on a bus. Screw this. We'll just try this next year.

How does a coach, who is a football coach, not a psychologist, not a de facto dad, although they have to do that, how is Dane and other coaches that have programs being stopped going to keep these young men vested, especially if they've been behaving themselves, like so many of the campuses have so far? Yeah, that's a great question. And I think that it is a topic that we're going to have to start to address. And that's the fact that we've seen player opt-outs. What happens when a program opt-outs and says this is not worth it for us? That's a great question.

And also, let's take it a step further from an individual perspective and talk. What's the minimum level? Like, let's say Houston plays four games. Okay. Can everybody redshirt? What happens? That's the rule. That's the role, right?

If I'm a senior, I'm suing somebody. Like, I didn't have a say in the fact that you wanted to move forward with this season, then it didn't really work out. I didn't get the number of games that I really should have gotten. Shouldn't I be eligible next year? Right? Let's say they play five games, half of what they were intending. Shouldn't I still retain some level of eligibility?

And I think that's a question that we're going to have to start posing, In particular, in a case like Houston, this is five games that they've gotten canceled. What are we doing? Okay. Let's get to some football a little bit. I feel like I'm just making you more angry. Well, you are because, I mean, I have my bag packed. I haven't been to Waco in a long time.

I mean, I heard it's a great place to go hang out. I want to go see him new McLean Cine. I've known Mack Rhodes and his crew over there for a long time. You know, the North Texas thing to me, you know, it's just one more thing on the wall. The SEC, how anxious are you to see how LSU comes out of the gate? I got to be honest, not as anxious as I am to see Alabama play six straight consecutive weeks against league opponents. Okay. You know, I just, I don't know why.

I don't believe, I think LSU is going to suffer from maybe the worst national championship hangover that we've seen in a long time. in part because, remember, this was a vastly underachieving program before Joe Burrow and his boys did what they did last year. I think you would agree with that, right? I mean, they were perpetually 10 and 3. Why can't LSU do? You know, their recruiting was, I would say, higher than what their results were. So it's a wait and see for me. You know, I don't know if they're a program that can win over different cycles of recruits.

So we're going to see how that goes with LSU. But for me, in my money, it's like it's the Georges of the world that have to play five ranked opponents in a six-week stretch at one point during the season. It's Alabama who opens with six consecutive weeks against SEC opponents. The last two years, you know, the most consecutive weeks that Nick Saban has had to play SEC opponents, three. So this is such a departure from a difficulty standpoint in terms of what Alabama is going to have to deal with. That's what I'm more interested in. And they've got a great deep league, I think, as deep or deeper than they've been in a long time. Yeah, I mean, I know Florida's getting a lot of run.

It feels like Alabama, obviously, until you beat them, they're not going to get off the top of the ladder either. I just want to see some football, frankly. I'm looking forward to seeing you, whether you're in Lubbock or whether you are in, I don't know, what are your possibilities? Norman. Those two, yeah. It's either going to be Kansas to say that's a lot more. I want you to explain to my buddy, Spencer Tillman, if you bump him. and may like, come on now.

I mean, he's like, hey, hey, what do I do? I didn't do it wrong. Listen, if there's one thing that I know about COVID, nothing's personal. Yeah. Well, I'm taking this person. I go where I'm told, man. I know. All right, I guarantee you we're going to talk at least four minutes of real football next week, it feels like.

At least four minutes of the conversation. I love it. Matt, always enjoy our conversation. All right, everybody. We'll see you. Joe Clyde. Fox Sports, supposedly on the Kansas State Oklahoma game this week. And hopefully that is the case because my buddy Tim Brando and Spencer,

will be on the call of the Texas Texas Tech matchup.