The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Joel Klatt - on Texas A&M Easy Win For Alabama

Episode Date: October 9, 2019

Joel Klatt of FOX Sports joins Matt and Ross for his weekly look into NCAA Football

Let's go. And now we're talking college football with Joel Clatt. Brought to you by Dos Ekes. Official beer sponsor of the college football playoff. All right, 2 o'clock on Sports Talk 790. Matt Thomas is with you from St. Petersburg. Ross is back in our Houston studios. And we appreciate Joel backing up an hour for us because, first of all, he's got a big time game.

We're all going to watch this Saturday between OU and Texas. But first, congratulations, Mr. Clatt. you are now part of the XFL broadcast team on Fox, which means you're going to have to come to Houston a couple of times this year. Yeah, I can't wait. I can't wait to get down there to H-town. I'm always connecting in Houston. Now I finally just get to fly in and actually do some work there.

I'm excited about it. We'll see how the league does, and I think that it's on much better footing, at least in this stage, than the AAF. So I've got to tell you, I'm bullish on the XFL. I think that it can do some damage in the state. spring. Well, I'm a huge Oliver Luck fan, and I love his business acumen, and I just hope that everything works out. Nobody should expect it to be the NFL, but just give us a little nibble for the springtime,

have it be close competitive games, and I think people will watch, and I think marketing will be a huge part of it, and anything Vince McMahon touches is going to be heavily marketed. So I wish you, and I wish the NFL a lot of success. It'll be nice to have a Houston team to kind of root for as well, and it'll give us a little way to, I guess, segue between the pro and college football. Let's get to your matchup this Saturday. You're actually coming south for the second time this year, so we're happy to have you in this part of the country. OU in Texas, as you know, my partner Ross is a diehard Longhorn fan.

He's scared the death about the Texas secondary against Jalen Hertz. Should he be? Well, yeah, all the injuries back there are not great. Okay, so they've got three starters that are out. Now, if this was Oklahoma with three starters out, I would be more concerned about their secondary because Texas has just flat out recruited better in the second day. They've got a number of four-star and five-star players that are in the depth and playing very well.

I thought that the corners played incredibly well last week against West Virginia, including, you know, they picked them off four times, four interceptions against West Virginia. So I think that the 126, when it comes to past defense, I think that's a misleading stat. They played a lot of tech that wanted to throw it all over the place. Joe Burrow went absolutely crazy. They've been up on teams, and those teams have had to totally abandon their run game in particular against Oklahoma State. Remember, when they held Chuba Hubbard to, like, 38 yards rushing or whatever it was. I mean, so I'm not trying to totally write off their past defensive struggles, but I don't think they're as large as people think. Now, is Oklahoma going to be able to score points?

Yes. Do I feel like this is going to have to be a shootout? Yes. And it's a good thing for Texas because they do have an offense that can get in a game like that. succeed with Sam Ellinger at quarterback. So Texas's secondary is certainly going to be under a microscope, but I would not

put it past either of these two teams to be able to hang with the other once a shootout kind of arises. Hey, Joel, one of the things, if you're on Longhorn side and you're trying to be optimistic, you tell yourself, well, Oklahoma hasn't played anybody, but I don't know how much you can play into that because

maybe the competition hasn't been great, but they've been blowing them away. What do you just think overall philosophically, when you say, oh, this team hasn't played anybody. But if they're playing teams that aren't up to par, but they're just absolutely destroying them, I think that still can show you something. I could not agree more.

All you can do is play the team in front of you, and all you can do is try to be as dominant as you possibly can once that game arises. You're right about Oklahoma. They have been sensational this year. They have been as good as they have been in any of the previous three seasons on offense. And Hertz has been amazing. defense has shown a substantial amount of improvement. They're actually in the top five in the

country and third down efficiency on both offense and defense, which, excuse me, they're the only team of the country that can say that. When you look at some of those other teams, like Clemson, they haven't played anybody, and they've struggled at times, right? They only put up 331 total yards against North Carolina. And in the previous three games to that, North Carolina was averaging their defense giving up 436. So that's not being dominant against someone that I would say is not a very strong opponent. I think Ohio State has played somewhat of a week schedule until last week with Michigan State. Well, what have they done? They are right now number one in scoring margin in terms of the country at plus 243. Next closest is Penn State at 198.

So you can definitely go out there and bury your competition and put to bed the argument about schedule strength. Having said that, there's no doubt that Texas is more tested. And if you're going to say that there's an advantage, I think it would be towards Texas in the sense that they have been tested. They're constantly in one possession games dating back to last season, and they're comfortable in those environments, and their quarterback plays really well in that environment. So OU has not been tested at all. They have been fantastic, and I think if I was Texas, I would hang my hat on the fact that maybe we can get them into an uncomfortable situation that they don't normally see, which is a one possession game late.

Joel Clatt, Fox Sports, our Wednesday visit here, as he will call OU and Texas on Fox this Saturday. Speaking of not being tested, Alabama has not. Will A&M pose one this Saturday? No, no. A&M is more of the more overrated teams in the top 25 along with Wake Forest and Virginia. You know, and you can just look at, you know, everyone says like, well, you know, they've lost the good teams. Yes, but they've also basically gotten blown out. The scores in both of those games against Clemson and against Auburn,

misleading. And the way I know that is Clemson was ahead by 21, three scores with 10 seconds left. Auburn, you know, with six minutes left, was still up 18 points. It's basically three scores. You look at the three wins for A&M against the two and three Texas state team, an FCS team in Lamar, and Arkansas by four, and Arkansas the previous week got beat by seven against San Jose State. So A&M is just not a very good football team, and I don't think that they're going to challenge Alabama. I just really don't. Tua has been sensational, 76% with 16 touchdown passes in his last three games. They are dominant on the outside, and I don't think A&M is going to be able to keep up with them, and I think that this is going to be a fairly easy win for Alabama. When you watch Kellan Mon,

is he making too many mistakes for a guy as has as has as many starts as he has? Yeah, I mean, he's thrown an interception in four of the five games. To me, you want to go stretches during the season, multiple games in a row where you're not committing a turnover. And he's done it in basically every single game. He threw one in the end zone last week against Arkansas. He's been sacked seven times in his last couple of games. So, you know, they need to show some improvement. And I think that's probably the more frustrating part for Aggie fans

is they thought that this was going to be a better team. And I've even said it can be a better team and not show up in the wins and losses arena. but to some degree when you watch Texas A&M, I don't know if you can convince yourself that they are better than what they were when they were playing a one possession game at home with Clemson a year ago. So I'm sure that there's some frustration, and part of that is the fact that Mon seems to have hit a wall

and is not progressing through that to the next point in his career where he is being efficient with the football, throwing more touchdown passes, and ultimately being cleaner down the field. Before we get to the big SEC game, I want to ask you, a former radio partner and I used to argue about whether or not Baylor could come back with all the things at Art Bryles. And I'm sitting here, they're looking at 5-0.

Granted, they haven't played a real tough schedule. But I was always a Matt Ruhl fan when I used to cover U of H games against Temple. He's got them number 22 in the country. Smoking mirrors on this, or is he building something really special in Waco right now? He's a good coach. I'm with you on that. He's a good coach. Now, do I think that they're going to compete for a Big 12 title?

No. Do I think that this is somewhat of smoking mirrors? Kind of. But remember, they did beat Kansas State. They did beat Iowa State. So this is a team that is a good team. I like Brewer a lot. Charlie Brewer, he's doing the exact opposite of what a guy like Helen Mond is doing.

Brewer is 11 touchdowns. Matt, zero interceptions. You know, so I think he's been cleared to play this week. I know he got banged up in the fourth quarter, but I believe he's been cleared to play in this week. I think Texas Tech is an interesting challenge now because Jet Duffy, that quarterback who came in for Bowman, who's been hurt, he kind of won that job against Oklahoma and the blowout loss. And then he threw, he went bonkers against Oklahoma State in a big win. So this is one of those moments for Baylor that they're going to feel real happy about themselves.

They're going to feel very confident about themselves. And they better watch out because I think Texas Tech is a team that could come in there and potentially sting you if you're not careful. Does the winner of the Florida LSU game get a serious look at, hey, we're going to be in the college football playoff? I mean, is it too soon to say with these two teams? Or is 7V5 a pretty good buildup for this match at a time? I think Florida has to win their division at a minimum to get in. I don't think you're going to see Florida lose this game and then still go to the college football playoff unless they were able to beat Georgia.

So I think it's a little bit wait and see. For LSU, you're just putting yourself in such a pickle because you've still got Alabama looming on the schedule. And if you lose this one, then you basically have to run the table. We'll see. There's a lot of really good teams. And I think no one conference can lay claim to having the deepest conference or the best conference this year. I think Penn State and Ohio State are incredible. I think Texas, Oklahoma are incredible.

I think LSU, Georgia, Alabama, maybe Florida isn't. that are incredible. I do think it's going to be incredibly tough for Florida to basically get the upset last week, then come right back on the road in Death Valley and win this week. I just don't expect them to play to the level that they were able to play last week, and therefore I think they're going to get beat. All right. Go-to food at the state fair in Dallas. Is in your mind what? I'm a big pride Snickers guy. I mean, Snickers is my all-time. favorite. So that's where I'm going to head immediately Friday morning when I head out there.

What about you? Where do you go? Do you ready for this? I have never gone to see fair in Texas. I swear to God, I'm not lying here. What are we doing here? You got to get the Fletcher's corny dog first, Joel. Come on. Well, you know what? There's something to be said for that. And then the fried snickers for dessert. There you go. Boom. You know, I'm fine. I can get down with that. I can't get down with I haven't been. What do you mean? You know what I'm doing?

You know what I'm doing, Joel? I'm chasing a baseball team trying to win a World Series. That's what I'm trying to do right now. Well, well, come on now. They better pick it up after losing game four. Oh. Okay, so you got the XFL. You're doing the big game on Fox.

Yeah, I swear, I want you to get everything that you want. You're doing the PGA. Just don't ever host a game show or we'll have to end our friendship. Why? Because I want to host a game show. I do. Me. I've been thinking about this for.

47 years of my life. Matt, that seems selfish. Are you new here, Joel? Yeah, Joel, have you not met me? I love it. All right, you can't give me an outcome on all you, Texas. But real quick, wrap things up. How does Texas pull off the upset?

I think Texas just needs to be themselves. Like, I think this line is crazy. What is it, 10 and a half? 10 and a half, yeah. That is way too big. I'll be shocked, shocked if either team won. wins by more than a possession. We'll leave it at that.

Hey, friend, great to hear from you as always. Safe travels to our state, and we'll talk next week. Thanks, but. Bye. You got it. Joe Klatte. Fox Sports.