Joel Klatt: College football’s biggest questions for 2024

The 2024 college football season will be the dawn of a new era in the sport in several ways. How it plays out in terms of new-look conferences and the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff will shape our perception of the sport for years to come.

We’re now less than a week away from the season kicking off in earnest after a major ACC upset highlighted our appetizer Week 0 slate. With so many new dynamics and storylines to cover, I had to call a rare audible and bring in a special guest to help preview this season.

Josh Pate, host of “Josh Pate’s College Football Show,” is one of my favorite fellow college football commentators to listen to, and he was kind enough to join me on Monday’s edition of “The Joel Klatt Show.”

We covered everything from the true impact of the 12-team playoff, name, image and likeness and the transfer portal, as well as which teams could be sleeper picks for playoff bids from the SEC and Big Ten, what we think about Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders’ Colorado squad, and why we are both all-in on Ohio State this season.

Check out the highlights from our conversation below!

Editor’s note: The following transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Will this college football season feel notably different for those of us who cover and are fans of the sport?

Josh Pate: Yes

“I think it’s started already. As you and I are talking, we’re just on the heels of Florida State losing a conference game [to Georgia Tech] in Week 0. So in the old way of doing things, which I didn’t hate, the Seminoles would already be on ‘thin ice with hot blades,’ as Meemaw would say. And now it’s kind of like, ‘All right, you got your loss out of the way. You can probably afford one more [and still possibly make the Playoff]. Now you settle into the season.’ So there’s that.

“But I also don’t think anyone among us can look and say definitively, ‘This is what NIL and the portal have done.’ Everyone thinks that the tops of the tallest trees have been shaved off or maybe depth is not what it used to be, and maybe you’re, like, a critical injury away from just totally being kneecapped. That all could be true, but we don’t really know. So we’re gonna find out this year. … Maybe there’s no truly elite team out there. Maybe we really do have 20-plus teams that could vie for a Playoff spot. To me, that feels a lot different than years past.

“If we have no elite teams this year, this could set up for the next five-plus years of people legitimately believing everyone in that tournament has a shot, because if the first version of the 12-team tournament is like that 2007 season where you have a two-loss LSU or, in this world, a very flawed Texas or Clemson or whichever team it is go on to win the whole thing, that’s the kind of year that … sets up a precedent that anyone could win it. Whereas if someone just buzzsaws their way through this thing and beats everyone by 30 in the first couple of rounds, then it becomes, ‘We could punch our ticket to the playoff but it’s really hard to condition ourselves that we’re playing for a legit shot at the title.'”

Joel Klatt: Yes

“I actually believe that we can kind of track what NIL and the transfer portal have done, and I think that the evidence is in who we’ve seen play for the national championship and play in the playoff in the last couple of years. In the initial inception and initial era of the four-team playoff, you could write in those teams in pen to begin the year. To be honest, I hated it. I argued against the four-team playoff way back when, and then once we got it, I very quickly felt that we needed to grow because we narrowed the definition of success to those four teams, and nothing else defined success. 

“What we’ve seen in the last two years, though, is veteran leadership and parity show up in major ways. TCU plays for a national championship. Michigan goes 15-0 and wins a national championship. Washington plays for a national championship as an undefeated team. Texas comes all the way back. Alabama can beat a Georgia team that was on a 29-game winning streak and was going for three straight national titles. I just felt like what all of a sudden ended up happening is that, rather than six teams or five teams at the beginning of the year being able to say they could win a national championship, that was extended out. That’s partly why I’m excited for this year.

“I think it’s going to feel different because we’re also going to have a lot more contenders for what I would consider to be a definition of success — the College Football Playoff. Josh, I think we’re going to be in November and there will be 25-30 teams and fan bases that think they’re playing meaningful games for the College Football Playoff and that is going to feel night-and-day different from what Novembers past have felt like.”

Who got harmed the most by the schedule imbalance in the SEC?

JP: Georgia

“Power-rating wise, I think they’re the best in the country to start the season, but I think the Bulldogs are going to lose two games. I don’t even have them in [the SEC title game] in Atlanta. That’s just a matter of scheduling. They go to Alabama, they go to Texas, they go to Ole Miss. They play six of my top 21 teams, five of them away from Athens. The totality of that is going to catch up to you. Nick Saban’s best Alabama teams rarely went undefeated. Kirby Smart has lived in the SEC East for a while, and now Georgia ventures out into a little more shark-infested waters. They may be the biggest shark there, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get a bite taken out of you.

“One of the other chaos scenarios this year is, what if there is legit cannibalization in the SEC, or what if these teams just aren’t elite? What if they’re just really good? What if we tune in Saturday and Clemson is up 23-20 over Georgia in the fourth quarter? No one expects that, Georgia is a two-touchdown favorite. What if Texas goes up to Michigan when you’re there on ‘Big Noon Kickoff’ and can’t move the ball in Week 2 and it’s 13-12 in the middle of the fourth quarter? What if Alabama goes to Wisconsin in Week 3 when you’re there and they start out clunky in that environment in Madison and suddenly everyone’s looking at two losses this year?”

JK: Oklahoma

“I know Florida’s schedule is also brutal, I just don’t think any of us believe that Florida could make a run if not for that schedule — they’re not there yet in terms of that roster. But in Oklahoma, Brent Venables is in his third year. They’ve got a quarterback in Jackson Arnold that they believe in enough to allow Dillon Gabriel to walk, and now he’s in some cases an odds-on favorite to win the Heisman Trophy as the starting quarterback for Oregon.  They’ve got a defense that is largely back with Billy Bowman and Danny Stutsman, and yet they’ve got these six games in their schedule that are brutally tough. 

“Obviously, they have Texas, they’ve got Tennessee at home in Josh Heupel’s return to Norman, they’ve got LSU after Thanksgiving. In my mind, I was like, ‘if the Sooners just split those six games and go 3-3, they could probably go to the playoff.’ But in reality, when you start filling out the bracket and you realize Notre Dame’s got an easy schedule, you realize that the Group of 5 gets an auto-bid, you realize the ACC and Big 12 champions get auto-bids, all of a sudden, guess who gets boxed out? A 9-3 Oklahoma team because it lost three times with a brutal schedule.”

Are you a believer in Ohio State to win it all?

Josh Pate: Yes

“They are about as versatile a team in terms of the style they could choose to win with, I think, as any team in the country. If we go back to the mid-2010s, when Saban still had his vintage Alabama defenses talent-wise, there would be a week where they’d stone someone, and there would be a week where someone caught them and hung 31 on them. The point is they won in different ways throughout the year. That’s the roster that Ryan Day has right now.

“A lot of folks got caught up in the portal [additions], and yeah, it’s great. They got Caleb Downs, maybe the best football player in that building now. But the first words out of anyone’s mouth when you walk into the Woody Hayes Athletic Center is, ‘Yeah, the portal is great, but [look at] all the ones who came back.’ That’s just like the story was with Michigan last year. … This Ohio State defense, a lot of them are back instead of in an NFL training camp somewhere because NIL allowed them to be.”

Joel Klatt: Yes

“The Buckeyes do not need great quarterback play this year with that roster, with Chip Kelly running the offense, with Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson in the backfield. The value that Will Howard brings to Ohio State is not his style, it’s his experience. The fact that he’s got that experience, I think, is going to pay dividends for them.

“It’s like you’re picking in the schoolyard, and suddenly people get passed over for like three or four picks, and you’re like, ‘What? That kid hasn’t been picked yet?’ I don’t care what rash he has, that’ll clear off by playoff time.”

Who could benefit the most from the schedule imbalance in the Big Ten?

JP: Penn State

“Weird answer, I know, because they don’t play a soft schedule. Penn State’s last four games are probably against non-ranked opponents. … In years past, Penn State’s just kind of been what they are offensively. They can put up mirage numbers against inferior opponents, but the big boys shut them down like Ohio State and Michigan did last year. I think the Nittany Lions probably have a little bit higher ceiling in terms of offensive potential. There’s no excuse why both of those tailbacks [Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen] shouldn’t be 1000-yard caliber tailbacks. I think the marriage of [new offensive coordinator] Andy Kotelnicki and [quarterback] Drew Allar probably makes more sense than the guy they had there last year.

“Go beat West Virginia [Week 1 on ‘Big Noon Kickoff’] by any means necessary. Buy yourself some time to get that offense up to speed. If it gets up to speed, I don’t care if they beat Ohio State or not, that game at home should be competitive. The Nittany Lions have four games at the end of the year [against Washington, Purdue, Minnesota and Maryland] where they can just flex if they’vce hit their offensive stride, and it’s a higher stride, therefore earning the benefit of the doubt in the committee’s mind. If they’re an 11-1 or 10-2 non-conference champion, they’re in.”

JK: Nebraska

“Nebraska really should be playing some games in November that have actual, legitimate implications for the playoff. If you look at their schedule — they’ve got Colorado at home in Week 2 — if they can beat the Buffaloes, Nebraska would likely be an undefeated team facing Ohio State at the end of October. Then, even if the Huskers lose to Ohio State, they can be sitting in that same boat as Penn State at 11-1 with a great case for an at-large bid.”

What should the expectation be for Colorado in Deion Sanders’ second year?

JP: All or nothing

“I think the Buffaloes have a much better football team than people realize. People have gotten so caught up in that noise that I just flat out think they’re a better football team than a win total of 5.5. I think they’re going to flex a little bit in Week 1 against North Dakota State, then they hop up to Nebraska in Week 2. 

“Here is the potential downfall, if there is one. … I have a buddy of mine who is kind of a casual fan. He’ll watch Colorado and some of the big boys. He texts me and says ‘Woah, man, Deion and them are going to the Big 12? They’re going to run roughshod over that league.’ I said, ‘Why is that?’ He said, ‘Well, they’ve got players like Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders. The Big 12 doesn’t really send a whole lot of guys to the first round of the NFL Draft, do they?’ I said, ‘No, they do not.’

“That’s not necessarily the advantage you think it is, though, because what you end up with in that trade-off in a lot of fourth- and fifth-year seniors in the starting 22, guys who a lot of times know that this is the pinnacle of their career. They’re great culture programs. If you’ve got your you-know-what together, and you’re talented, you can demolish them like what Alabama did to Kansas State a couple years ago in the Sugar Bowl. However, if you’re just a bunch of pieces instead of a program, you get your tree shaken every week in the Big 12. So I either see it going really good or really poorly for Colorado. I don’t really have a middle-of-the-road prediction for them. It’s all or nothing.”

JK: At least eight wins

“People call me a homer, but I’ve done this for long enough to understand that when you have returning starters at important spots, then the way the games played out in the previous season matter a lot. And when you look at what Colorado was last year, they played six ranked opponents. Oregon blew them out, but against the other five, they were in a one-possession game in the fourth quarter.

“You’ve got a returning starting quarterback who might be a top-10 pick. You’ve got a returning utility man in Travis Hunter — likely a top 10 pick, probably a top five pick — and you’re much better on the line of scrimmage, and you don’t have to face the gauntlet of quarterbacks that Colorado faced last year in the Pac-12. I know Vegas has said 5.5 wins — my over/under number is eight. I think they’re an eight win team all day long, maybe more.”

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