Notre Dame won, but it wasn’t pretty. Georgia is hard to kill, but play like their death is inevitable. The back end of Joel Klatt’s top 10 saw another shake up – so long for now, Miami, after a loss to unranked SMU – but all eyes are on the top, where it’s clear that Ohio State or Indiana is a question that will be answered before the College Football Playoff even begins.
Let’s take a look at Klatt’s most recent top 10 after Week 10.
1. Ohio State
Klatt’s take: Ohio State – which defeated Penn State 38-14 – and Indiana are on a collision course for the Big 10 championship game. Those are your two best teams in the country. All due respect to Texas A&M, which is right there as well, but man, the complete nature of Indiana and Ohio State is pretty significant, and they stand out to me.
2. Indiana
Klatt’s take: Indiana beat Maryland 55-10 behind 367 rush yards. That’s their fifth 300-yard rush game of the season – that offensive line is going to win the Joe Moore Award. That’s going to be your best offensive line in the country. I mean, there are no holes with Indiana, and they’ve been battling some injuries now. Linebacker Aiden Fisher didn’t play, wide receiver Elijah Serratt was battling a hamstring at some point on Saturday at Maryland – he’s a very good player, All-American-caliber player. If they’re healthy, that’s going to be a tough team to beat.
3. Texas A&M
Klatt’s take: Texas A&M is a complete football team, that’s clearly a top-3 football team. I love what QB Marcel Reed has done. They’ve won in several different ways; can’t wait to watch them down the stretch.
4. Alabama
Klatt’s take: Bama’s passing game is so good. I still love Bama, I still love quarterback Ty Simpson. They have to run the football better at some point – I know their fans clamor like they run it fine with Jam Miller, and I disagree. I think that they’re going to need to run it better, and their defense needs to get better.
5. Oregon
Klatt’s take: I think people have questions about Oregon, and that’s fine, I think that there are questions about a lot of these teams. Oregon is still a very good football team.
6. Georgia
Klatt’s take: Georgia wins another close one – what to make of this team, man? I don’t… it’s George, but is it Georgia? I think that we get too wrapped up in Kirby Smart’s history at Georgia, and the great teams, and so are we measuring this team against that? Because they are clearly not the ‘21, ’22 Georgia Bulldogs. Not even close. They’re much more similar, almost identical, to last year’s version, which had a lot of flaws. And you could even say maybe in some respects overachieved but then got exposed because of those flaws by Notre Dame in the playoff. I think Georgia just has a high floor. We talk about this in the NFL Draft conversation all the time, and we talk about high ceiling, low floor, you know a guy that has high potential but man if it goes south it goes really south. Georgia right now is one of those teams that has a low ceiling, really high floor. They’re really talented, but there’s something missing. And so, it’s going to be hard to beat them, but they have some major flaws. How many games are we going to sit here and it’s like, “Well they’ve gotta come back in this game, they’ve gotta come back in this game”? And we can say they’re hard to kill, they’re resilient – all of that is true. But at what point does it then come back to haunt them? At some point it will. Florida just had a chance to kill Georgia.
7. Ole Miss
Klatt’s take: Ole Miss took care of business. I still like Ole Miss, quartterback Trinidad Chambliss is a guy that I think fits coach Lane Kiffin really well. Now, one thing to watch out for with Ole Miss down the stretch: you’re seeing a lot of other coaches that are high-profile that will absolutely be targeted and mentioned for all these job openings, and they’re taking their name out of the hat. Three specifically. Dan Lanning said absolutely not, I’m at Oregon, Matt Rhule signed an extension at Nebraska and Curt Cignetti signed an extension at Oregon. So the longer that Lane Kiffin doesn’t sign an extension at Ole Miss, or come out and emphatically and definitively turn these jobs down and say “I’m not going anywhere,” the distraction is going to creep up at Ole Miss. That would be my worry for Ole Miss, the distraction of what’s going on, because listen: Florida is coming after Lane Kiffin, period; LSU will absolutely try to talk to and interview Lane Kiffin. So, the longer this goes, that could be a distraction.
8. Notre Dame
Klatt’s take: I actually am dropping them a spot, that was an ugly win against Boston College. You all think that I have Notre Dame too high anyway, but I’m going to keep them there because at their best, they’re absolutely a top-10 team, not a doubt in my mind. Notre Dame was not great on Saturday, it was ugly.
9. BYU
Klatt’s take: BYU plays at Texas Tech this week, can’t wait for that, it’s going to be a monster game. I think BYU is as gritty as any team in the country. Kalani Sitake is probably the most underrated coach in America – I know he doesn’t get talked about a lot in some of these job openings, but he probably should. It is one of those things that is just such a good fit at BYU that I think people, and maybe rightly so, just assume that he wouldn’t take another job, and maybe he wouldn’t.
10. Texas Tech
Klatt’s take: I thought that was a big win over K-State, in particular because early in that game K-State kind of answered the bell. They were playing much better football than they were early in the year, and Texas Tech? They grew up in some ways, on the road. They are not playing, I don’t think, their best football, but they’re playing really tough-oriented football. They’re running it, they’re doing everything that you need to do. Their defense is playing quality. So I love that they went on the road and they got that win.
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