Michigan’s Miracle Finish: should it have happened? Kiffin & LSU roll + a new #1 in Klatt’s Top 10

In the moment, I thought that this was just an absolute botch of a call. I didn't love it, and I still don't love it. I'm wondering how long they can stick with Bryce Underwood. Well, that team was saving like in the way that they played the effort that they gave, the talent on the field, talent gets coaches fired. Potential gets coaches fired. I was incredibly impressed with Josh Hoover, even if I wasn't blown away by Indiana. We are so back in college football. Welcome in to the Joel Klatshow, I'm Joel Klats. This show is brought to you by Hilton, Hilton for the stay. We had a great weekend, and by the way, that was a light slate of games, right? I mean, the matchups were not tremendous, and yet we are going to be jam packed here. On our first reaction show of the college football season, I know we had week zero, but man, this is, this is it. We get to sink our teeth into actual football. We got to see all the big boys, all the contenders, granite, some of them didn't play anybody, but that is where we're at in college football. You know what? It was a tremendous weekend. We've got tons coming up, my reactions to the Indiana game. Obviously, that was the game that I called. I'll talk about Michigan, of course, thoughts on Oregon, thoughts on the entirety of the top 10. In fact, at the end of the show, I'll be unveiling my new top 10. And remember, my top 10, in particular, in the beginning stages of the year, is always so fluid. I've got massive changes in my top 10. That's coming up at the end of the show. But we start in an arbor with Michigan escaping against Western Michigan, Hail Mary TD, after one second was put back on the clock. That was a wild, wild night in the big house. I gotta tell you, I'll get to the performance or lack thereof from the Michigan Wolverines. Obviously, I feel terrible for the Western Michigan players. I was in an airplane and I'm going to have Mike Pereira come on and we're going to talk through some of the rules things about this. I was in an airplane watching this thing play out. I'm getting texts from people that are ahead in the broadcast as compared to the broadcast that I'm watching. So I'm watching this game and they start saying, like, no way. I can't believe it. I'm like, what do you mean a second is back on the clock? It doesn't make any sense whatsoever. So listen, this was wild at in the moment. I thought that this was just an absolute botch of a call. There was no other way to watch the broadcast and come up with any other conclusion. You know, obviously, yeah, underwood throws it down there, they complete it. They go crazy. They storm the field, which was wild in it of itself. After the performance that they had had put out there, it's Kyle Whittingham's first game. He's in shock, given the post game interview. I mean, that that was a, again, I'm overusing this term, but that was a wild, wild scene and only in college football, only in college football. We've got to start with the actual rule aspect of this thing. And because listen, the entire narrative is that Western Michigan got absolutely jobbed in this game. There was no other way to watch the game on broadcast television and come up with any other conclusion. And then two hours later, the big 10 comes out and releases full transparency. The audio and the entire sequence of how the rules officials back in the root replace center actually came up with that call. Then when you watch that video, you're like, well, yeah, I see exactly why they made that call, but doesn't it seem odd? I thought it was odd that it took them two hours to release that. That's the text I'm getting in the airplane is like, why haven't we heard anything from the big 10 conference? And candidly, I'm sitting there at 30,000 feet, thinking the same thing. I was very surprised it took them that long, but at least we got full transparency. And he wasn't just a statement saying, no, we were right, but they released the entire audio and video feed of what was taking place in the replace center. So I thought that that was a good thing, but it obviously leads to more questions because it's pretty obvious that there were multiple clocks involved with what we were seeing on broadcast television, watching NBC, what Terry McCauley was seeing and telling us as the audience on NBC and what the replace center was using. So I thought, like, well, rather than me try to explain all of this stuff, let's bring in the expert. So we're going to bring on Mike Pereira right now and without further ado, let's get right to him. So here he is. The original officiating expert as Gus and I like to call him affectionately, Mikey Rule Books. Mike Pereira joins the show. Mike, thanks for coming on, man. How are you doing? The original. That makes me feel old. No, no. No, no. I've been in the best way. I mean, I've been around these rules and it's a long time now. How long? I loved her, was the original, about 17 years. That's so good. That's so good. You changed broadcasting. I mean, that's why we love you so much. No, Mike, this play obviously in Arbor last weekend, that's all anyone is talking about. And the officials, the replay, adding a second, let's just, from your point of view, an expertise, what's going on in that moment in the replay center and what clock are they actually using? Yeah, I think that's the interesting thing that a play like this so rarely ever happens. And so I really think that the replay center, replay officials in Chicago really got caught up and play itself and was looking solely at the video that they got to look at now. So they're looking at things that it wasn't just the clock, right? And when you listen to them, they actually did a pretty good job, I think, because they first they said, okay, the person that touched the ball was out of bounds before he left his feet. So therefore, the ball is dead when it touches him immediately. Good observation in all of this, you know, panic type, although they sure seem very calm. But they looked at it and what they were looking at with the clock that they looked at when the ball was touched by that player, they're still showed one second on the clock. And so they very calmly, very calmly went through the whole process of telling the referee who was a first year referee in the big 10, 10 saying to him, there's one second left on the clock. And then he responds, so my announcement is going to be that there is one second left. The game is not over. There's one second, yada, yada, yada. And they put that second back on the clock. Um, really what they didn't do, it was look at the TV shot, even though they said, because you heard one guy say, are we looking at the program feed? And the answer was yes. But they didn't look at the television shot to see that there was a discrepancy at the video that the network was showing to everyone clearly showed that the clock had hit zero. Now clearly means by what, two one hundredths of a second, I don't know. But it was, it was clearly not being touched by that receiver. So you had two different views here, you had a discrepancy and, and so instead of taking a look at that and following really what is the protocol, um, they kind of just went through what they were looking at and they were happy. They were content. They gave it to the referee. Referee made it. They were, they were thinking good when, how many people thought that was bad? Yeah. I mean, shoot. I was, I was at 30,000 feet, you know, watching on, on our Delta flight coming home. And we're all the entire plane. We're all floored. We were coming from Detroit, actually, connected into Detroit. So there's a ton of Michigan fans on the plane. A lot of us from Fox were, we're connecting into Detroit and then coming back here to Los Angeles and, and, and we're all thinking to ourselves, how in the world is there one second on the clock? And obviously, Terry McCauley, the rules expert for NBC was put in a bad position because with the views that the television was putting out, it was clearly zero before the ball touched anybody, including the player who had established himself out of bounds and then jumped up and, and touched the ball. So then that leads to this go, why would there be a discrepancy in the two clocks? I mean, that's the question, you know, why is there when they're supposed to be one clock that's supposed to be synced really in both systems? But I think when you're talking about technology, there's going to be lag times and different types of equipment, even though, you know, if we were to say, if we were syncing it, you and I are going to sink it and we're looking right off the bat and we're thinking before the game, we look at, oh, okay, that's perfect. We're not going to recognize two one hundreds of a second. That's right. It shows that there, there is an element of air that maybe is in the system. But here's the key and here's where it got lost in my opinion, not my opinion. This is what it is. The official replay officials have been told that if there is a discrepancy, use the television footage. Do not use your footage in the command center. Use the footage that 10 million people are watching. Not the one that's three because if the basic premise of replay, Joel back in 99, we said, look it, don't overturn anything that people that are watching TV don't see. Don't use video that they can't see because conspiracy theories are going to be abound everywhere. And so the replay officials have been told, and man, I get it. This panic situation. You've never had it before. Take a deep breath. Look at both. If there is a discrepancy, go to the TV and use the television shot. So really, really, when it's all said and done, that's what should have happened. And there shouldn't have been another play. And early, because of what the Big 10 released, they did not do that. They did not look at the television copy of what was being shown to all of us. Right. And they did, I mean, they did prove, they did point out everything factually, which is true. And what they were looking at somehow, some way, sinking is the question that has to be addressed. But some way, there was still a tick on the clock when that ball was touched. So in your estimation, that was the wrong call. And that game should have been over. It's the right call with what they were looking at. But it's the wrong. They didn't follow the protocol, which by the way, is not in the rule book. It is not, there's a lot of ways that you look at things called philosophy, you know, that in officiating. It is something that has been said to them and will be told to them again this week. You know, is that if there is that discrepancy, don't use the hidden video, use the television video and, which really is the basic premise. So I, you know, I feel, I feel horrible, you know, for the outcome of the game, I feel horrible, going, listening to what's being said on the internet and everybody is ripping the officials, the officials, the officials had the game over. So they're the wrong group to say, if you're going to attach blame, they didn't do anything wrong. It's the replay center that made this decision. But it's, it's one of those, I think it's a huge question. And the question is, is certainly in the minds of everybody with the central Michigan and, and, and Michigan itself is who won the game, who lost the game, but in the big picture, why? Why did this really happen? I think that's what we have to look into. Yeah. Well, Mike, I appreciate your insight on that. And just real, real quick, you said something before we came on, this would not have been the outcome in the NFL. Why? Well, because if it goes to replay, if at the end of the game or the end of the half, if there goes to replay and time can be put back on the clock, the replay rule in the NFL is two seconds. So if it's only one second replay, will not put one second back on the clock in the NFL, they can only put time back on the clock if there's two seconds left. And their theory of that was when they put in the rule is they wanted to say consistent throughout the course of the game that there's always a lag time from when the timer stops the clock after he sees the official timeout, signaling timeout or the ball hitting the ground or the ball crossing the upright that they wanted to stay consistent. So that play, the officials, if they can do it on the field, they can actually correct it. But that play that happened, you know, this big play could not have been changed in replay period in the NFL. Wow. I mean, well, so that is only college football, right? I mean a play like this, a situation like this week one in week one. I mean, it's incredible. There's, there's no doubt. Mike, thank you for your time, man. I appreciate you. You are one of one, a dear friend and can't tell you how much I appreciate your time. Happy to be with you, Joel. Awesome. Man, I can't talk with Mike and not have a smile on my face. He is just one of the absolute class acts in this business and like I told him when a dear friend and obviously love to see him every single time that Gus and I are doing a game and we get to go back and talk to him during replays. But he brought up a couple of interesting points and I want to sit for a moment on this idea of how are the clocks different and you heard him just talk about how the sinking process and so I actually talked with our producer, Chuck McDonald and he had been talking with our director, Rich Dewey and producers and directors not only throughout Fox, but also throughout television and sports television. Because I will tell you this, as much of a shockwave as this sent through college football from a fans perspective, it sent a shockwave through the television industry because every one of us that broadcast these games in particular big ones were thinking to ourselves, we do not want to be stuck in the same situation that they were stuck in on Saturday night where there is a discrepancy between what they're seeing and talking about and analyzing and what the replay center is seeing and talking about and analyzing. Candidly, that can't happen. One of the ways Chuck, our producer, described this is that they go through a sinking process about 85 minutes before the game where they're sinking every single camera and every single clock and they're shooting a clock. And those sinks go through all sorts of switchers and basically without getting into all the technicalities. As they go through all the switchers and all these different cameras, they can lose frames in the transition, just like small fractions of a second and frames of the pictures. And because that of that, you can have a feed that has a minute lag as compared to another feed. So the only conclusion that I can draw and this is speculation is that the feed that the replay center was using had a lag because there are clear pictures that show the ball has not touched anything. It has not touched the Western Michigan player who had established himself out of bounds. It hadn't touched anything and the clock at least overlaid on those production pictures had struck zero. Now, the other part of this is that we don't see the tenths of a second or hundreds of a second that are going on within the clock. And so we just see this one and in slow motion, it feels like the one is up there for seven seconds and we're like, how is that not switched? But the video is going in slow motion and it's like, you're just waiting for it to turn to zero and you're like, how is it not turned to zero yet? And you think to yourself, was there a pause? What is something wrong with the clock that they're using in the replay center? And the only explanation is that through the syncing process, you have a lag. That's a that's a serious problem. Now, I want to get to like a couple of solutions, but but I would also like to say like a clear way to fix this, we have the technology is to just allow every clock in football to behave like clocks that we have in basketball, where it goes to tenths of a second inside of a minute. It should go to tenths of a second. It wasn't always the case in the NBA and in basketball. In fact, they changed that in 1989, partly because in basketball, you get these types of plays all the time. Did it leave his hand before the buzzer or so on and so forth? And so what they did in basketball is not only go to tenths of a second, but they also institute the light that now lights up on the backboard. So the light is really the final end, the red light lights up and everybody knows everybody sees. It's the same thing that the officials see. It's on every single camera, every single shot. And there's no discrepancy. Did the ball leave his hand or her hand before the red light came on? Okay. So it's more definitive. Well, in football, we never have that. Why? Why don't we have tenths of a second? Because this never happens. This is the second time and basically 15 years that we've had this maybe maybe longer. What is it? 18 years all the way back to the Texas Nebraska big 12 championship game with Colt McCoy. When he tries to burn a ball out of bounds, it's not stopping the clock until it hits something they put a clock, excuse me, a second back on the clock. Texas kicks a field goal and goes in place for the BCS national championship against Alabama. That was the last time that this was meaningful at all. And now we have the situation on Saturday night. So let's talk about some fixes because obviously conspiracy theories abound and everybody outside of the big 10 certainly thinks that the big 10 stepped in and that there was a bat line and that all of a sudden, you know, daddy saved Michigan. And as you can tell by the replay review, that clearly wasn't the case. Even if protocol wasn't followed, they just weren't on the same page. It was not synced. That's an issue. So how do we fix this? We have to fix the the narrative of conspiracy. And we have to fix the idea of where are the clocks? When is zero? And how do we know? So what should we do in college football? Well, I've been saying this for a long time. We need to nationalize officiating. We should not have conference officials and this conference in that conference. We should not have conference replay centers. We see this all the time. There's constantly talk about this in playoff time when you have a very important review. You think of all sorts of review targeting calls. Whatever it is. And you immediately think to yourself, like, well, what's conference is handling this replay? The other part of nationalizing officiating would be that you don't get areas of emphasis because not every conference has the same philosophy on things like replay, things like emphasis on the field as every other conference. Well, that's a problem. That's a problem. Some conferences are actually more lenient on targeting than others. They have a different interpretation of the exact same rule, right? So we should take that out of college football. We should have nationalized officiating. So we just have officials, not big 10 officials or big 12 officials or SEC officials. So that's number one. Number two, add 10th of a second to the clock. That's obvious. And probably we need a red light somewhere around the field goal post or the down markers so that we know exactly when that clock hits zero. And we don't have to look at a clock with a camera that's float through a switcher and could have a little bit of a delay. We can just see light. That's what happens and bang. We know exactly when the play is over and when the clock should be stopped. That's another fix. And then we have this third area that we can fix. And it was partly followed, but obviously followed too late two hours after the game, which is transparency. Now, as you know, I broadcast UFL games. And in the UFL, we did something a couple of years ago that was, I'll say like kind of groundbreaking in terms of television football, which is we brought to you the fans at home, the entire replay sequence. So we just took it live. We said, whatever they're doing in the replay center, you're going to hear it at home and you're going to hear it live. And there's it's going to be full transparency. Well, immediately that started making ripples throughout television. And guess what the ACC did last year? They brought that live element of replay to you at home. Now the big 12 is going to do that this year. And the big 10 is going to experiment with it on certain Friday night games in particular in conference play. Well, we get back to like this national versus regional versus conference officiating. Why do some conferences have full transparency and other conferences don't? So why don't we nationalize? Why don't we have full transparency and just take every replay life? Why don't we do that? Take every replay life, put tens of a second on the clock and put red lights on the goal post. Then we could solve all of this. And we won't have this situation. Players won't feel like they got absolutely jobbed like the Western Michigan players are going to feel like. And you know, I tend to agree with Mike. I didn't love it. And I still don't love it. It just doesn't. It doesn't feel right. Based on the replay that they gave us two hours after the game, that was the right call. Does it feel right? Man, I don't know. I don't know. And then let's get to the game because that's a whole other story. Obviously. So Michigan wins the game 13 12. And they did not play well on the offensive side at all. And it's going to bring up so many questions specifically about their quarterback Bryce Underwood. And that was some something that all of us were wondering about the entire of the offseason. What was his development going to look like from year one to year two? What was his development going to look like with now Jason Beck, their, their offensive coordinator who had done an amazing job with Devon Damp here the last two years, wanted to Mexico and then want to Utah. Right? Like, and it didn't materialize. He regressed speaking of Bryce Underwood from year one to year two. It was somewhat shocking to go back and watch the film. I think we all realized watching the game live like this. This doesn't look very good. And then when I went back and I watched the film, it was even worse than I thought. And it wasn't just him. Listen, it's not like the 10 other players on the field for Michigan were playing well. And he wasn't. I think that there was a lot of blame to go around here. The offensive line played awful. They were not targeted right. They got off the ball late. They got pushed around at times. They didn't protect well. The wide receivers at times weren't creating clean pictures. There's a lot of technical things that I could talk about here. I wonder if, if I wonder if Michigan trust Bryce Underwood in protection because they were running a lot of max protection with a sixth offensive lineman or an extra tight end in the game that were in their just specifically to protect, which means that there were only at times three guys out on the route. That's called max protection. You're going to max protect. You're only going to send three guys out on the route. And it's really tough to bracket the fenders and create clean pictures when you've only got three guys out on the route. And in particular, when Western Michigan was sitting there and they were dropping people into coverage and even creating a little pressure with only four or even five guys in the rush. That's a problem. But let me get specifically to Underwoodies. 12 of 22 for 170 in a touchdown. The two turnovers, obviously, just killed them. And I'm just telling you right now, guys, that the film was quite shocking. I go to the first series and I wanted to see, like, well, was it good early and then did it, did it regress late? And again, the film tells you a lot more than watching the game. I'm watching the game, obviously, in the, in the airplane. And they go down the field. But what I saw on that first series wasn't great. In fact, you look at, you know, the big completion that they got on the on the second play of the game, that was a completely broken play after he dropped the snap and then you get a one handed catch and everyone's energized and that's great. The fifth play of the game, he throws it into double coverage. The Mike linebacker is is running right into the read and he throws it that direction. It's a completion and it's a first down, but it's the exact wrong throw. They've got two different concepts going on. One to the field, the wide side, one to the boundary and the read is the middle linebacker. The reason I know that is because the tailback runs to the field. So if he drags the Mike linebacker, the middle linebacker to the field, the wide side of the field, you play opposite of that and you bracket that curl defender into the short side. That's the concept back there. And what does he do? He throws it directly into the Mike linebacker who almost tips it. He gets a completion. It's a first down, but it's the wrong throw. So that's a first down on the first series. The seventh play of the game, he's RPO, he goes the wrong direction, ninth play of the game. They were targeted wrong on a double team on the offensive line. So this is all part of their first series and they were still able to go down there and score. So I'm thinking to myself like, man, is it did it get worse? Yeah, it got worse. You watch the rest of the game and I'm just telling you right now that Bryce Underwood regressed from year one to year two. He's throwing curl routes into sitting safeties. He he's throwing spot routes and leading those players into cover two corners. This is day one quarterback stuff. These are things that you can't do as a quarterback. And this is going to be film that is going to be incredibly hard to watch for everyone on that team because it is laid bare for everyone. It was laid bare for all of us watching and now they're going to go in and they're going to watch that film and there's going to be major questions about what his status is this week going into the Oklahoma game. Now, obviously it ends great. That Hail Mary is probably going to buy him some time, but I'm just wondering right now how long that leash is going to be when he faces Oklahoma on Saturday. Gus and Jenny and I will be there because the play that I saw on Saturday night, making wrong reads on the RPO, staring down wide receivers, poor footwork on hot routes and not getting the ball over the blitz. These things can't happen, right? Like you can't just go out there and be a great talent. That's not the quarterback position. More on that later, by the way, I'm going to talk about stellar quarterback play and some guys that really elevated their teams later in this program. But I'm wondering how long they can stick with Bryce Underwood because based on the film that I watched, if you watch that as an offensive coach, if you watch that as a quarterback coach, if you watch that as a teammate, you're thinking to yourself like, dang, you know, what are we going to do? But again, it wasn't just him. The running backs were too eager to bounce things outside. They didn't have great vision. The offensive line wasn't targeted upright. They've got to clean things up in a hurry because they're about to see a defense that's one of the best defenses in all of college football in Oklahoma. David Stone is not easy to block in there, man. I tell you, that guy can absolutely play. The defense for Michigan played pretty well. I thought they were tired at the end. They were out there for 40 minutes, 40 minutes. They basically gave up nine points on gifts in terms of field position. The pick before the half, the fumble, you know, the shortfields, the muffed punt. They give up nine points just on those three series and then one other field goal. So they did their job. They were out there for too long. And this is supposed to be an aggressive defense. Remember, Jay Hill and Kyle Whittingham and are aggressive defense. They're going to play more man coverage than they used to at Michigan. They're going to blitz more than they used to at Michigan. Well, to play that style of defense, you have to play fresh and you have to have an offense that protects you at times and runs the ball efficiently. They did not do that. They did not do that at all. And that needs to get cleaned up in a hurry. So you walk off of that field if you're Kyle Whittingham. You got the win, but it doesn't feel it doesn't feel right. Everybody's losing sleep. Everybody is sick to their stomachs in the locker room. The winning team after the Hail Mary and the losing team because they feel like they got job done or replay. Everybody feels sick to their stomach. Nothing good came out of that game other than the celebration from the one play for the euphoric fans that decided to storm the field. Right. Like there's no way to sugar sugar. What what is it? Sugar. Sprinkle sugar. What do you say? Sugar. I'm losing the term. You know what? Poor sugar on it. I forgot the term, but whatever you understand what I'm talking about. So Michigan escapes. They're going to be dropped out of my top 10 more on that in a little bit. The other big story from last week was LSU and LSU Clemson had the weather delay. And then we finally got to see the game and and all the build up and and the conversation about the eligibility of these players and LSU trying to sign these players that had played the NFL and Lane just walking directly into it. Even the halftime interview talking about like, Hey, imagine if we had NFL players, but they go out there and they they looked outstanding. And I know that I've been hard on Lane on this show and I'm hard to him, you know, to his face. We were texting, you know, earlier on on Sunday. I will just tell you this. This is kind of what we [BLANK_AUDIO] thought though, in particular in this game, because of the talent that they brought in and the energy surrounding that program, I've been saying this all summer. In August and September, I told you exactly what I thought was going to happen on Saturday night when Clemson came into town. And here's just a taste of what I had to say this last summer. We're going to turn on the television when they're playing Clemson in week one and we're going to be like, Oh, wow, LSU is for real. There's no doubt that LSU is going to be incredibly talented. They've brought in one of the best classes, if not the best class in the transfer portal of anybody in America. Lane has done that before when he was at Ole Miss and it worked and he got those teams to gel. So if history is an indicator, you would think that Lane would be able to do that again and I'm certain that he will be able to do that. So that's exactly what happened. We turned on the TV and we watched LSU completely dismantle Clemson. Now I'll have a couple of thoughts on Clemson as well, but this was this was the clearest picture of a team and a coach that fully embraces the ever evolving nature of college football and not only embraces it, but is actively pushing hard against the boundaries in every direction. And that's LSU and then you have a program that is actively pushing to not be anywhere near the boundaries. Now, yes, Clemson brought in some transfers and they're slowly trying to evolve with the times. But you can see that Clemson, I hate to say this, but they looked like almost a dead program on Saturday night. And that's tough to say because Davos Sweeney built a juggernaut at Clemson. But that was not a team that was close to competing at the top end of college football, not even close. Now if you take a closer look and I did go back and I watch the film, here are some of the observations that I saw from the actual film is that a lot of people are going to write off Clemson and I know that I just did to a certain extent. It wasn't quite as bad defensively in the first half as you would imagine from Clemson. They were hanging in there at times, obviously the pick six killed them. And I'll get to their offense in a second. But their defense was taking some stuff away from LSU. They were playing fast. They were playing physical. The thing that separated these teams and the thing that separated LSU in the first half was Sam Levitt. And it wasn't his ability to throw the ball, although he did make a couple of not really nice throws in the first half. It was his ability to run. Sam Levitt's legs were the difference in this game early. It was his ability to take his team and put them above the X's and O's. See Clemson didn't have that. They had an inexperienced guy that goes out there, Vazena goes out there and he's a deer and headlights. He doesn't have the experience. He's facing a talented roster on the road and that doesn't work in college football. I've been saying that the entire of the offseason, we've I've said this for two years now. The most important thing that you can have is a quarterback, but you've got to have an experienced quarterback because at least he's seen it. He's he's felt it. He understands what different coverages look like. He understands what a simulated pressure looks like. He understands when a safety adjust post snap and he can read that and he can process that information because he's done it before. And then the really good ones, they can they can evaluate when you as a defense are doing something well and taking away their primary or their intended target and they can elevate their team above that. They can go to secondaries or they can use their legs and Levitt was was the great equalizer. This guy elevated LSU in the first half. He was the difference. The pick six and Levitt's ability to scramble around and create outside of the pocket. He was dynamic. Absolutely dynamic. Clemson didn't have that. They've got a deer and headlights so they can't move the football at all. And LSU obviously was even more talented on defense and Blake Baker has done a really nice job there and that's a good team. And LSU is going to rock it way up into my into my top, well, not into my top 10 way up my top 10. They were already eight. They're going to move much higher than that. But this is a program that I watched on Saturday night and I thought to myself, okay, yep, that's real. Lane is real. He's answered his critics. That is one of the happiest fan bases in college football when they wake up on on Sunday and when they wake up on sat on Monday, this it worked. It worked. Now we'll see how they can navigate that schedule. But this is a team based on what I saw from everybody in college football that is going to be my number three team in the country. They move from eight to number three. LSU is absolutely a title contender from a talent perspective. And I thought that this would be the case. It was a bit of a wild card in the off season just to see like, all right, is it going to gel? Is it going to work? Yes. Yes, it's going to work. Now, can they navigate the perils of a season and SEC schedule, the adversity that comes with that? We'll see. Because I do still think that it's a bit of a transact transactional roster. But it's pretty clear to me that Lane is trying to build the combination of the Sabin discipline and toughness and the flash and the star power of the early 2000's U.S. CP carols team. Like he saw both of those. Remember, take a look at his history. If you're Lane Kiffin and I know he's one of one, I told him that. I was like, man, you're absolutely one of one. He knows what he's doing. I think that he did this whole NFL thing almost as a stunt. I think if you really penned him down, he would think to himself, like, do we really need these guys? No. And that was obvious to all of us that were watching on Saturday night. They don't need an NFL backup tight end. They don't need that. That team is good enough. They are talented enough. But what did last week do? It brought all of college football and it just stuffed it in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Lane became the story. LSU became the story just like the Pete Carroll USC era. What did Pete do back then? He made them an event. Practice was an event. Games were an event. Well, Ferrell's on the sideline, Snoop Dogg is on the sideline. What did we see on Saturday night, Laney Wilson's out there. You got all the models out there from Instagram. You've got Theo Vaughn. I mean, it was like a scene. It's a scene. That's what Lane wants because he saw it. He saw it work. He's a coach on that team as a young guy back in the early 2000s and he saw what Pete Carroll built and what it could produce back to back national champions, almost a third. And then he also saw Nick. So he saw probably in his mind two different ends of the spectrum and it seems like he's trying to navigate the same road. Now you might be thinking to yourself, that's crazy. There's nothing about him that is Sabin like. Well, that team was Sabin like in the way that they played the effort that they gave, the talent on the field. So that's just something that you look up at and you think to yourself, okay, like LSU could be real. And again, LSU moves all the way up to number three in my top 10. After a huge game this weekend and it was closer than a lot of us thought, I picked Oregon to cover. I think what was it? I think it was 24 and a half and they were in a dog fight with Boise again. Just like we saw a couple of years ago, I anticipated Oregon playing better than that. I think I underestimated, maybe all of us did. I think we underestimated how good Boise is. Like if you were to ask yourself today, like who's a better team, Clemson or Boise, I'd probably give the edge a little bit to Clemson, but it's probably pretty close. In fact, in some of the metrics you go, you go and you look out there or the FBI, things like that, Clemson's now below Boise. So I don't want to discount Boise is like, they couldn't even handle a group of six team. Boise very well may end up being a playoff team. And they were on the road against an incredible team from a talent perspective and experience team in particular on that defensive line and at the quarterback position. And they had a 17-7 lead at one point. What I was impressed with from Oregon wasn't that they were sluggish at times or sloppy at times. It was that they had a quarterback that knew that he had to grab the game and bring it down to a point where he could go and dominate the game. And what I was impressed with was what was their answer. And they answered the deficit of 10 points and they come back and they win that game and Dante Moore was incredible and what you can't discount from Oregon is their explosiveness. That was out there in spades and they can go up and down the field. Dante is obviously incredible. There were times when the defense was very good. I think the defense needs to get a lot better. They need to get a little bit more sound. But they come back from that 10 point deficit, excuse me. My voice always goes out early in the season because I'm not used to talking this much. I know that's crazy, but it's true. So they go out there and they come back. They show how explosive they can be and they win the game. And Dante Moore was fantastic. And like I said, explosiveness all over, it felt very different than the Michigan near upset where I'm watching Michigan and I'm like, oh no, caution lights, panic, all of it. Oregon, I don't feel like that. I don't feel like that. Now, I had them number one. I'm not just going to keep them number one and I'm not going to explain this away. I don't think it was a great performance. I think that they showed that they can get into a dogfight and win. I had them at number one. I'm not just going to move them down one spot. I'm going to move Oregon all the way down. And they're going to be my number 17 in the country. So Oregon moves from number one and they're going to go to seven. Do they still have enough talent to win the national championship? championship. Yes. Does one game define them? No. Did they want to play better? Absolutely. And we're going to see if they can do that when they're on the road against Oklahoma State. They were sloppy. They were four of 12 on third down, O of two on fourth down. They had 10 penalties. They had two turnovers, but they were able to win the game. They were able to win the game. Again, I feel a lot different than some of the other teams that went out there like Michigan and did not look very good. So they're going to be my number seven team in the country. And the QB play was the difference in week one. That was the difference. Levitt was the difference with his legs, elevating LSU. More was the difference for Oregon, elevating Oregon and getting them into a position where they can come back and they can win that football game. So what did we see in some other cases? Well, we saw for Clemson, they have an inexperienced quarterback that can't do anything. So you can't win games that way. And in my game, we saw a guy that went out there and played well. See, there are basically five traits. There are probably more. Let's talk about five traits. If you're talking about quarterback play and I don't think quarterback play can be overestimated. And that was very obvious to all of us that were watching college football this weekend. The teams that had quarterbacks had experienced quarterbacks had guys that could process did really well. The guys are trying to break people in or the quarterbacks that didn't develop, they didn't do very well. So here are the traits. You, you've got to have some talent, but talent in and of itself is vastly overrated. Talent gets coaches fired. You cannot play the position of quarterback only on talent. In fact, if you only have talent, it ain't going to work. It ain't going to work. You also, I think, need reps and experience. I've talked about this as well. It's one of the only positions that you can't replicate in practice. You really never see live bullets from a past rush perspective in the way of defense reacts until you get into a game. Practice just doesn't do it. And so you don't even know yourself as a quarterback, how you're going to react until you get out there. Okay. So experience matters. You need to see all the different things that you can see from a defense so you know how to react to it. And you know where your answers are because every quarterback needs answers. And then you go into these next few categories. Can you process what you see? So once you start getting the reps in the experience, can you process now what you see? Do you understand what a defense looks like when they're rolling from an open shell to a closed shell? What does that mean to the structure of the defense? Where's the support? Where are the holes in the defense? Where can I shift my eyes? What does that do to my drop back? What does that do to the conversion of the routes? All those things are the processing information and the processing of information that you need to have as a quarterback. And the guys that can do it quickly usually are the ones that succeed. So you've got to have talent. It helps to have experience. And then you've got to be able to process the information that you see. If you can do those three things, you can play quarterback effectively. And then you get into the next couple of categories. And this is what separates guys out. And this is what the best teams in the country need to have when they're playing other quality opponents and they're trying to go win conference championships and national championships. Here's the, here's one. Can you win independently of a run game? As a quarterback, it's very difficult to do. I can attest to this. If, if things aren't working around you, can you still win independently of those things? This is the idea of taking your team above the X's and O's, okay? So even without a run game, can you throw the football efficiently? Can you be on time? Can you be accurate? All of these things like you can do that. If you can have talent, if you can have experience, if you can process information. And then if you can win independently of a run game, now you've got something. Now you've got a quarterback that can really take you somewhere. Maybe win a conference, maybe win a national championship. And then you get the rare guy, the rare elite level quarterback play. And this is the guy that creates success when the defense takes away what they want to do initially. This is post snap. And, and the defense does everything right on that snap of football. And then they can take that and they can turn it into success for their offense. That's really going above the X's and O's. That's exactly what Sam Levitt did for LSU. At times, that's what Oregon's Dante Moore did in the comeback against Boise State. So those traits are what's so important, so important. And, and we see if you just stop at talent, it ain't going to work. And in the game I saw Indiana, I saw a quarterback do all of those things. Josh Hoover comes into Indiana and a lot of us wondering how he would do replacing Fernando Mendoza. I think what got lost in the conversation leading up to this season is the fact that Fernando Mendoza did not start out hot. In fact, one of his worst games was against old dominion in the opener a year ago. It took him a little bit of time. It did not take Josh Hoover much time. Now those close to the program and in the program had told me during the course of the offseason that they felt like Josh was ahead of where Fernando Mendoza was at this point a year ago. And that was obvious on Saturday. He was excellent. He did a lot of things well. He threw the ball on time. He threw it accurately. He's got guys down the field that can really go and get it. He created plays out of the pocket. He played on schedule. He took the throws that were there. He put them on the money. He created yards after the catch with ball placement. Remember timing plus ball placement equals yards after the catch. He did all of those things. I was incredibly impressed with Josh Hoover. Even if I wasn't blown away by Indiana, Indiana, I did not think played great on the defensive side of the ball. I didn't think that they ran it as effectively as they want to run it or they thought they would be able to run it. Maybe some injuries played into that, which they had some injuries on Saturday. I'll get to that in a moment. But what I did see was a passing game that I think was elevated from a year ago. I think that Josh Hoover and I know this sounds insane because they went 16 and 0 and Mendoza won the Heisman trophy. Hoover elevates them along with those skilled position players on the outside. That passing game is elite elite. Think about what they have now on the outside. Charlie Becker is likely a first round draft pick. Nick Marsh might also be a first round draft pick and they've got a healthy Tyler Morris and others. They are deep at wide receiver. And this is a real strength for them. Now, in the offseason, Kurt Signetti, he told all of us in response to Sonny Dykes kind of taking a shot at Josh Hoover over the turnovers. Remember, he's got 42 turnovers in his career. That's the most of any player in college football currently. And Sonny Dykes was like, hey, turn the ball over too many times and his 31 starts. And Kurt Signetti said, well, I'm going to introduce him to his two best friends, a running game and a defense. Well, the running game and the defense weren't necessarily what Kurt Signetti thought they were going to be on Saturday. And Josh Hoover was just fine. You see Josh Hoover at times one independently of whether they were on the football very well. That's an elevated experience for a quarterback. That is, that is taking your team above where it's playing at that point. And I was very impressed. I think that passing game can be a strength. I think it can carry them at times. If I'm watching that film and I did and I'm a, an opposing defensive coach, I'm a little concerned. I don't know exactly how I'm going to stop them from throwing the football. That's going to be an elite passing game. And I think it's actually a passing game that will help the run game rather than vice versa. I don't think they have to run it in order to move the football. I think that they will be able to run the football, but it's not a must. They will, but it's not a must because of that passing game. Now defensively for them, I thought that they would be a bit better up front than they showed on Saturday against North Texas. Now, and I know this is going to sound crazy with 72 new players. But Neil Brown has a pretty good team at North Texas. Dave and Jackson is a real quarterback who's played at the power for level. Jehem White was a freshman, all American at West Virginia. And they did some really nice things schematically, getting the ball on the edge, creating misdirection. And it gave the interior of the of the defensive line for Indiana some fits. And and they weren't as good as as we anticipated them being early in this game and really throughout the game. Now part of that was the fact that they were having to worry about coverage that they did not have to worry about a year ago. Last year, they had D'Angelo ponds into the boundary, the short side of the field. And they had Jamari sharp out to the field. So the safeties were able to be involved in the run game quite often. And those run fits are important, very important. And so when you've got those extra hats, you can be an excellent run defense. And for the last two years, there are, there hasn't been many teams have been better than Indiana, stop in the run. In fact, they're one of the best. That wasn't necessarily the case because ponds goes to the NFL. And then Jamari sharp got banged up and left the game. So all the sudden, they're left with all these guys that they're trying to have come in and replace sharp and ponds. They wanted AJ Harris to transfer from Penn State to replace ponds into the boundary. He got banged up early. So now sharp, who's supposed to start to the field, the wide side. And Harris, guys, supposed to start into the boundary are both banged up and they're sitting out there with backups. And that was cause for concern. You could see it all over Kurt Signetti's face, Bryant Haynes as well, the defense of coordinator. And so they're going to have to figure that out. Now, They did talk about after the game that they do not feel like those injuries are long term. That's a really good thing for Indiana, but even with all those, I had to move them down a little bit just because these areas that I thought that they were going to be really dynamic and strong, like offensive line run in the football, defensive line and defense overall. They weren't as strong as I thought against the North Texas team that had 72 new players. Even if there was Taven Jackson and Jaheem White, and they were doing some good things on the interior, including with some guys that transferred from Texas. So Indiana for me has got to move down. I moved them down to eight. Indiana is going to be eight right behind Oregon. And that leaves the rest of the top 10. And so let's get into the rest of the top 10. I'm going to go nine to one or excuse me, 10 to one, 10 to one, 9 to one, 10 to one. At number 10, I've got USC. I thought USC over their first two games did a lot to enhance my view of what they can be this year. They were good up front, running the football. My Ava is outstanding. I hope he's healthy, got bit nicked up a little bit late in that game against Fresno State, but it seems like he's going to be okay. And then their defense ends up pitching a shutout. I know Fresno State. I don't I don't think Fresno State's anywhere close to like a Boise State. But we were questioning like what was their defense going to be? They were outstanding in the first three quarters of their opener and then didn't play well in the fourth quarter and gave up some points after the game was already out of hand. Then you could tell that that was a serious point of emphasis for the team and for Gary Patterson, their coordinator specifically in their second game against Fresno State. And they played hard throughout and they got the shutout. Luke Waifull, their freshman defensive end is a real player. Real player. They're going to get some guys healthy on that defense. I think this is a team to be reckoned with in the big 10. I think that they're easily one of the best teams in the country. I think my Ava is outstanding. He's completing 89% of his passes through two games, six in completions as many touchdowns. Trent Mosley, their freshman wide receiver, is outstanding more if you want to hear more about him. I talked about him at length last week in a review of their week one game. He's a true freshman from the area that I'm from, so I'm in Orange County in Newport Beach. And he's he played at Santa Marguerita Catholic, won a state championship, a CIF championship for Carson Palmer, former USC quarterback who's now a head coach in the high school ranks. He's outstanding back to back 100 yard games for Trent Mosley to start the year. So USC is number 10. At number nine, I've got Oklahoma. So Oklahoma shuts out UTEP. I don't think UTEP is great, but Oklahoma was dominant. He'd be UTEP 51, nothing. Meteor throws three touchdowns. Isaiah Satania was electric. He had a punt return for a touchdown. He was great on offense. They face Michigan. Next, I have one question for Oklahoma and one only. Can they run the ball independently of John Matier? I think that that's a question. I don't think that's going to be answered against UTEP. Okay. We'll see against Michigan because as much as Michigan struggled, I thought their defense was still pretty strong. They were out there for 40 minutes and they were still strong. Didn't let Western Michigan in the end zone, held them to all those field goals, even on sudden change, short field scenarios. And it's going to be a test for Oklahoma to see if they can run the football. Now, Matier is going to be able to run around and I don't think Michigan's going to be able to play as much man coverage more on that in the picks and previews later in the week. I don't think they'll be able to play as much man coverage as what they did against Western when they play Oklahoma because against man coverage, John Matier will each up as a runner, each up. And that's exactly what he was able to do a year ago, even against the defense of structure that they had a year ago. I liked what I saw from Oklahoma. I think they've got NFL players all over the place. I think that's an elite team. The sooners are number nine at number eight. I had Indiana. Obviously, I already talked about them in that game. My concerns and what I liked about what I saw from from Indiana at seven. I had Oregon. The ducks come back from 10 points down. You know, I love Dante more and he proved why on Saturday and that come back at number six. I'm going to go with Georgia. Now I know Georgia one big and you heard all these statistics like they average 11 yards of play. Okay. It was Tennessee State, right? So like we get it 63 three Stockton was 15 of 16 over 200 yards. Three touchdowns ran it for 10 yards per carry as a team. It's an FCS opponent, right? Okay. So they outgain them by 550 yards. All of that is great. We still don't know anything about Georgia as far as their skill position players. I still really love Georgia. I love Kirby smart. I think they're going to be there all the way till the end. And I still think that the SEC goes through Georgia, but, but I saw two other SEC teams that I felt like were more talented on Saturday. All right. And maybe that was just Tennessee State and we'll see. We'll come to find out as their schedule starts to get a little bit more difficult. And number five, a team that I was very high on, but I'm going to move down. They won the game on Sunday night, but, you know, it was a close game against Wisconsin. And maybe Wisconsin's a lot better. And I think that they probably are based on what we saw. I think Johnson, their quarterback is a real guy. And Notre Dame is going to be number five for me. They beat Wisconsin 41 13. They outscore him 28 three in the second half, so they kind of pull away. I didn't love the run game. And that was, that was something that I just thought, and maybe this was a fool's errand on my part. I thought to myself, you know, I know love and price were fantastic. But man, you know, they got that offensive line back and they're going to have more threats on the outside. And they should be able to run it just, just the same. It was not the same price and love were dynamic. And so that's going to be an issue for them. At some point, now, who's going to exploit that on their schedule? That remains to be seen. Is it BYU? Maybe. Is it Miami? Certainly more on them a little bit. They're going to be upcoming here in my top 10, but their schedule is just so light that I don't know if we're going to know a lot about Notre Dame until we get into the playoff. Not a lot of room for air because of that narrative about their schedule, but they do get the win. They win it. They were great in the second half. You know how I feel about the way that their defense could play their secondary in particular with Leonard Moore. So Notre Dame is going to be number five. Number four is going to be Miami. Miami goes out to Stanford. They win 45 six. They were dominant dominant line of scrimmage. Darryn Mincell looks like he could be a star. He threw for 400 yards 27 of 30. And then the real star Malachai Tony. Yes. Absolutely. Now you know why? When I did my preseason all Americans, which is this is the first year that I've done preseason all Americans. But now you know why it was so easy for me to just say like, yep, Jeremiah Smith and Malachai Tony are your preseason all American wide receivers. Malachai Tony is unbelievable. 12 catches 234 yards and three touchdowns. I think Miami is better than last year. I think they are. They went all the way to the national championship game. I don't see this team losing some of those games that they shouldn't during the course of the year. Now that might come back to hot man. I'm sure some of you will bring that up if they lose a game here or there last year. They lose that game to Louisville. They lose that game to SMU. They end up losing the Indiana and every one of those games. There was you know, like bad reception from back against Louisville a couple of times. You had the roughing the passer penalty, a kind of a bonehead penalty against SMU. They get a punt blocked against Indiana. Do those things creep in that remains to be seen, but the talent on the field is exceptional. That offensive line could do whatever they wanted to do. The defensive line was putting pressure on the quarterback whenever they wanted to put pressure on the quarterback. And then Tony, you can't defend him. I don't know how you defend Malachai Tony. He was outstanding and Darian Mensa. I think he's an upgrade from Carson back. And I think that that was proven out in the game, even if it was just against Stanford. And Miami's number four, LSU already gave you at number three again, talent, talent, talent. We'll see how they deal with adversity. But Lane believes in them. I think we know why now one word of caution though for LSU. I didn't talk about that with Levitt when I was talking about LSU and their win over Clemson. But I would just say this, remember last year when we were all head over heels for John Mathieu after the Michigan game. And rightly so, okay, because he was brilliant in that game, rightly so. I came on and I told you that's unsustainable. A quarterback cannot put himself in harm's way that often and get through an SEC schedule. That's my word of caution for LSU and Sam Levitt because remember offensively, they had the pick six in the first half and they had Levitt. The other parts of the offense, it was a struggle at times, okay? They didn't really open it up until about play 60 and then Clemson's defense. It was just a war of attrition. They beat him with volume to score that many points. But the real, the real catalyst when it was still real football was Levitt's legs. And he doesn't love to slide now. He's dealt with injuries in the past in his career at Arizona State. And I'm just telling you, he can't play like that the entire day of the season. You can't do that throughout an entire SEC schedule. That is not sustainable. Sam Levitt, if he tries to run the ball that hard and that often. For the entirety of the schedule will be injured at some point. I don't want to speak that into existence, but that's the truth. That's the truth. Okay. So that's my one word of caution for LSU out there as they move forward. Then we get into the top two. At number two, I've got Texas. I thought Texas was outstanding. Some of those questions about like run game defense. I thought they answered them. I think Will Munchamp probably is going to work out really well for them. They've got talent everywhere. You might see three, four long horns picked in the first 10, 15 picks in the NFL draft. Arch looked really good. Cam Coleman looked really good. Hollywood smothers, Relic Brown, all of them. Ryan Wingo, that is a really, really good football team. Again, the opponent's not going to be great. Arch through for 300 yards, four touchdowns, one pick. Coleman had two TDs. Wingo went for one, 21, the running backs combined, 21 carries 104 and two touchdowns. Probably need to run a little bit better. They've got to do that to help protect Arch because they're about to face my number one team. And that's Ohio State. Ohio State is going to be number one. They beat ball state. Again, you know, it's like Georgia and even Texas. They didn't get threatened whatsoever. But all of these teams, Georgia, Texas, Ohio state, they did exactly what you should do. Miami is in there. They went out there and just totally took care of business. The run statistics look a little, they're a little inflated of the way that they actually ran it on a play in and play out basis. They had a couple of long touchdown runs in the third quarter. That elevated some of that production. But what you see is that Julian Sain is still the real deal. Jeremiah Smith is still the best player in college football. Eight catches one, 51 and two touchdowns. They broke a couple of long runs there, both Jackson's bow and the young guy. I thought that they looked good and they did exactly what you would expect. They looked like it. They didn't mess around. I know that I know that ball state is not as good as Boise State. I understand that. Ball states nowhere close to Clemson, but Ohio State just went out there and just totally dominated and they went about their business and they're going to be number one. Now, was it close? Yes. This is not like an easy, uh, absolutely foreign away Ohio State is number one. I've got them number one right behind them is Texas, right behind them is LSU, right behind them is Miami and noted all of these teams in the top eight. I still think very highly of this is, this is not an indictment of any of these teams. This is as solid a top 10 as I can remember putting together early in a season in my career. I could see any one of these teams winning their conference. Maybe SC just on the outside of that because I think that that highly of Indian or Oregon and Ohio State in the big 10, but you look at any of the other teams. Obviously, Miami's going to win their conference. Notre Dame should be in a conference, uh, obviously that's a tangent. But man, that's a, that's a great top 10 right there. That is a really, really good top 10. We've got a lot coming up this week, I've got a lot more on other things that took place week one. This is why we do three shows a week because I just can't get into everything that I want to get into and just one show. Um, I got to talk about shoot man, all the teams I didn't talk about. I didn't get to, to Ole Miss in this game. I, uh, in this episode, I didn't get to A&M in this episode. I didn't get to Iowa in this episode. I didn't get to Colorado, beaten Georgia Tech in this episode. I didn't get to UMass, beaten Rutgers, like there was a lot of things that took place that I want to get to. So all of that's coming up on Wednesday. Uh, we're going to try to run down Urban Meyer and talk to him, uh, for 10 or 15 minutes in preparation for that, um, Ohio State Texas game on Saturday. And then remember, we've got picks and previews that we'll release on Thursday. But then later on Thursday, we have a live show that we are going to live stream. You can live stream our live show. We're going to be in an arbor on Thursday night. Should be plenty to talk about there in Michigan, uh, in preparation for the Oklahoma Michigan game. I've got Bob Stupes as a guest. I've got El Presidente. That's right. Dave Portnoy is going to join us live. Uh, that's going to be a 7 p.m. Eastern on Thursday and you can live stream that right here on the YouTube channel. If you have not subscribed to the YouTube, please do that. Go ahead and subscribe. That would help us out. Leave a comment down below. What do you think of the top 10? Uh, we can go over that during the course of the week. If you haven't followed us, um, on social media, please go do that wherever you like to social media at Joel Clat Show. If you're listening as a podcast, it would really help. If you could rate and review us, uh, we do this for you, the college football fan, um, a lot went on this weekend. I got smoked with a punt and pregame, like right in the face. I still don't feel great. Uh, I'll be honest, I've had a headache for about 30 straight hours. But that's, you know, what? We barrel forward. We barrel forward. We got the Rose Bowl hat on. We know it's week one. We've got it taken care of. And then, uh, if any of you follow me on social media and specifically on Twitter, I'll just end you with, with this little thought. As we move forward, can't wait to see on Wednesday, please tweet.