10 Burning Questions going into the 2026 Season

Now I'm not saying that they're definitely gonna win the national championship, but there's a chance that this is a better team. It is littered with guys that could potentially become that player in college football. I don't believe that this team can play by their mantra and go all gas and no breaks. Who can win the national championship? Love 'em or hate 'em. Lane Kiffin is fabulous for the sport. It's college football better than ever. (upbeat music) - Hey, welcome into the program. We've got 10 burning questions leading into the 2026 college football season. This is the Joel Clutch, I'm Joel Clutch. This show is sponsored by Hilton, Hilton for this day. We cannot wait for this season. I have been so excited and I think that you're gonna know why after we get through these questions, what are the biggest questions surrounding this college football season? I know we had some games in week zero, so we got to talk about football from last Saturday, which was awesome, which was awesome. But now we get to really answer the questions. And if you haven't seen anything about this season, I think that these 10 questions are gonna get you prepared for this college football season. So here we go, we're gonna dive in with right now. What I think is the biggest question in all of college football, which is, will the Big Ten continue its run over the SEC? This has been the narrative, the overarching narrative over this sport now for a little over a year. Obviously it is the reason that we're talking about this is because of the national championships. The last three national championships coming out of the Big Ten, that's obviously where you have to start, Michigan Ohio State and then Indiana. But it's been even more than that because for so long, the SEC had dominated and they were the premier conference in college football, by a wide margin. They won everything. They beat everybody in the postseason. They won the national championships. They would win the non league games. They were the dominant force. It was also that way in the NFL draft every single year. It was the SEC with the most players drafted in the first round, which is really the marker for the top tier of what we've got in college football. And over the last few years, we've seen the shift happen, not just at the top winning the championships, but also in the records in these bowl games and last year in the first year on the NFL draft. These are what those numbers are in the last three seasons. Obviously, all big 10 championships. The SEC is 0 and 4 against the big 10 in the, in the CFP and the college football playoff. It doesn't get bigger than that. And that is complete dominance undefeated. 0 and 4, 2 and 7 versus all the other power conference teams, plus Notre Dame. So it's not just the big 10 that they're struggling with. It's everybody. And including Notre Dame. Obviously Notre Dame with a huge win a couple of years ago over Georgia in the playoff. In the last two years, we've seen two and five. The SEC is versus the big 10 in non CFP bowl games. So it's not just the CFP, but it's also non CFP bowl games. The big 10 had the most first round draft picks last year for the first time in a long time. We saw that the SEC wasn't dominant in that metric. So every single metric that you used to hear about and candidly, the ones that matter, these games that matter, the first round draft picks, the elite talent. The big 10 has overtaken the SEC. This year for the first time since all the way back in 2015, the SEC did not receive one, not one first place vote in the AP poll. I was pretty shocked about that. I thought for sure, Texas would get a number one vote. I thought for sure, Georgia would get a first place vote. Neither of them did. Everybody else in that top six and seven, they were getting some love Oregon got loved. But her name got loved Ohio State ended up being the number one team here in the preseason the AP back in 2015, by the way, what was going on? Because yeah, Bama was on their run. Well, Ohio State was coming off of their national championship with Urban Meyer and they still had Zeke Elliott and that great team returning. So they were a unanimous preseason number one. That's the only reason that the SEC didn't receive a vote in the preseason poll for number one in that poll in 2015 is because the Buckeyes were unanimous. The Buckeyes are again, the number one team this year doesn't mean that they're going to win the national championship and it doesn't mean that the SEC won't win a national championship this year. It just kind of illustrates where we're at in the sport because it has been a drastic shift over the last few years. So the question then begs, what will happen this year? That's I think the biggest overarching narrative over our sport other than all the governance stuff, which I don't want to talk about right now because we want to talk about football. So the football questions, it really starts with that. Who's going to be the dominant power from a conference perspective? That's what everyone wants to know. And we're going to have great evidence right away week two of this college football season. It's going to be phenomenal. I'll be in Michigan for the Oklahoma Michigan game, Gus Ginny and I on the call. That's going to be an incredible game. OU off of their playoff appearance a year ago with Brent Vinnables, John Matierback, his air quarterback with brand new Wolverine's head coach Kyle Wittingham coming from Utah, all the mess that happened at Michigan. And now they've got their quarterback, Bryce Underwood back, all these new coaches and a team that on paper could be really good, but we don't know based on that schedule. That's a great match up. And then obviously the monster game as the number one team in the country in the preseason Ohio State goes to Austin to face maybe the most talented team in the country in Texas in Austin. That's going to be a wild wild affair. So that's why I start with that that week because I think that the narrative will either perpetuate for the big 10 or totally shift towards the SEC based on that weekend. Now they could split and it could just be even and we all move forward. And maybe that's even the likely scenario. As was the case a year ago when both home teams won Ohio State at home and Oklahoma at home. But imagine for a moment, one conference sweeps these two games. These massive games, huge brands, as big of brands as we have in each of these conferences. Okay. Imagine for a moment that the SEC sweeps these games. Oh, you goes to Michigan and wins Texas at home, beat so Ohio State who at least at this point is the number one team in the country. I think that the noise in particular from you know who would be deafening, deafening. Listen, they already want to try to perpetuate the narrative that they're the best conference even in the face of all the numbers that I already read off, which is why I read them off because right now it's it's pretty sound. The evidence is very clear what conference is the better conference currently. Now if those two teams owe you in Texas were to win those games week two, can you imagine what the airwaves will be like? I tell you man, they will be pumping that machine like you cannot believe. Now on the flip side, if the big 10 were to sweep those weekends, that week two matchup. If Michigan wins at home and Ohio State goes into Texas and beats the Longhorns, I don't think that the narrative will be as loud because the big 10 doesn't have the blowtorch that the SEC has obviously, right? I mean, all those guys in the tank, in the tank and here's the big 10 if they sweep it, what it's going to be is it will be a loud fundamental solidification of where the sports at right now. It will be foundational, emphatic proof that all these numbers are not misleading and that the dominance rests in the north in the big 10. I think that's a fascinating deal. If I had to make a prediction and I know that listen, this year is not going to ultimately ride on week two of the season, I'm just talking about the narrative, the narrative is going to get very loud one way or the other and certainly louder if it goes the SEC's way. And if I had to make a prediction and you look at the top teams in the country and more on how many teams I think could actually win the national championship a little bit later in these 10 burning questions. But if I had to make a prediction, I think that there are more teams that I trust to win the national championship in the big 10 right now than I do in the SEC. Texas has some questions. There are a lot of teams with questions. I don't want to just say like, oh, for sure, it's going to be the big 10. But I trust Ohio State to go and get it done. They're going to be there at least you would imagine as the preseason number one, Indiana just did it last year. They might even be better this year more on that in these 10 burning questions. You've got Oregon that might have the best roster in the country and certainly experience where you needed on the defensive line with all those guys turning down the NFL and coming back. That's going to be a deep defensive line and experience a quarterback with Dante more. I trust those teams. Now do I trust Georgia? I trust Kirby smart. I love Georgia. I don't love their wide receiver core. So I think that that's a team that can go and win a national championship, maybe, maybe. And then there's Texas. Well, Texas has to level up. They've got to prove that their ceiling is above where it's at right now. Now to be fair, so does Oregon, because Oregon has a ceiling, even though they've been inching that ceiling just a little bit higher every single year, whereas Texas had a clear ceiling of the semi final two years in a row, then fell well, well short of expectations. So Texas has to take a big jump this year. So if I had to predict, I would predict that that it stays similar to this. I think that there is more top end talent. And there are better top end teams in the big 10 this year and more specifically towards the national championship. So I predict that the big 10 is going to win another one this year as opposed to the SEC, but I could be wrong. I think it could be close. That leads to kind of this, this second burning question. This is the one that I actually get to my face most often during the course of this off season. I think it speaks to, it speaks to the shocking nature of what happened. in the last two years with Indiana going from nowhere into the playoff. And then a team though, we thought like, Oh, they can't really repeat that playoff performance. They beat a lot of, you know, let's say average teams lost to the two good teams. And then all of a sudden they go 16 to know and win the national championship. And everybody asks me in this off season is Indiana going to be good again? Listen, this is an emphatic. Yes. Indiana is a powerhouse. They are a powerhouse right now. Kurt Signetti, I think is the best coaching college football. That was proven last year. That roster was not as expensive as all the rosters that they were beating in the college football playoff. That was not as expensive in a roster as Miami had or Oregon had or or Ohio State had in the big 10 championship or Alabama had in the Rose Bowl. No, no, no, no. This misnomer that it was a billionaire, the Mark Cuban just threw money at the problem. That was false. It absolutely was false. Mendoza took less money to play at Indiana than he did turning down the school that he could have gone to. So I think that alone proves that Signetti is a great recruiter in particular out of the portal. He's terrific in development. He's a great evaluator and then he's a terrific coach on the field. He retains all of his staff. This is the one thing that I think is going to be hard to wrap your minds around. They were 16 to know and national champion champions. And the conversations that I'm having with people around the program at Indiana is that they're quietly ahead of where they were each of the last two years right now with this team. There is a chance. No, I'm not saying that they're definitely going to win the national championship, but there's a chance that this is a better team. I don't know if they're going to make all those plays like they did a year ago against Iowa and Oregon and Penn State and Ohio State and Miami. I don't know if they're going to make all those high leverage plays. I'm not guaranteeing that, but there is a sense that this is a better team. Let me just show you where they're, they think that they're further along right now. Josh Hoover is further along in the offense and his, his, his comfort in the offense than where Mendoza was or Curtis Rourke was two years ago. That's something that they point to the offensive line is further along. That's one of the best offensive lines in the country. One of the most experienced and best offensive lines in the country, led by the All-American left tackle Carter Smith, who was also the big 12s offensive lineman of the year. They've got running backs back. They're front seven on defense might be even better than last year. And this was one of the best defenses in all of college football. They are eight, nine deep just in their defensive line. They've got an All-American and Tyrick Tucker, a couple of transfers that they really believe are going to impact them on the outside, including a cheaty obi eyes or the defensive end from Kansas state. They've got Mario Landino. He's a 300 pounder that's still in the middle. They got a transfer from Tulsa Joe jelly that they really believe in in the middle. They're still waiting on the eligibility saga for Keelan Wyatt and Stephen Daly. These two guys are caught up in that fifth year. Now they didn't go to the NFL. So they're caught up in that class of 2022 waiting on this fifth year eligibility ruling. So they could be eligible in there. They've got Josh Burnham transfer from Notre Dame. They're loaded up front on defensive line. So again, further along than where they were a year ago. Now, there's two major questions that I have about Indiana. And one of them is not replacing Fernando Mendoza. It's not replacing Aiden Fisher even their linebacker. I think that the two biggest keys for them are going to be finding guys to replace. I would say two of the most unheralded players that they had from a year ago. They're tied in H back Noah, or excuse me, Riley Noah Kowski. Riley Noah Kowski was outstanding. He was terrific in the run game as a blocker. He was a great pass catcher as a tied in. They've got to replace him. They don't have experience at tied in. That's a big question on the offensive side. And then defensively, I don't think people really understand how valuable the Angelo ponds their corner was. I think everyone rode him off just because of his stature, very short, very small, but he owned half the field. And it allowed their defense to play with numbers everywhere else. I was watching the film in the national championship game, preparing for this week's game as we call that game against North Texas. And there are it's staggering how many times Miami is in a three by one set, three receivers on one side, one to the other. And all of the attention of 10 defenders for Indiana is on the three side. And they're just allowing the Angelo ponds to go one on one on the back side. Just have half the field and all of this. So they're playing at times five over three on the wide side of the field and just letting him have that back side. And he's batting balls down. He was amazing for them. So now Jamari Sharp, who started on the outside last year is moving into the boundary into that tight side, the short side of the field. How he plays is going to be a huge question and a huge benchmark as to how good that team can be. So those are the two questions for Indiana. But are they going to be good? Yes, yes, they are. It was not just Fernando Mendoza, even though he turned into the face of college football last year, he was fabulous. And obviously, Josh Hoover is going to have to play great in those high leverage situations. We'll see if he's able to do that. But as of right now, he's further along in the offense than Mendoza was. Mendoza as the face of the sport, though, brings us to our third burning question. And that is who is going to be the face of the sport. Listen, when you look around, every single year, somebody grabs the attention of the nation. Usually it's the Heisman Trophy winter. But there's a player in college that kind of just grabs the sport and it's like they're the face of the sport. Joe Burrow was that Johnny Menzel was that Robert Griffin III was that last year for Nando Mendoza was that guy. And now we've got a huge crop of players that could be in line to give us that face of college football. The quarterback class is considered the best in years. I think that they are outstanding. You've got guys like Dante Moore, Arch Manning, CJ Carr, Julian Saiyan, Darian Menzel, Trinidad Chambles, Jaden Mayava, Sam Levitt, Jon Mateer. I think it's also important to really emphasize the experience that these guys have. It's not just that they have potential. It's that we've seen it. You see, of the top 10 teams in the country right now, you take a look at all the starting quarterbacks for those 10 teams in the AP top 10. And the average number of starts, average number of starts for every one of the quarterbacks is 19. That's a ton. That is a ton of experience for these guys. All right. Just to give you some sense of what it was a year ago. Last year, the average number of starts for the top 10 quarterbacks was about 10 and a half. So they're almost double more experience. And by the way, that was severely influenced by really three guys who are no longer around. Drew Aller had over 25 Carson Beck had over 25 and Cade Clubnik had over 25. Look at all these guys from last year. A lot of the same names. Arch Manning had two starts entering last year. Julian Saiyan, no starts entering last year. Gunnar Stockton, one start entering last year. Same for CJ cars, zero starts. Dante Moore had five Thai Simpson. No, sir, like these guys were not experienced. And now you look around. And the fewest number of starts any of these guys have is like Trinidad Chamberlain at 13. And by the way, those 13 starts that he had for Ole Miss doesn't count his starts at previous locations and lower levels. You've got Julian Saiyan now. He's sitting there with 14 starts. You've got Arch with 15 Gunnar Stockton with 15. You've got CJ car with 12. He's actually the lowest of all of them. CJ car. And he might be the best one. Hoover's got 31. Moore's got 20. You've got, let's see, John Matier has 24. Daryl and Mensa has 27. Marcel Reed has 21. So one of these guys is going to become the face of the sport. And oh, by the way, oh, by the way, I haven't even mentioned the guy who is widely considered the best skill position player we've seen in college football, maybe in our lifetimes, but certainly in over a decade in Jeremiah Smith. So the potential is is limitless for college football this year. Like it could be an unbelievable year. And the guy that grabs the sport and brings it down and becomes the face of the sport is going to be the one that plays best in high leverage moments and on big stages. That's what it becomes. And that guy's ultimately going to be the Heisman Trophy winner. Now right now, the betting favorite to win the Heisman Trophy is CJ car. Now I'm going to tell you why I'm not going to pick CJ car to win the Heisman in a moment, but I just want to talk about those those moments and stages for a second because all of these guys are going to have ample opportunity. Some of them more than others. Think about even just that Texas Ohio State matchup. You've got San and Jeremiah Smith. You've got Arch, you've got Cam Coleman. You've got all these stars in college football. Whoever plays great in particular, if it's a really good game and makes a play late, they will grab the sport week two and then just have it right in their hands. John Matier had that after the week two win over Michigan a year ago. Okay. So we understand that. That's a great stage. And then you have the moments that allow you to capture the sport and the attention of everyone that follows it. Okay. You're going to have that Dante Moore is going to have huge games, right. A Trinidad Chambus is going to have huge games. Levitt will have huge games. My OVA will have a huge games. And this is where I get to a guy like CJ car. So cars not going to have those games. Now I know the Miami schedule is is not great. And the Notre Dame schedule, also not great, happens to be that they play each other and that's easily the best game and most difficult game on each of their schedules. So maybe that's a moment, maybe that's a stage, okay, I'll give you that. But think of the number of moments and stages and potential high leverage, high plays and impact plays that all these other guys can make. So it's because of that that I'm not going to pick car, even though I love him, but he's not going to play a big game until October against BYU, he might be lost in the shuffle. I'm going to go against conventional wisdom here with all these great quarterbacks. And in particular with some of them having such difficult schedules, I do think it's going to be really hard for some of these guys to escape that loss. And as we know from following college football, a loss for a quarterback can really kick you out of that Heisman conversation, you know, quite rapidly, just ask a guy like Andrew Luck loss to Oregon that year and all the sudden, RG3 is, is your Heisman trophy winner. And it's for that reason we don't put that burden on other players and we've got a player who I think is the best overall player in college football. And at the end of the year, we might be looking up and this guy might have well over 40 touchdowns in his career receiving. So my pick for Heisman is going to be Jeremiah Smith. I think at the end of the year, there's going to be a lot of candidates. No doubt one might even be his teammate and quarterback Julian Sain. But he has the ability to capture moments and make the plays that will make our imagination go wild where everyone will be sharing viral moments of Jeremiah Smith. And I think that he can capture become the face of the sport by the end of the year. He might have numbers that we haven't seen a long time from a career perspective. Big 10s all time leading God this and that I'm going to pick Jeremiah Smith. I know with this many quarterbacks, that's crazy, but my Heisman pick is going to be Jeremiah Smith. I think he's the best player in the sport. Now one of those guys that's going to have a great opportunity is arch and his team Texas. A lot of people talking about the expectations for them and that leads me to the number four question I have for this college football season will arch and his coach Steve Sarkesian with the Texas Longorns finally raised their ceiling touched on that a little bit ago in this episode. This is a really good team. Again, I was surprised that they didn't at least receive one vote in the first spot in the AP poll. They flamed out a little bit last year after being ranked number one to start the season, but, but everyone kind of lost touch with them and then it was just the big narrative is like, arch is the problem. He didn't play well. Arch had a really strong second half of the season and he was one of the best quarterbacks in the country during that time frame. In fact, he was, he was averaging 320 total yards per game. He had 20 total touchdowns and only two interceptions in his last six football games. That's playing incredibly well, incredibly well. So I don't think it's actually arch that has to like level up for Texas. He was there. What wasn't working for Texas last year was the fact that they were not playing well at the wide receiver position, their own line was underperforming. They couldn't protect them. Couldn't run the football and the defense played poor and and way worse than what we expected their defense to do. That defense on paper last year really should have been one of the better defenses in college football. It's still kind of shocking to me that they weren't at least like top five or six in college football. They weren't even close. So the areas of the team that actually have to level up for them to increase their ceiling. And when I say ceiling, I mean, winning the SEC playing for a national championship game. In order to do that, they've got to do two things. They've got to run the football better. It does so many things for your team, including protect your defense, but it also protects your quarterback. It allows your quarterback to play in more advantageous, down and distant situations. It's better for archmaning. It's better for the play collar, Steve Sarkiesian, everything's better when you can run the football. That offensive line is very talented. They brought in a couple of transfer running backs. They claim that they're going to be able to run the football much more effectively. If they can't, it will be another long year for Texas. That's number one. Number two, you've got to fix the defense. In order to do that, they went out and got a brand new defensive coordinator and will mush champ. Now an old defensive coordinator that's now a new defensive coordinator. If you'll remember, he was at Texas way back in the last couple of years of Colt McCoy's 10 year, by the way, and he was excellent there at Texas. He's been in the SEC forever head coach, South Carolina, the last few years at Georgia. He was kind of a specialist assistant analyst type of guy for, for Georgia. So he's been there with Kirby and now he's back and he's going to be coordinating the defense for Texas. Here's the thing. I don't believe that this team can, can play by their mantra and go all gas and no brakes. If Ohio State and Indiana taught us anything last year, it's that a methodical ball control system and philosophy pays dividends. It protects your defense. It allows you to play late into the season and still be fresh and remember the SEC still going this year to nine games, nine conference games in the regular season. There will be a, a premium on trying to keep your defense at particular fresh. How do you do that? Run the football. You play a little bit slower. You can't go all gas and no brakes. So that's one thing that they're going to have to do. They have to run the football better and then that defense has got to improve. I think that Wilmush champ is going to have a, a huge impact on this season because if he fixes that defense, then yes, Arch, Sark and Texas can raise their ceiling, but that's really where it lies. It's not with arch and Sark. It's with Wilmush champ, the offensive line and the defense. Those are the areas for Texas that have got to change, obviously a difficult schedule. They've got that Ohio State game. They've got to play at Tennessee ranked number 20. They've got Red River. They've got Ole Miss. They've got three road trips in November at Missouri, at LSU, at Texas A&M. So this, this schedule is daunting. There's no doubt, but they are one of the more talented teams in the country. And if they run it and play good defense, then they could easily win a national championship. So he's a coach that I'm looking at, which brings me to my number five question, which is which new coaches are going to make a huge impact in year one. Now, I think that we default immediately go to the head coaches and listen, that's fine and I understand that. And so many ways the head coach is really like the quarterback is to the NFL. Like that's the focal point of these programs and they kind of rise and fall on the head coach. And so I get that. So if we're looking at head coaches, the guys who I think could make a huge, immediate impact and really increase the level of the program immediately, guys like Eric Morris at Oklahoma State. He goes from North Texas. He goes to Oklahoma State, takes a bunch of his guys with them. Does it remind you of anybody? Yeah. This is exactly what Kurt Signetti did when he went from JMU to Indiana and they popped right away. Went to the college football playoff. That's one I'm looking at, Bob Chesney now going from JMU to UCLA. Now I think it's going to be much more difficult for UCLA than it would be Oklahoma State because I think the big 10 is more difficult than the big 12. But it's, this is a guy that has a quarterback in Niko Yamalaya and they can increase their win total drastically right away. This is a really good coach. I also feel the same way about James Franklin and Virginia Tech. James is a hell of a football coach at Penn State. His only problem was that he couldn't get all the way to the mountaintop. Man, he's a good climber. He is a great climber. He built a really solid program at Penn State did a great job there. Couldn't get to the mountaintop and now he's at Virginia Tech and I think he will immediately make them better. So those are guys that I think could elevate their programs right away. Now, there are other new coaches with much tougher jobs, guys like Kyle Wittingham. Is he going to make an impact? Certainly he's going to make an impact. But can he level them up right away? Remains to be seen. Same could be said for Lane Kiffin. Now let's you looking for him to move them up right away. Can he do that right away? Remains to be seen. I think that's a giant wild card and it doesn't help with everything that's gone on over the first couple of weeks here of the season with all this eligibility stuff. But when you're talking about impact and in particular impact at the highest echelon of the sport, I don't actually think it's about new head coaches. Maybe Wittingham and Lane Kiffin can get their teams into that equation. Maybe, maybe, but we've got really good programs that I think could potentially compete for or win a national championship that have made major moves at the coordinator position. So which of the coaches, new ones that are going to make the biggest impact here in the 2026 college football season, I'm looking at guys like Jason Beck, the new offensive coordinator at Michigan. What does he do with Underwood? Will Muschamp already talked about him, defensive coordinator at Texas, Gary Patterson, new defensive coordinator at USC, imagine Lincoln Riley with a solid defense, Arthur Smith. No one talks about the fact that Ohio State has a brand new offensive coordinator. It's Arthur Smith. How about Drew Merringer? He's the new offensive coordinator at Oregon hired from within, not a ton of experience for a team that has a lot of expectation, you know, Dan landing is on the defensive side of the ball himself as a former defensive coordinator. And there's Merringer on the other side. What does he do? See, so like the impact of these guys is, is drastic. If one of these guys excels, it changes the trajectory. of their team. And in particular towards a college football playoff, birth or maybe even a national championship. If one of these guys flames out, then we're talking about a team that has massive expectations falling well short of expectations. That's impact. So is it really the head coaches? I think it's more of these coordinators and there's two in particular that I think could change the trajectory of the entire season as we view it as college football fans. And that's two guys Jason Beck, the coordinator at Michigan and Will Must Champ, the defensive coordinator for Texas. If all the sudden Jason Beck turns around Michigan's offense and namely the play of their high end, high recruit, uh, Bryce Underwood quarterback, if he changes the trajectory of that offense, all the sudden Michigan levels up. Michigan can be a playoff team. Michigan plays all the great teams in the big 10. That's a difficult schedule, but imagine if all the sudden he does Beck to Michigan, what he was able to do to Utah. Remember winning him in Utah never struggled defensively, always struggled offensively. He came in, they average over 40 points a game. So Beck did great at Utah with a mobile athletic quarterback, same thing he's got at Michigan. What does he do there? That's a huge impact. Change is the entire conversation of the big 10 and the entire playoff picture. Then you've got Will Must Champ, and I already touched on that a little bit ago. If Must Champ fixes the defense, all the sudden it's not just on arch. It's not just on sarc to go score more points than everybody else. Then all the sudden you can play safer. You can play slower. You can rest. You can do so many things that allow you to get through the war of attrition that is the SEC schedule and the potential college football playoff. If Will Must Champ changes this Texas defense and they return to any elite defense, which they absolutely have the potential to do so, they can win a national championship. That's impact. That's impact. So those are the two guys that I'm looking at. It kind of begs the question then, and this is where I'll go for the sixth burning question here of the college football season. Listen, I've toyed around with this for the entire to the off season. I've said seven, maybe eight. I'm landing on seven. I've got seven teams that can absolutely win a national championship this year. They've got the roster. They've got everything that you need and you've got to understand that right now it's a bit different than it used to be. You see, late in the 20 teens when the when Alabama's in the Georgia's in the Clemson's of the world were ruling and running college football, the the unquestioned biggest variable of who would win the national championship was recruiting talent acquisition. And so it was primarily a talent conversation. But in the last three years, it's changed. It's changed the way that we crown a champion has changed. The way that we build rosters has changed. The dispersion of talent has changed. And so now it's not just a talent conversation. It's a culture conversation. It's an experience conversation. It's how are you in leverage game situation conversation? And it's a coaching conversation. I think now more than ever in the history of the sport, you've got to build those pieces together in order to have a championship team move forward and go and win it all. I think there are seven teams that can do that. Now, who does it best? I'm not totally sure. Oregon, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Georgia, Indiana, Texas, Miami. All of them won't be surprised at all if they win the national championship. I won't be surprised at all. What makes the sport great this year, by the way, I think that's a deeper list to more eclectic list than we've had maybe ever in college football, but certainly for a long time and easily multiple decades. Now, you might be wondering to yourself like, well, Joel, wasn't there an eighth team that you kept talking about as the biggest wild card in college football during the course of the offseason? Yes, and I've talked about LSU as a potential eighth. I don't like it much anymore. I really don't. I don't think LSU can navigate a season like they'll have to navigate in order to win a national championship. There's just too much adversity that pops up now that you didn't have to deal with back in the day, but you're like back in the day. I was just watching the bench young documentary, the untold documentary on Netflix. It's fantastic. By the way, I would highly suggest that go watch it. I love Vince, by the way, and hopefully we'll get Vince on the program at some point. I'd love to just chop it up with Vince. He's, he's amazing. He's the best college football player I've ever seen in my life ever. Okay, but anyways, what struck me is in that O5 season, the fall of 2005, that was actually my senior year. We played Vince's team twice that year, but in that structure of college football, you had to go. If you're Texas, you had to play your regular season, win the big 12 championship game and then you were just put in the BCS national champion championship game. Same thing for USC, they just, they didn't have a championship game in the pack 10 back then. You just won the regular season of the pack 10. They were ranked in the top two and they're number one. They had that massive winning streak and they just go and they win. So when you look at that, it's like a regular season. How many games did USC really have to like strain to win adversity to win in that regular season? Well, Notre Dame comes to mind. You remember the bush, the bush push, maybe one other one, maybe same thing for Texas. We certainly weren't giving them adversity, even in the big 12 championship game. And now all of a sudden they go and they play that game. So what I'm saying is there were less potholes, road bumps, less adversity back in the day in college football, as opposed to what you have now this year. You've got to go win 16 games. You're going to be up against it. You're going to have to get through injuries. You're going to have to get through more than what you use to get through. It used to be a talent acquisition thing. Now it's a broader conversation, a more broad conversation. That's why I'm not thrilled or I'm, I'm not hot on LSU this year as a potential national champion. I don't have faith in that culture right now. I think it's a transactional culture. I think that that is being laid bare by lane fighting for these NFL players to come back and be a part of his roster. It's, it's wild to me. It's wild to me. That is a transactional program. Doesn't mean that they won't be good. They could go to the playoff. I'm just telling you that I don't think that they're going to have the culture. I don't think that they're going to have the chemistry as a team to go out and actually win the national championship because to do that boy, you better be like a rock. You've got to have each other's back. That's what Indiana had. That's what Ohio State had. That's what Michigan had. That's what Georgia had in those years when they were winning it. You know, even those Bama teams, even in a different structure, man, they came together. The Florida teams with Urban Meyer, the Ohio State team with Urban Meyer to win a national championship. There is a, there is a secret sauce that you've got to find along the way to come together as a group of men and play for something that's bigger than the name on your back. Is that going to happen at LSU this year? I just don't know, man. I don't know. I don't know if they're going to meet that mark. Doesn't mean that they won't be talented. They could even go and compete for an SEC title. I just don't think that they're going to have the locker room to deal with the adversity. Remember, he's actively, he's actively doing things right now that makes players on his own team question their status on the team by trying to bring in these NFL guys. I think it's crazy. I think it's crazy, which brings us to our number seven question. Are Lane Kiffin and LSU now the new villain in the sport and how good will they actually be? That's a great question. First answer is yes, they're absolutely the villain and all you have to do is look to see how the SEC is operating right now because forever the SEC did an unbelievable job of circling the wagons and protecting one another. Okay. They didn't they didn't tell on each other, you know, they sung each other's praises were the best conference. It's tough to win on the road. Were the SEC, man, they they absolutely held the line for the conference. No one did it better. No one did it better forever. And what do you see right now? The SEC as a conference, basically fighting Lane Kiffin. Now you could be arguing no, Joel, they're fighting a judge's ruling in Louisiana. Yes, they are funny. Why is that judge ruling that way? Well, he's a Baton Rouge judge and he's ruling that way to help LSU. Obviously, just like the judge in Lubbock was trying to help Brendan Soresby during the course of the off season get eligible. So he could play for Texas Tech. This is one of the reasons why we need to get the sport out of the courtrooms. But now you have the SEC actively against LSU and Lane Kiffin. There's no greater sign than that than they have become the villain of college football. And you know what? Not a bad thing. Not a bad thing. I'm not going to lament it. I think Lane is great in that role. I think he's great for college football. I think he's a wonderful coach from a schematic perspective. I would not want to play for him. But for my money, you want a villain in college football. Heck, Jim Harboh was the villain in college football. He made the sport better. It's more interesting when we have somebody to root against. I'm not saying everyone's going to root against him. I really am not. But I am saying there's no doubt in my mind that he's the villain of college football. So then how good can they be? Well, their talent's going to be exceptional. Exceptional. It would blow my mind. It would be the shock of all shocks if they came together actually from a chemistry perspective to run out there and actually like run the table when the SEC and when the national championship. I just talked about that. It is a different equation now. I think it takes more than talent, it takes more. than a great offensive mind to go and win a national championship. It takes everything. You've got to have chemistry. You've got to have depth. You've got to have experience. You've got to have togetherness. All these things are really hard to build. That's what it takes. Do they have that? I don't know. How good are they going to be? Really good. Really good. But love him or hate him. I text with him all the time. You guys might think that like you guys must not get along. We actually get along fine. I love Lane. I really do. And all these things that I've said on the pod to you, the fan, I've said to him. I've said him. I think he's crazy for the way he left Ole Miss. I think he's crazy for what he's doing right now in the portal with the NFL guys. I think it's wild. It's wild. How do you get a team to buy in if you're doing that? He doesn't care. He doesn't. He doesn't care what I say. And good. Good on him. We need villains in the sport. I do think he is a villain in the sport and the evidence is his own conference is fighting against him right now. Leads me to the number eight question because LSU is this team that's trying to level up in their own conference. I would say Texas and Georgia are on the A tier in the SEC LSU Oklahoma, Texas A&M Ole Miss, Alabama. These are the teams that are trying to get to that level, at least in my estimation. You might be a fan of one of those teams and you think what are you talking about? We're on that level. I don't know if you are. You're trying to get to that level. The same can be said for other conferences as well. If I look around the country, I look at a pretty clear line of demarcation between what I think of the premier teams that can win their conference and potentially win the national championship and then the teams just below them. So the big 10, they have a, I think, a more expansive top tier than anybody else, Indiana, Oregon, and Ohio State. They've got three. The SEC, I think has two, Georgia and Texas, ACC, clearly Miami, big 12 top tier. Texas Tech. So like these teams we know, these, now there's a bunch of teams right under them in every conference that are trying to get to that level. Like ACC, for instance, Virginia after that nice week, zero win over North Carolina State, they're right there. SMU, Louisville, Clemson, these teams are, they want to be on that level with Miami. Can one of them level up and beat Miami? That's a big question. I think the same can be said in the big 12, Texas Tech kind of clearly above everybody else, but then you've got Utah, you've got BYU, you've got Arizona, you've got maybe it's Oklahoma State. You've got all these other programs that are thinking of themselves, well, we want to be on that tier. So which one of them can elevate their game to get to that tier? Maybe it's BYU out of the big 12. And then obviously in the big two conferences, the big 10 and the SEC, I look at the big 10 and I look at four teams that are trying to level themselves up USC, trying to level themselves up Michigan, trying to level themselves up Penn State and Washington. These these teams are very good teams, but you've got to prove to me that you can potentially beat one of the top dogs. I think the SEC, like I already mentioned, you've got Alabama, LSU, A&M, Oklahoma, all these different teams and for me, my money would be on three teams that I think have the talent, the coaching, the potential to actually go up there and beat one of these top tier teams in these conferences. And that is in the big 10 USC and Michigan with a big caveat for Jason Beck, which I already talked about in this program. And in the SEC would be LSU just because of that talent, just because of that talent. We'll see about the chemistry, but those would be my picks for teams that I could see leveling up, getting themselves onto that tier where they're making possibly a playoff run, which then begs the question about dark horses because here's the other thing that we've seen every year in college football, maybe not every single year when it was just a BCS national championship, but certainly in the playoff era. We see teams come from nowhere to make the college football playoff. That's the nine question. Who could be this year's Indiana? Let's talk about dark horses, but I also want to define this in two different ways because Indiana can be two different things, can't it? You've got Indiana from 2024, which is a team that comes from nowhere plays a week schedule loses to the two best teams that they faced, but they were in the playoff. Kind of just comes from nowhere and it's like, wow, that was wild. That was fun. That was fun. So that's one definition. You've got Indiana 2024, then you've got Indiana 2025, which is what team that has been good is all the sudden going to just take a giant leap forward and put themselves on the top of the sport. Two different two different definitions, you've got 24 Indiana, you've got 25 Indiana. So where do we sit? For 24 Indiana, these teams that it's like, we don't think much of, we don't talk about them in the preseason, but man, you look at their schedule, you look at their experience, you look at even the talent on their roster and you could see something change or pop where all the sudden they're competing for a potential playoff spot. Here's some, here's some wild ones, Virginia, Washington. I know I put them in that second tier, but not many people talk about Washington, you know, Mon Williams is back, Jed Fish is there a second year, they've got a good defense, at least what should be a good defense, Oklahoma State out of the big 12, maybe they leveled themselves up just like SIG did, bringing all those transfers in in 2024. So Eric Morris could do that at Oklahoma State. I look at Bob Chesney at UCLA, these teams could make a big jump. How about Tosh LaPoi at Cal? So here's these teams, like those are your 2024 Indiana style run teams that we could potentially see in college football this year, wouldn't shock me, although it would be surprising and we saw one of them play already. How good was Virginia, Virginia could easily play for the ACC championship game. Now who could be the 2025 Indiana go from something to national champion? Because we've got some teams right now that are like, yep, they're doing it, they're doing a nice job, but they lost to the best teams that they played, you know, so we don't think a ton of them moving forward. I got to, how about Texas tech taking the next step? How about Ole Miss taking the next step? I don't hear many people talking about Texas tech and Ole Miss as potential national champions. Now granted, I said that we had seven teams. There are really talented teams above them, but I would not have told you at this point last year that Indiana had the roster or the chemistry or the experience or any of that to go win the national championship and they did. Maybe that's the case for Texas tech. They beat up on teams that they should and lost to the best team that they faced in Oregon last year. Ole Miss, everyone's overlooking him this season because lane left. What if they galvanize around Pete Golding with their great quarterback, Trinidad Chamblis? And they move forward and win the SEC. Maybe they just run rough shot over college football and they become this year's 2025 Indiana. And that leads me to the number 10 question and my really favorite question of this whole batch, which is, it's college football better than ever. The answer is yes. It's absolutely yes for all the things that aren't perfect in this sport and granite I understand that there are things that are not perfect. But all of these changes, however hard they have been to swallow, to watch, to work through. They have made the sport better. There has been more engagement than ever with college football. And as I talked about with Colin Coward, look at all the favorites for the national championship. We've got seven legitimate teams that can win the national championship and guess what? They are not regional teams. These are major brands spread out all over the country. That is great for college football. So whatever you think about NIL, whatever you think about transfer portal and whatever you think about the mess that is college football right now from a government standpoint, these changes, however hard to swallow have made the sport incredible. We've got great teams. We've got talent all over the country and we have every single part of this country represented with high expectations and expectations all the way at the top as high as one in the national championship. That makes it great. We've got great quarterbacks. We've got great players. This could be an epic season of college football. Speaking of epic, by the way, we have a huge live show coming up in Ann Arbor week two right before that Oklahoma Michigan game. That's right. We are bringing the Joel class show live to Ann Arbor on Monday's episode. I told you that we had a live show and we only had a hundred spots. That sold out really fast. In fact, it was like an hour and all of a sudden we didn't have any more spots open. So here's what we're going to do. We found some space. We talked with the venue. We've got 50 more spots that we can deliver to you. So make sure you go down to the description. Click on the link below because we've got 50 more spots for the live show Joel. Clack coming into Ann Arbor right before that OU Michigan game. That's going to be amazing. So click on that link and get those tickets fast. If you haven't subscribed to the program, do it share it with a friend because college football is amazing. We're almost here. I'm going to have picks and previews coming up for tomorrow. We are like headlong into the season. This is phenomenal. If you haven't followed us on social, make sure you do that. You can keep up with everything that we've got going on for the season at Joel Clatt Show. And if you're listening wherever you get your podcast, make sure to rate and review us. That would be awesome. Until tomorrow, have a great night, everybody. Those are the 10 questions you are now prepared for college football.