The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Joel Klatt - On The College Playoff Rankings, Such A Flawed Process

Episode Date: November 20, 2019

Joel Klatt of FOX Sports joins Matt and Ross to discuss the College Playoff Rankings and how he would fix the process

Let's go. And now we're talking college football with Joel Klatt. Brought to you by Dos Ekes, official beer sponsor of the college football playoff. All right, here in Denver, Colorado, where tonight the Rockets and Nuggets get after it. When you think of the legends of Colorado sports, you think of John Elway 1, Patrick Wa, 2, and our next guest, Joe Clot number 3. Do I have the order right, Joel? I mean, I guess since Wa was able to win a cup. Oh, so if he didn't win a cup, you'd be number two?

Oh, obviously not. But yes. Man, those are like the legends of my childhood right there. That's getting me all nostalgic. I forgot to mention Dante Bichette. I'm sorry for getting him, too. Larry Walker. Oh, man, I tell you what, those guys, they had big hair, big arms, and big flies.

The Blake Street Bombers, Giovanni Castilla, Andres Galaraga, Ellis Burr. Dante Bichette. That was awesome. All right, this moment of Denver Bronco and Denver sports history brought to you by, I don't know who, but let's, we got our buddy Joel in here. You're kind of spicy on Twitter today talking about these college football rankings. What's going on with you and why are you getting in fights? Did I lose him? We lost Joel Klatte. Maybe he was mad with a commentary that I was asking about the Denver stuff.

We'll try to reestablish Joel in a second. I think we just lost him. Ohio. There he is. We're going to get back in a second. Ohio State, Penn State will be the game he will call this week on Fox, and we'll get a thought or two from him coming up on that in just a second. All right, let's get back to Joel Clyde here.

All right, back to what I was saying. Joel, you're getting spicy on Twitter today with this college football ranking. You just hate it more than life itself, don't you? Yes, I think it's just such a flawed process. Maybe not more than life itself. But I just got to say it's frustrating just because I know how hard these kids work. I know how much it means to them for the most part. And then just to put 13 people in there and have it be so subjective, I just, I don't think

it's the right way to do it. I really don't. I think that we should have criteria, concrete criteria that we can all look at, like winning your conference championship. And I'm not saying that we should give auto bids, but I am saying that you should have to win your conference in order to be selected into the playoff. I think that would make games better and more meaningful during the course of the regular season. It would make the conference championship games massive. As it is now, what you have

is a beauty contest at the end, and people start arguing for teams that, quite frankly, don't have the resumes to be arguing about. I understand Alabama is a great program, but let's have them face the music a little bit here. They don't have a win over a team that is currently ranked. Now, you can say the same about Utah, and I understand that there's some, weak resumes out there, Clemson as a weak resume. But the fact of the matter is, is that Alabama is without their quarterback, and that was the one strength of their team was their ability to throw the football. So I just don't like it when I hear people in my industry that do the same things that I do

analyzing, and they start arguing for things that, one, are hypothetical, and two, don't make much sense to me, you know, like I just think it's way too subjective and we need more criteria that is that is concrete and that we can look at objectively and and see the results of. So you are saying that in order to be in the college football playoff, you must win your conference. Absolutely. And I think that's an immediate fix that I would make. And I think it would make it so much better. We wouldn't have all these staged rankings and have Rob Mullins out there trying to explain the unexplainable. What we what we would have is games that matter on the field. You know, the LSU Alabama game would have mattered a great deal. It would

have been for everything. You know, you would have these conference championship games that are massive. The next thing I would do is get rid of divisions throughout college football so that we do pit the first and second best team in each conference against each other in their conference championship game. And then what you have, Matt, is de facto quarterfinals with 10 teams, 10 of the best probably 15 or 16 teams in the country. And then the winners of that game, you can throw them into a pool and then you select the best four from there. That retains the importance of the non-conference. That retains the importance and the unique nature of the regular season.

It emphasizes winning your conference. I think overall it would be better. And people would know the exact path in order to go and compete for a national championship. As it is now, I mean, what, Alabama is going to play nine power five games. Most everybody else is going to play 11. because they get into a conference championship game, how is that fair to anybody else? How is it fair to LSU and Georgia?

The fact that they're going to have to go play each other and Alabama doesn't have to play the extra game and then what we're just going to give them a pass into the playoff? I guess it doesn't make sense, guys. It just really doesn't. Well, I feel like while you make tremendous amount of sense that I just feel like there's no change on the horizon, which is unfortunate. Let me get back to Taglova you mentioned.

I don't remember who was doing the game. I want to say it was Brian Greasy. on ESPN. Yeah, I think it was Levy and Greasy and Gish. So he, so Greasy is just all throughout the first half, because that was the only part of the game I was watching, because it was a blot, kept saying, I can't believe Tua is out here.

Why is he out here playing? Why? And then he goes, and then Tua goes out for that last two-minute drill because that's what Nick wants his quarterback to do as to go through it. Would you, and I guess now hindsight being 20-20 on this, how tragic of a mistake was it that Tua-a-tice? Takabolo was playing this past Saturday.

Let me just say that I understand the sentiment, right, in terms of him being maybe not 100% healthy. I also know that as a competitor, I argued to get on the field in every game regardless of the opponent. And at any time, because I love to compete, I love to play. That's what I wanted to do. You never think that, you know, the worst case scenario is going to happen. That's for people like me to speculate on in the booth, which Brian did. I do think that it wasn't as egregious as if it would have been the first series of the second half. There's something about that point in the game, and maybe that's totally artificial and subjective on my part,

to think that it's far different in the second half than it is in the first half. But I will tell you that from my standpoint, you know, a guy like Nick Saban is a guy that makes a lot of money, and he is going to have to answer for that. unfortunately. And he doesn't want Tua to get hurt. Tua doesn't want to get hurt. I just think it's one of those things that it's a hindsight deal. Can you make an argument he shouldn't have played at all?

Yes. Can you make an argument that he shouldn't have been on the field for that drive? Yes. I think those are flimsyer arguments than if it would have happened in the second half. Visiting with Joel Clatt Fox Sports. By the way, you've got a nice, really good Big Ten matchup, Ohio State and Penn State. can the NIT Alliance, you know, coming off of a really disappointing performance two weeks ago against Minnesota, can they give Ohio State a game this Saturday?

I think it's going to be difficult because we don't know the status of what I would deem as their most important player on offense, which is KJ. Hamler. K.J. Hamler left that Indiana game last week with an injury, and he's the explosive part of their offense. He has a 20-plus-yard catch in 13 straight games. and while their defense is starting to struggle a little bit, allowing 355 pass yards over the last couple of games to Minnesota and Indiana, I look at their ability to be explosive on offense as the most important part of this game. And if Hamler's not on the field, I just don't see it. So his status, which right now is unknown as kind of a questionable game time decision,

I think that's where the game kind of lies for them. Hamler is so important. We saw that against Michigan when they were having a hard time moving the ball in the second half. And then Matt, he comes out and makes that huge play. It's kind of lightning strike where he's able to get into the end zone. And that was the difference in the game. So Hamler's ability to be on the field and how effective he is, I think, is where the fate of Penn State rests this Saturday. A couple things on the local teams. Texas loses at Iowa State last week. What has happened, and I shouldn't say has happened, because that's saying that things are in utter despair.

because, look, Texas can still get to the Big 12 championship game, but I would be safe to say that probably losing an Iowa state doesn't make the average Texas Longhorn fan particularly happy. What's going on? Why have they not been able to at least compete mono-a-mono with Oklahoma in the last couple of years? And I would think, assuming, the biggest problem, Joel, has been the fact that defensively the Longhards have just not been able to recruit

the type of kids that Todd Orlando has been able to turn into the great players that he has in the past. Well, and that's, you know, that's got to say, this is a conference that it's really tough to be a defense first team. And I'm not saying that Texas is a defense first team. I'm just saying like, it's really hard to dominate on defense in that conference. In particular, when you have an already incredibly young defense and then a rash of injuries happen, that was a really tough hand that was dealt Texas this specifically. with the injuries, with the health factor, the secondary in particular.

Having said that, I think what you're seeing right now is a program that won last year, a lot of tight games. Remember, I think they played 10 one possession games last year, and they were a 10-win team. So all of a sudden, you get some young guys that are banged up and you don't make a couple of the plays here or there, and what happens, you lose those games. and this is where you kind of wind up. The turnovers have been an issue. I think that the offensive line play was not as good as what we saw late last year.

That means to get better. They need to start establishing a run game that is more consistent than what they have currently. And until they do those things, they're not going to be able to compete at the top end of the Big 12. I thought this was going to be a year where Texas could kind of compete, i.e., with their quarterback. And with the youth of their defense, maybe, you know, maybe next year. is the year. And unfortunately for them, guys like me early next year are going to be wanting to put them fairly high in the ratings and the rankings in my preseason. And yet I'm going to be gun-shy because of what's happened over the course of this season. Last question. Do you give A&M

a puncher's chance at Georgia this week? I don't think A&M's got the offense to go in there and score enough points. And the reason is Georgia is so good defensively. Georgia is number two in the country and scoring defense right now. And they can run the rock, man. I tell you, DeAndre Swift is very good. I just don't think Texas A&M is a team that's going to win this game. I don't think that they're going to be, what do they have

LSU next week, I believe? And there's, you know, what did I tell you the first week of the season? Do you remember? You always, I don't, I don't know. Verbatim, no, I don't have an answer for you. Texas A&M is going to finish seven and five.

Well, yeah. But I could have told you that four weeks, I think it's like six weeks ago. This was a crash course towards seven and five, but I'll give you credit if you really said it in the first of the year. I'll give you credit. There you go. Let me ask you this real fast. And we're late for a break, but I don't care your good information. Jimbo Fisher, 10 years, 75 million bucks.

Tom Herman's making crazy money. Jim Harbaugh making crazy. Everybody's making Joel crazy money. Not everybody's going to win 10 games every year. Is college football extraordinarily full? flawed with the crazy, crazy money that it's being spent on these coaches. When in reality, 10 wins just can't happen every year. It just can't.

Somebody's going to be disappointed. That's a great point. And I'm sorry to do this, but let me just get a little bit in depth. I know you're late for a break. Here's the deal. Coaches are presidents pay coaches not necessarily just for the wins and losses. So it's not just about getting to the 10 wins. Remember, it's about butts in the seats.

and it's also about perception for your alumni, because that is the front porch to your university. TCU is a great example of this. That was not a top 100 university in the country, and it wasn't necessarily a great academic university, in particular from a research standpoint, in the year 2000. And then Gary Patterson has this crazy good run. And we lost Joel.

I think his cell phone is timing out. Joe will leave it more for next year. I think he's sick of you. But why does he drive? it twice in the same you know what you nick tell him to get another prepaid card holy smokes oh he's back oh is he all right let i'm going to tease him but let me ask you this joe clatt fox sports number one football analyst why are using a prepaid uh phone card that's what i want to know why what's up with your phone this is this is ridiculous i use verizon i'm on the

uh-huh five in l a this is incredible um anyways that's the most important part guys Now, real quick, I was just going to say, like, the fact that these universities are relevant, that their football programs are relevant, that the alumni likes what's going on, that's why these guys get paid such a high salary. It's invaluable to these universities from an academic standpoint. People don't quite realize that. I was given the TCU analogy, you know, that now TCU is a top 100 university. Now they have an admissions rate, you know, far lower from a percentage standpoint than they used to.

do. Their average ACT score and SAT score has gone way up. So the quality of their student has gone up. The number of applicants rise. And why is that? You can directly correlate that with football success. So that's why these guys are making so much money. That and the other factor, which is these athletic departments cannot operate at a 50 years. They're going to get way too loud. So they operate at a deficit in order to not have to be. pay the players, which is why they have to spend all of their money, and a lot of that goes to their head coach. Thank you, Mr. Clyde. We'll talk again next week.

Thank you for the time as always. Joe Clatt, Fox Sports, on it from college football playoffs to breaking the games down to giving us a reason why coaches bank crazy money for winning less than 10 games here. That's why we love him.