The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - People We Miss Hearing From - Joel Klatt

Episode Date: April 15, 2020

Hey, it's Coach Dan Tony. This is Sports Talk 790. You're home for Houston Rockets basketball. Time is 131 on Sports Talk 790. We've had a lot of great friends joined the show over the last few weeks in the category of people we miss hearing from. We've had Kevin Harlan and Jim Nance. We've had our friends from AT&T, all the Astros and Rocket broadcasters. And a guy we love talking to because he is such a great analyst, got a great sense of humor,

and is a star at the Fox Network. We speak of our good friend Joel Clatt joining us on the show. Joel, most recently, of the XFL. First of all, great to hear your voice. And how is everything in Southern California? You guys are somewhat in the epicenter of all this mess. How is it like moving around to L.A. these days? Yeah.

You know, I would say it is what it is. I actually live in Orange County down in Newport Beach. And, I mean, to be very honest with you, you know, I don't know anyone who has gotten or been infected with COVID. And a lot of our friends who are doctors and nurses are, you know, have told us that our hospitals and Orange County are, you know, almost empty. So we are thankfully doing great. I don't know, you know, if that is a shock to you guys or not. but I think L.A. County is a little bit worse than us, but where we're at, we're doing, you know, fairly well. And I just hope that we can get back to work so some of these people can get their jobs back, to be honest with you.

Amen to that. You were in the middle of calling your first season of the XFL. Just give me a couple of thoughts from the time that you watched your first game, whether it be in the rehearsal game or some practices as the season moved along. I'm going to assume it exceeded your expectations in terms of quality, or did you kind of expect what you saw during the course of your five-week run? No, I think it was probably a little bit of both, right? I mean, listen, there were some moments that were ugly. But I thought there were a lot of moments that exceeded my expectations. And you have to understand that just by the nature of the sport,

if you have a team that is an existing team, a college football team and NFL team, offense and quarterback play always lags behind. Because offense and specifically quarterback play is all about details, timing, and execution. And that just takes longer because you've got to get several people on the same page of those three elements. And, you know, all 11 guys really on the offense on the same page of all those elements, whereas defense can be more about line up correctly and then play without standing effort. Now, obviously, there's some technique and talent and athleticism involved. certainly, but that's one of the reasons why defenses have always been ahead of offense is at the beginning of every single season, whether it's the preseason in the NFL

or if it's fall camp for college football. So having said that, can you imagine that's with existing teams? Now you move to a brand new league where everybody on the offense is brand new. There's no incumbent starters, and everyone's trying to learn. So I thought that the offense was going to be struggling early in the season. And candidly, it exceeded my expectations in particular with teams like Houston. I was so bummed out for Houston because they were having such a magical year. I felt like the fans there had really attached themselves to the rough necks. PJ Walker was playing outstanding football. So yeah, I mean, from the first time I went down there, I saw some practice games in Houston when everyone was there playing preseason. It looked rough.

And by the time I was there for week one and PJ Walker was running all over, it was exceeding my expectations. I'm severely bummed out for that league because it was nothing that they did. You know, this was a league, quite frankly, Matt, that was going to survive. It was going to have an outstanding championship and it was going to have a second season. And this took that away. And I'm so gutted for those people that worked so hard and now have lost their jobs for something that was not any doing of their own accord. Yeah, and I'm stunned that not only did they shut the season down, which was no surprise, but that they, essentially, I don't think we'll ever see a spring league again. If Vince can't put this behind him and put the money and the marketing behind it, I don't know what else is he had a great television contract.

It felt like the TV partners were heavily vested in it. So it was sad because we had quite a few listeners of ours, Joel, that enjoyed the roughneck stuff. Last thing about the XFL, there were lots of different rules. Was there one or two that you'd love to see implemented in confidence? and or pro football that you thought, man, this is just a great idea. Other mainstream football needs to adapt to it immediately. Yeah, the kickoff, I think, should be adopted across all levels of football immediately, starting eight years ago.

I mean, this is the no-brainer of all no-brainers, and quite frankly, the only reason that it won't be adopted in the near future or it won't be adopted immediately is because of hubris and ego. And that's a shame because it was done with the right intentions. It wasn't done just to be different. It was done to be better. I strive, you know, I shouldn't say I. I've read a lot of, I'm a big reader and leadership books and philosophy and so on and so forth.

Have you heard me talk about when a new coach gets a job, he should always talk about building a culture rather than changing a culture, right? that little nuance in language is so important to get the existing people within that organization on your side rather than pit them against you. You don't want to create factions by saying we need to change the existing organization because you're putting those people down. You want to say you want to build an organization because you're inviting them to be a part of something better. So I I think along those same lines when it comes to trying to improve a product, no one should change for change sake. Okay?

Like if, like for instance, when FS1 started, they made a lot of mistakes. And a lot of those mistakes were born out of the fact that they just wanted to be different just to change from ESPN just for change sake, rather than changing to be better. There should be a purpose to every change. I go through that long dissertation, Matt, to basically tell you that I thought that the XFL's kickoff rule was a change for the betterment of the game, and in particular, the health and safety and wellness of the players and the participants, and it can increase the longevity of our sport, at least in my estimation. The kickoff play accounts for about 6% of the snaps or action in college football and pro football,

And yet that play, that 6% of action accounts for 21% of the head trauma because of the long run impact, the long run collision. They took that out of the game and yet retained the exciting aspect of having a return, having the kickoff be part of the game, having it be more penal for the kickoff to go out of bounds or in the end zone, so on and so forth. It was a fabulous change and should be adopted across all levels of football immediately, immediately. And the only reason it wouldn't be is because of hubris and ego. The other thing that I would say is I thought that the clock rules were very good in order to try to speed up the game. In particular, outside of the last two minutes of each half, you heard me talk about this in college football in particular. There is no reason to stop the clock on a first down outside of the last two minutes of each half. And so I think speeding up some of those games would not only limit or, I should say, negate some of the volume of snaps on the players, which then again goes towards player safety, but it would be a much more entertaining product for the fans because of the speed of the game and how it happens.

So there you go. Long answer for both of those. I got you. I loved the different extra porn opportunities. And I also love the Sky Judge. And we brought this up yesterday how the NFL just decided to give up on the overruling. of the past interference calls. And I hate that they did that.

But I thought the Sky Judge was a very efficient way, too, especially because we were actually taken in the room and were able to hear them talk through the play with the official. Yeah, I agree with you. I think even more so than just the sky judge aspect is just the transparency of it. You know, being able to be in there and hear it was phenomenal. All right. Yeah, and I thought y'all did a great job.

Both ESPN and Fox had a great job. We're really putting it in us in front of the guys and talking to them. visiting with Joe Clyde Fox Sports here on the Matt Thomas show. Okay, next thing on the list for us, we've got so many things to get to, is the college football season itself. And I know that Mike Oresco, the commissioner of the American, said, look, we have no time clock. We had Chris Pezman on, the athletic director at the University of Houston, says, we're on no clock. You don't share facilities for the most part with any other franchise NFL team.

Maybe Miami would be one exception, maybe a couple others. Could you envision, Joel, this college football season kicking off. off November 15th. In your mind, is there any hurry to get this season started? Because I feel like, and you're much more of an economist of sports than I am, I feel like college football needs the full building way more so than the other sports because those 85,000 at Bryant-Denny, the 90,000 at the Coliseum, the 100,000 at Michigan Stadium, they not only fund those athletic programs that like to have lots of fancy and nice

things, but Michigan football is going to bankroll the Michigan tennis team and the golf team. And also, by the way, when Ball State comes to play Michigan and they get $1.2 million, Michigan's not going to pay that kind of money if they can't put 100,000 people in their stadium. So where do you see college football, A, with or without fans, and would you be willing to see the season push back a little bit in order to get those fans in the stadiums? Okay, great. I mean, that is a great question, Matt. and you're on the absolute right path.

Let me just state, first of all, what I feel like is the biggest financial difference between college football and the National Football League. And it's not just volume, right? And it's not just dollar amount because that's clearly a stark difference. The NFL is just a behemoth. Now, having said that, the NFL is a behemoth, but a large portion of that revenue goes to line the pocket of the orange. owner. Okay. We all understand that. It's a business, right? Wouldn't you agree with that?

Yes. Okay. In college athletics, all of that revenue is not necessarily lining the pocket of the quote-unquote owner as much as it is going to the operations of the athletic department. Now, you can say that they're paying some people within the athletic department, namely the head coach and the athletic director too much. I understand that, but that is still and operating expense. Okay. And so in college football, all of that money is vitally important in order to sustain other sports. And right now, I believe the number that the NCAA deems minimum amount of sports needed

in order to be an NCAA-sanctioned athletic department is 16. I believe that that number will be lowered and that that barrier will be lowered so that schools can cut programs knowing that they're going to take a hit to their overall athletic department budget, whether they play a full season or not. Because remember now, a lot of these places are going on donations and fundraising and so on and so forth. And that's going to be down as the economy is down just overall. Now you talk about having fans in the stands. Remember, I just told you, every dollar is vital, not for the purpose of lining one's pocket outside of operational expenses, but for the operating of all the programs within the

athletic department. So these athletic directors know that it's not just about throwing the product out there and televising it, whereas in the NFL, they televised with no fans. They're still making millions and millions, hardly billions of dollars. It's a very different proposition with the margins in college football are much smaller than in the NFL. So because of that, I do feel like there is going to be some wiggle room about when the start date of the season actually happens. The only thing that they're going to have to get pushed up again is potentially the draft, and they're going to have to work with the NFL as it relates to next year's spring draft and whether that's going to get pushed back into the summer so they can

finish a football season, whether it's going to stay the same and they'll end right before it, what happens to the draft process, what happens to the combine, what happens to in-person meeting, so on and so forth. That's just one of a million issues that they've got to think about in terms of timing of the season. But first and foremost, be rest assured, they can and will move the season. They understand that they've got flexibility in that realm. What is much more difficult for them is to try to land on a time period twofold that they can, one, ramp up and be safe, right? So how much time does a team need in order to be ready to play a contest? And two, how do they get these 100 to 200 to 300 support staff all together in a safe way, test them enough times to where we know that

this virus is not running rampant through an organization. Those are questions that I think are much more difficult to answer. So to go back to the genesis of the question, will they move the season? I'm not sure. Are they going to try to play it? Absolutely. Because they have to. Every dollar is vital to the operation of the entire athletic department. When they play, it remains to be seen. play it, I do believe that they will. Do they need fans in the stands? Yes, they are going to need fans in the stands, whatever that looks like.

I can ask you 50 more questions. I'm going to narrow it down to one last one. You've got your draft guide out on Fox Sports.com. Look, we here in Houston don't have a first round pick. Don't feel like we'll ever get one again. So let's get to the big question of this draft.

Were you putting Tua in the draft? Are you concerned, not concerned? Do you watch the videos he puts out there. Give me your thoughts about Tua. Where he is as a quarterback, what you've seen in the video, and what team will take that chance on grabbing him in the first round? I love Tua. I love his game. He's explosive. I love his release. It's quick. He's accurate. He was highly productive. He did it with three of the best wide receivers as a trio that you can have in college football. In fact, the best one's probably not even coming out in Devante Smith. And they're still going to

have two first-round picks and Cherry Judy and Henry Ruggs. Having said that, I am so concerned about the injuries, namely because they all happen in very much the same vein. He thinks he's more elusive than he actually is. He gets caught from behind and rolled up on. He hurts his ankle. He fractured his hip. The surgery on the hip, I think, is a huge deal.

And while the video of him throwing at his pro day, quote unquote, was good, I was really concerned about the last few throws because it looked like, at least to me, and I don't think I'm trying to hunt for ghosts here. It looked like he lost a lot of velocity. And if you go back and watch, I think you're going to see what I saw. I think some teams are going to look at that and be a little skittish. So it wouldn't shock me at all, to be quite frank with you, if Justin Herbert is the second quarterback taken,

in particular because teams love his arm, love his arm. I know many teams are split between Tua and Herbert, burrow number one, split between Tua and Herbert with loves falling behind them. Great stuff, as always, friend. Take care of you and your family. Stay safe. We look forward to seeing you back on television whenever it's going to be. And thanks for being part of our segment of people we miss hearing from because we miss hearing from your friend and talk to you very soon, my friend. Thanks for the time. I appreciate it. You guys have a good day. Okay. Anytime, man. I love coming on with you.