There is a clear separation between the three elite teams in college football this year and the rest of college football so far this season, according to Joel Klatt.
Indiana and Texas A&M picked up convincing wins over the weekend to keep their undefeated seasons rolling. Meanwhile, Alabama played another tight game and had too close a call against a team it should’ve beaten with more ease.
So, were Indiana’s or Texas A&M’s wins strong enough to dethrone an idle Ohio State from the No. 1 spot? Let’s take a look at Klatt’s most recent top 10 after Week 9.
Klatt’s take: They still have the No. 1 unit in the entire country, and that’s that defense. And let’s just put it to you this way: If you’re looking at passing metrics from an offensive standpoint — we all know that Alabama is an elite passing offense, and Ty Simpson is great — yet, by the numbers, you could make an argument that Ohio State is better. Now, you might not win that argument, but it’s right there, razor’s edge, we’re talking about the elite of the elite passing games in all of college football. Just so happens that Ohio State also runs the football way better than Alabama does. Now, not great, but way better than Alabama. And oh, by the way, Ohio State’s defense is like, the best defense in the sport. So they not only have that to hang their hat on, but then they can go to this offense, and they’ve run the football to win it, they can throw the football whenever they want — and they don’t want to all the time. I know it’s boring folks, I know it’s boring, but that is the elite team in college football.
Klatt’s take: Indiana is a complete team. I saw them live, in person, against UCLA. Complete team. Every coach I’ve talked to that either has played Indiana or is preparing for them says the same thing. This team is so sound. They are so well-coached. I know it’s boring, but it’s true. They are just a complete team: they run it well, their offensive line is solid, they stop the run, they rush the passer, they can throw it. They do everything right, and even better than that, they’re really well-coached. They just don’t make mistakes! And yet, they also have high-end talent. In that regard, it reminds me a lot of the 2023 Michigan team. That was, fundamentally, as complete and sound a team as I’ve covered in college football in my entire time. They went undefeated, 15-0, and won the national championship. The difference with that Michigan team is that it wasn’t just being fundamentally sound, they also had elite talent. And that’s exactly what Indiana has. People don’t want to come around on that, but they do.
On their defense, they have All-American-caliber players. Maybe defensive end Mikail Kamara is not playing that caliber up to this point in the season from a production standpoint up front, but they have All-American-caliber players on all three levels of their defense. They’re excellent on defense, that’s one of the best defenses in all of college football. It’s not Ohio State good, but man they’re really good. On offense, they’re going to have two or three All-Big-10 offensive linemen, maybe an All-American. Pat Coogan’s playing great at center. They’ve got a Heisman-caliber quarterback in Fernando Mendoza that’s not just a good college quarterback, he’s going to be a top-15 pick in the NFL. He’s an elite quarterback, and then they have an elite set of wide receivers on the outside, led by Elijah Sarratt. Sarratt and Omar Cooper, there’s only one tandem that can even compete, and maybe surpass them just a little bit, and that’s Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate for Ohio State. But these two guys are elite players! And then they also have a run game that is hard-nosed, physical and is absolutely brilliant at plus runs.
My one question for them is going to be depth. That’s it – this is a long road to get to the national championship, but depth.
Klatt’s take: Texas A&M ended Brian Kelly’s tenure at LSU. They’re down at half, and at no part did I feel like LSU was the better team. A&M had the better pash rush, run game and offense in general — they can throw it. Quarterback Marcel Reed made a couple of great plays. Marcel Reed didn’t even have to play great: he threw for 57% and two picks. And they beat the doors off of LSU at night! They have answers all around them — again, they’ve won games in several different ways, with their defense, running it, throwing it. In true road games this year, they’ve scored 41 or more points — that’s elite, man. That’s really, really good. Mike Elko just fits there, this is a case study in a guy who was a big swing to win the press conference in Jimbo Fisher, and they’re giving themselves national championship trophies, but he never fit the culture at A&M. Mike Elko fits the culture at A&M. Maybe didn’t win the press conference, but you’re winning on the field on Saturday and Saturday nights. Wouldn’t surprise me if they’re in Atlanta for the SEC Championship Game, I don’t think their remaining schedule is all that difficult (No. 19 Missouri, South Carolina, Samford, No. 20 Texas).
Klatt’s take: Alabama at their top end is elite. They could potentially win the national championship. Now, when quarterback Ty Simpson isn’t at his best and isn’t lighting it up, you know, they’re a beatable team, and we saw that a little bit this last week against South Carolina. There’s been three games this year that Simpson hasn’t just lit it on fire — and I would even say in one of those games that he did for a half, and that was the Georgia game. But three games he hasn’t been great are Florida State, Georgia and South Carolina, and in every one of those games are the only three games that he’s been below 65% completion percentage. And lo and behold, they’re in tight games and lose one of those games. Now they were able to come back against South Carolina, but their lack of run game is stark right now and it needs to get better. I continue to harp on this, but it’s the truth. They’re 15th in the SEC in rushing. Both LSU and Oklahoma run it better per carry than Alabama — and those two teams stink running the football. That’s a problem.
I know that Alabama is elite … when they’re on. But when they’re not, they can lose to anybody, and I think you saw that against South Carolina.
Klatt’s take: Gosh, man, this team continues to be hard to kill. I really love quarterback Gunner Stockton — I’m getting a lot of Max Duggan vibes, from Duggan dragging that TCU team to the national championship game. This team is constantly flirting with death, yet really hard to kill. They’re like the older action hero. You go to the movies, and it’s like, “Are they going too far in this scene?” Like, “Hey Tom, should you be riding your motorcycle off the cliff with a parachute?” That’s kind of what Georgia is doing to me right now, is they’re giving me “Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning.” You might be hard to kill, but you’re flirting with death. Constantly in multiple possession deficits, and yet, come back. Resilient, most resilient team in the country. I have more respect for Gunner Stockton every time I see him play because of his competitiveness, his will. You see it, it’s like his soul is poured out onto the field, and I love that.
Klatt’s take: Kind of an ugly win against Wisconsin this last week. Offense just wasn’t quite what I thought it would be, although Wisconsin does have a decent defense – that’s one thing about Wisconsin. Now, Wisconsin couldn’t do anything on the offensive side of the football, so the game was never in doubt. I do like Oregon still, there’s this part of me that thinks about Oregon and how Ohio State grew from their midseason loss a year ago, and particularly on the defensive side. And I think about the urgency with which Dan Lanning coaches, and the fact that this guy is what I would call a stone turner – he will turn over every single stone to figure out what’s going wrong, what’s going right, how are we going to get better? The guy just looks in every nook and cranny – he is a tireless, energetic worker. And because of that loss to Indiana, I do think that they’re going to be able to focus and evaluate and develop past that.
Klatt’s take: They’ve got two losses. I don’t care. They are really good. The last five games, they’ve got the 12th-ranked scoring defense. They can run it on anybody. They just did a great job defensively against USC, holding them to 24 points — USC is one of the best offenses in all of college football. Notre Dame is really, really good! I know they lost those two games early, and I’m not going to explain them away, but hey have you uh found out that Texas A&M is really good? Absolutely. And that was a wild game that could have gone either way. The game against Miami, on the road, could have gone either way. Notre Dame’s going to be a tough out.
Klatt’s take: Ole Miss with a big win on the road at Oklahoma. And it was a gutty win because the game was playing out very similarly to their previous week when they were on the road against Georgia. They’re going back and forth, but in crunch time, they couldn’t get it done offensively. And then they fixed that this week, and against a very good defense in Oklahoma. They played well down the stretch defensively. Head coach Lane Kiffin has a really good team at Ole Miss. Now, are there some deficiencies? Yes. I think their defense is going to run up, at some point, against an offense that is going to be too much for them — heck, they did that just last week against Georgia. However, you look at the remaining parts of their schedule, and this is a team that’s a likely SEC Championship Game team. Their schedule is pretty easy moving forward — South Carolina, the Citadel, Florida and Mississippi State.
Klatt’s take: I thought it was a sloppy first half against Stanford before they kind of buried them in the second half. And what worries me is those six quarters — four quarters against Louisville in the Friday-night loss, and the opening two quarters against Stanford. It’s like, OK, I’m starting to see the peaks and valleys of Miami, and I don’t love the valleys. Having said that, at the top end, Miami does at times control the line of scrimmage. They play really quality defense. I like their quarterback, Carson Beck, when he isn’t turning the football over. So, peaks and valleys from Miami, but pulling away from Stanford in the second half, I thought was really nice.
Klatt’s take: BYU just keeps on winning. And the last two weeks, very impressively. At home against Utah, a team we all thought a lot of — and by the way, Utah in the last three weeks has hammered Arizona State, lost at BYU, and drilled Colorado — and then they went on the road and beat Iowa State, and did so in pretty impressive fashion. And those are two massive wins, against two quality opponents, two top-end Big 12 opponents. Now we have to start thinking about if BYU is the best team in the Big 12? Can Texas Tech beat BYU? And that’s a game I’m really looking forward to seeing in the next few weeks.
BYU is excellent. Quarterback Bear Bachmeier is terrific. I love his maturity as a true freshman quarterback. And Kalani Sitake, by the way, he’s a coach who should get talked about more with some of these job openings, because this dude is just a really good football coach. He’s a great fit at BYU, obviously, and that’s one of the reasons why he has such a tremendous amount of success. They’re mature, they’re always older, they’re physical, they can run the football, they play really good defense. It’s a great fan base. Love BYU.
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