Wherever you are listening to this and whoever you root for, wherever you went to school, you feel like you have a shot. We're at the dawn of the golden age of college football. This is the evidence. This is the single greatest coaching job in the history of college football. Every single program can wake up tomorrow and think to themselves, why not us? Touchdown. These fans are the best in the country. A day like today is why we love college football. Hey, welcome into the program. I'm Joel Klatt. This is the Joel Klatt Show. We are brought to you by Graduate by Hilton. We thank them for their support. How about that for a national championship game? Wow. An incredible second half and an incredible fourth quarter. That was everything that we hoped it would be and then some. That game lived up to the hype, and that's all we can ever ask for. Indiana has won the national championship. I can't honestly believe that I'm uttering that sentence, to be quite honest with you. Someone that's grown up with this sport and loved this sport for so long. Indiana has won the national championship. They beat Miami. In Miami, by the way. So, man, lots to get to. I'm going to try my best to try to give you some perspective about what we just saw. Also break down the game a little bit. But we're going to get you all of that here coming straight up. But first, just remember, if you have not subscribed over at the YouTube channel, please go and do that. You can hit the notification button and you'll know when all of our content drops and we will continue to have content during the course of the offseason. As you know, if you've been here for any length of time, we'll be covering the draft ongoing. We will have hopefully some interviews going on this offseason and we'll be getting you all set for next college football season. Yeah, which I can't wait for already. And we're going to start doing that on Thursday. So Thursday is going to be our next episode. That will be our way too early top 10 for 2026. We'll be looking forward. So I will give you a top 10 list as we see it here at the Joel Clash Show. That's coming out on Thursday. But right now we've got to get to this game and try to put this championship into some perspective. And I do think it's going to be difficult to do that because I don't know if there are words adequate to describe what we just saw with Indiana. And, you know, I know I'm going to fall short, but I'm going to do my very best. This might have been one of the most consequential championships that I've seen in my lifetime in college football. because we don't often get new blood in this sport. In fact, it's exceedingly rare to get a team to a point where they can go and win that school's first national championship. I did not do this on my own research. I believe that the broadcast mentioned that we haven't had a first-time national champion since 96 when Florida won it. Now, this is what's so wild to me is that If you take us all back just a few years, in like the late 2000s and teens, if you will, when Alabama and Clemson are going through their run and then ultimately Georgia kind of joined that run, I had no faith that we were going to get to a point in college football where others were going to be able to level up and join that caliber of program. It's just not how the sport was built at the time. And here we are in 2025 and the Indiana Hoosiers of all teams, not just like kind of new blood, like, hey, Oregon's been knocking at the door forever and they finally got their national champion. No, no, no. Indiana, who at the beginning of this season was the losingest program in the history of the sport. I just like, I can't, I can't get over how big this is for college football. Because now, every school and every fan in the country, wherever you are listening to this, and whoever you root for, wherever you went to school, you feel like you have a shot. We're one coach away. We're one recruiting class, one transfer portal window away from competing at the highest level. We have never had this amount of parity in our sport. Not even close. That playoff was sensational. throughout. Some duds, some great games, but in every single one, save for Indiana against Bama and maybe Oregon and maybe a couple of others with the group of five teams, like either team could have won those games. Heck, A&M's driving down to beat Miami in the first round. Miami gets all the way into the national championship game and they're driving to try to go and win the national championship. So listen, like this is a phenomenal era of college football. And I think that Indiana winning the national championship is evidence of that. New blood in the sport is incredible. This is incredible for the sport, which is why. And I know a lot of people, listen, I will occasionally like go down there and read a lot of the comments. And I hear some of you and a lot of people scoffed at me a few years ago when we started this show and I had the line and since it's, we actually don't have it in the open anymore in the show, but I had a line in the old open of the show that said, we are at the dawn of the golden age of college football. This is the evidence. This is the goal. This is it. This is it. How else do you get into an era where Indiana of all teams and all programs can go and win a national championship? Like this is, this is staggering stuff. They went six and over versus top 10 teams this year. Coming into this season, they had six wins in their program's history against top 10 teams. They were six and 117 and one against top 10 teams. Like LSU in 19 beat seven, and now we've got Indiana and Ohio State with six wins against top 10 teams in the last couple of years. Indiana. I keep saying that because to me, like it means something. This again, I believe could be in hindsight, and I know we're fresh off of this, that this is going to be one of the most consequential national champions that we have seen in a long, long time because everybody is going to believe that they are close. And that's exactly what we've needed in college football because I'll be very honest with you. In the late 2000 teens, you know, when they're, not only did I think it was going to be difficult for someone to level up, but I would be calling college football games and thinking to myself like, well, this is totally inconsequential as it relates to the national championship. And now you can no longer say that. There are so many teams and programs that are close. We had teams that candidly weren't even close to the postseason that gave Indiana everything that they wanted. Penn State. You know, I mean, Penn State is right. Listen again this was a phenomenal team an incredible coach and we going to get to all of that But the time that we in right now I think that we should all sit back and just take a little bit of perspective and just kind of view where we're at in college football. I even went through and I looked at the overall commit rankings for next year's classes, right? Not just high school players and not just transfer portal. So if you mix the two and you just look at, all right, new players into all these programs, here's what you would see. In the top 10, the top 10 new classes, portal and high school, you've got everybody bringing in 35 or 36 plus players. And in the top 10, you've got the number one overall by rating, okay, by average rating of player is Notre Dame and their average rating, 36 players average rating about 92.2. You go all the way down to number 10, it's Tennessee. They're going to bring in 45 new players, average rating of 89.5. It's right there. Again, so we are equating talent across a lot of different conferences and teams, and that's good for the sport. And the evidence, obviously, is Indiana winning the national championship. Kurt Signetti pulls this thing off, and as a coach, I would just have to say, I can't put into perspective exactly what we've seen from Kurt Signetti because we have never seen anything like what we have seen from Kurt Signetti. So there is no perspective to give other than this is the single greatest coaching job in the history of college football. I think that you have to go outside of college football to start finding at least other examples of coaches that have done something that is even remotely like this. I mean, is this similar to Herb Brooks in the Miracle on Ice? I don't know. I mean, that was a couple of weeks for one tournament. Now, granted, maybe them as an underdog, yes, over the Soviets and winning that hockey game, albeit in the semifinals and ultimately winning the gold medal. Maybe it's that. Is it Raleigh Massimino and Villanova winning the NCAA tournament? Is it Jim Valvano and North Carolina State winning the NCAA tournament? I don't know. That's like one pocket with one tournament. This guy comes in and in two years goes 27-2 with the losingest program in the history of the sport. It's wild. It's absolutely wild, which just goes to show you that in this era of college football, if you get the right person and he's got the right assistants and they bring in the right players, it can turn around. It can turn around. The evidence is right there. It is right there. and Kurt Signetti just proved it. This is, again, why I would say this is the dawn of the golden age of college football because I believe there are a lot of teams and programs that can do this. We've seen Texas Tech invest heavily. We've seen Oregon over the last two decades, three decades, invest heavily in college football. This is going to be, I think, more the norm, and I think that that's great. That doesn't mean that the Blue Bloods are going away. They certainly aren't, and they're going to be right there, and you're going to have to go play them, and you're going to have to go beat them. There's no doubt about that. But college football is not set up for parity. We don't give the best draft picks to the worst programs. In fact, if you're the worst program in the history of college football by overall losses, that generally means that you're going to have a lack of funding, a lack of facilities, a lack of interest. It's harder to compete. And he turns it around right away, 27-2. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? This is the greatest coaching job in the history of college football, and I think it's going to rival any great coaching job that we've ever seen in any sport ever. And Kurt Signetti has just authored it in Bloomington at Indiana. The Big Ten wins their third straight national championship with a third different team. I think that that's important because I would argue that narratives need to die in college football. And it's pretty clear that the pervasive narrative surrounding the strength of the SEC is dead and needs to die and needs to continue to die because that narrative drives our subjective sport when we're starting to select through a committee our playoff participants. And that hurts the overall sport when there is a narrative that is driven that is false. And this is obviously false. We have seen it now in three straight years. We have seen it with three different teams. And the top of college football is now very easily residing in the Big Ten. And there is no argument about that. That's just the facts of what we've got. That's just the truth of what's going on. Now, you could maybe have a debate, maybe, about the middle. And again, the pervasive narrative is that the depth of the SEC is just so far and away greater than every other conference in America. But as we saw in bowl season, that also is false. You can maybe have a debate about it. I think you will lose that debate. But that narrative needs to die. All narratives need to die. Because the sport will be better if we start looking out for the whole and not for individual conferences. I will be the first to say that. I will be the first to say that. What's up, Clatch Show fans? If you're looking for a great gift idea or something fun to do with your friends and family, look no further than SeatGeek. With over 35 million downloads, SeatGeek is the number one rated ticketing app out there. Now, there are more than 70,000 events listed, like concerts, festivals. You can even score college football playoff tickets. World Cup tickets this summer, they're on SeatGeek. I personally love using SeatGeek for tickets to games with my boys because I know that SeatGeek has my back. Each ticket is rated on a scale of 1 to 10, so you know you're getting a good deal. Look for the green dots. It means a great deal. Red ones maybe mean keep looking. Now they're backed by their buyer guarantee. And of course, they have a code just for us at the CLAT show. You can use CLAT10 for 10% off your next set of tickets at SeatGeek. That's 10% off any tickets with promo code CLAT10. Make sure you click the link in the description to download the app and have the code automatically added to your account so you can use it later. A huge thank you to SeatGeek for sponsoring today's show. Let's get into this game, start talking about some of these players. I really think that this was one of the great teams that we've seen in college football history. I know that sounds strange because when we think about great teams in college football history, we ultimately think about great players. And great players typically are high-round draft picks. And I don't know if Indiana is going to have a ton of first-round draft picks. Now, obviously, Fernando Mendoza, the Heisman Trophy winner, is going to be a first-round draft pick, probably the first overall pick in the draft. I don't know how many others there are, but there's a lot of great college football players. And this is one thing that I want us to do as college football fans. Sometimes we have to appreciate what something is here and not there. because a frustration of mine is that we'll be talking about college football players. No, yeah, he was okay. But what they're talking about is the NFL. And it like hey in college he was amazing He was amazing whether it was individually or maybe even a team as well And this is going to be one of those teams Now I hope these guys all go on to have really successful NFL careers. And I hope that that helps perpetuate the, I think, the fact that we will look back on this team in particular as one of the best that we've ever seen. But if you just look at what they have done here, not there, here in college football, you'll see that from a point differential standpoint, they're second all time to that great Florida State team with Jameis Winston. This is a team that has won at a clip that is historic. Their point differential is plus 479. That surpasses 2018 Clemson, 2019 Ohio State, 95 Nebraska. It's second only to 2013 Florida State, which had a differential of plus 553, which by the way is wild. It's absolutely wild. This Indiana team, as Nick Saban talked about in the pregame, may be one of the most sound and balanced teams certainly that we have in college football this year. Maybe in a long, long time. Certainly any team that I've covered. I've covered a lot of different teams over my career. I started calling college football games, I believe it was 2009. Yeah, 2009 was my first year calling a few college football games. And since that date until now, almost 20 years, not quite 20 years, this is the most balanced and sound team that I've ever seen. No doubt about it. Now, there's been more talented teams with guys that will go on to have first-round draft picks. But as far as a balanced team, this one takes the cake. Think about it from this standpoint. They've faced teams with great individual talent and areas of those teams that are superior to them. We saw it in the championship game. Bain and Mesidor rushing the quarterback. They had no answer for that pass rush. I mean, that pass rush was fierce. It was outstanding. Those two guys, they were fun to watch. And yet, you know, Indiana still has other things that they can go to. They can go to the back shoulder fade. They can go to the quarterback draw. They rolled out a little bit. That's just on offense. Oh, by the way, they handed the ball off 37 times for over 130 yards. You know, so like they got to some things that got them away from the pass rush, even though they couldn't block those guys. They faced Jeremiah Smith. They faced the pass rush of Penn State and the run game of Penn State. Like they did all of those things, but they're so balanced and they're so good everywhere that eventually they're going to find your weakness and be better than you there. And that's exactly what we saw in this championship game. Let's go to some of the key moments in this game. Obviously, late in that second half, the way Mendoza played in big downs, third down, fourth down, whether it was him running or making throws, the way Charlie Becker played, I mean, becoming basically the go-to guy. We thought that was going to be Elijah Surratt because he was for the majority of the year, but Surratt candidly did not play well in the championship game. Cooper played pretty well. The backs played pretty well. And then Becker was a monster. The dude was incredible on the back shoulder. I mean, going to him on a fourth down, going back shoulder, and he comes up with it massive going back to him on third down, massive, the back shoulder. And then how about the stones on Signetti? It looks like they're confused. It's fourth down. You're down there in the red zone. They don't want to kick a field goal. They end up taking a timeout. And I'm thinking to myself, oh my gosh, are they finally rattled? Because I haven't seen Indiana rattled much at all this entire year. The quarterback stays very even keeled. Obviously, Signetti doesn't even smile on the sideline. And they looked a bit hurried and rattled and didn't know what to do. Are we kicking the field goal? Are we going for it on fourth down? They ended up taking the timeout. I'm like, man, in a close game, you don't want to waste timeouts like that in that situation. And they end up going for it. And how about the call to go for a quarterback draw with Fernando? And this is not Cam Newton. And they go with Fernando Mendoza. And this dude's selling out. And he had been hit all night by that pass rush. Just getting absolutely blasted. And I will tell you, as a kid that grew up in Denver, Colorado, and was on the edge of my seat, watching the Denver Broncos as double-digit dogs try to beat Green Bay in Super Bowl XXXII and watch John Elway go airborne in the old Murph in San Diego and get helicopter hit, that's exactly what it reminded me of. You're watching a guy sell out inside the five, and he stays on his feet, and he lays out for the goal line and gets absolutely drilled right in his spine, and he scores the touchdown. And he scores the touchdown. Like, that call by Signetti, the effort by Mendoza, all of it. I was just like, oh, my gosh. How do you, as a team, execute at that high a level in those moments consistently? Because they do. They do. They just don't make many mistakes. And this was one of their sloppiest games. One of their sloppiest games. I tell you, man, that was a wild sequence right there. Indiana wins it, 27-21. Miami actually outgained them, but Indiana held on to the football. They stayed committed to the run game, even when it was tough. I think when I look at this game, what I'm going to remember are the plays that were made. Because Mendoza made plays, Becker made plays, obviously the big pick at the end. I think if you're a Miami fan, you're probably going to think of this game as mistakes made. Because there were a lot of mistakes. Miami had two penalties on third downs that allowed drives to continue in the first half. One of them was on a touchdown drive. Indiana blocked a punt for a touchdown. Then you have Beck's interception to end it. And we said before the game that Miami had to play clean to win. They had to play clean to win. They had to win the line of scrimmage and play violently up front like they say that they want to. And they did that on the defensive side. I don't think the offensive line played as well as some anticipated, in particular in the run game. And then they had to play mistake-free. And they did not play mistake-free. And those mistakes end up costing you games in any big game, but certainly when you play an Indiana team that capitalizes on those mistakes. So they take those third-down penalties, they stay on the field, and they punch it into the end zone. They take that just total whiff of a block by the personal protector in front of the punter, and they block the punt. They're not even rushing the punt, by the way. Mikhail Kamara is not like on a punt rush. He's sitting there, and he's like, well, listen, if you're not going to block me, then I'll reach out and block the punt. And they do it, and they block it for a touchdown, and then Beck ultimately throws it in double coverage You make those mistakes you going to lose and they did and they lost by six and that what Miami fans are going to have to live with And that going to be sickening to them because they had a defensive line that was owning it man They did it They put Mendoza in a blender. They did. And, and, and it was hard on Indiana. And for a lot of that game, I thought to myself, listen, Miami's the better team. They're moving the football offensively a little bit here and there. They're getting to Mendoza. This is hard on, I mean, every third down was difficult. He's getting hit. He's getting battered. He's showing bruises after the game. The interview with Holly Rowe. I mean, Miami was right there, but they made too many mistakes. They made too many mistakes and it was not a clean game from Indiana as well. I will just say this, The end of that game, there was almost one of the worst false starts in the history of college football. And I'm sorry, I've got to pull it up. Carter Smith, the left tackle, gets called for the false start on Indiana. And it's second and one with a minute 56 left. Miami has two timeouts. And if they get that first down, then the best Miami is going to be able to do is get the ball back. probably down six with likely about 16 seconds left. But because of the false start, they don't get the first down, and they end up having to give the ball back to Miami with, what was it, a minute 40 left down six. Like that call almost cost them the national championship, and there were some sloppy aspects of the way Indiana played. Elijah Surratt dropped a third down. I think the moment was big for a lot of people, but ultimately it was those plays that Mendoza made, that Becker made, that ultimately won the game for him. And then Kalon Black and Roman Hemby were sensational. Combined 36 carries for 139 yards, and the commitment from Mike Shanahan, the offensive coordinator, stayed with the run game. That was pretty awesome. And I think ultimately it's what allowed them to find some sustained success, keep themselves on the field, drive down the field a little bit. There was a couple of those third down runs that were able to get home. That was huge. Now, let's quickly give a bit of Miami perspective. I just talked about how frustrated they've got to be because they won the line of scrimmage, in particular on the defensive side. They didn't allow pressure to get to Beck, and they still lose the game. Here's the other part. that's going to be hard to swallow for Miami is that you got some really big shoes walking out the door. Bain, Mesidor, Maui Noah, those guys aren't coming back. Beck, not coming back. You know, that's a lot to replace, and you're right there. I mean, you're right there, and you feel like you can win that game. With some better play on special teams, you're right there. with, you know, and I know it's a hustle play, but like you don't grab a face mask on third and 17, maybe get the ball back like you're right there. Miami is right there to win the national championship and now likely are going to have to replace three or four offensive linemen, those great defensive ends, and that's going to be difficult to do. That's going to be very difficult to do. Now, not totally impossible because, again, this is a different era of college football. So it's not a death sentence that those guys are walking out the door, but it's certainly going to be hard, and it's certainly going to be frustrating, and it's a tough pill to swallow for Miami. Last thing that I wanted to touch on here is just the perspective of greatness. That's one of the best teams that we've seen in college football. They're the first one, at least in modern vintage, since the turn of last century to go 16-0. Yale did it in like the 18-whatevers, 132 years ago. And it was Indiana. Wasn't Georgia. Wasn't Alabama. Wasn't Ohio State. Wasn't Texas or USC. Wasn't Michigan. Wasn't Notre Dame. It was Indiana. And that's why we are on the doorstep, or maybe right in the middle of, the greatest era that this sport has ever seen. Because certainly in our lifetime, I'm 43, and this is the first time in my lifetime that I think every single program can wake up tomorrow and think to themselves, why not us? Why not us? Now, it's not easy, and everything does have to fall in line. You've got to find the right guy. You've got to bring in the right coaches. You've got to find the right players. You've got to be committed to it. But it can happen. You're not just going to roll into a blue blood and think to yourself, well, we can't beat them. Because that no longer exists in college football. Because if you're willing to go after it, you can accumulate the talent. There is no barrier to entry into level A of college football anymore. And to me, that means that we are in the great era of college football, where it doesn't matter what the logo on your helmet is. It doesn't matter what conference you play in. you can go win a national championship. Not just compete at the highest level. Not just get into the tournament. No, no, no. Not just get into the playoff. Win the playoff. Win it all. They were the number one seed. They had the Heisman Trophy winner. They went 16-0 with one of the best differentials that we've ever seen in our sports history. And you can do it too. And that's what's exciting for every fan, for all of us. Because remember, college football is different. This is not professional sports. This is not professional anything. This is not the NFL. I'm a fan of the Denver Broncos because I grew up in Denver. I'm not a part of the Denver Broncos, and I never will be. I never will be. And all those people that sit in Mile High Stadium, they're not part of the Denver Broncos. But guess what? I am a Colorado Buffalo, and you are wherever you went to school. And everybody that went to Indiana is an Indiana Hoosier. And that's why they take pride in this victory. And this sport is tribal and it is special because of that nature. And now everybody in every school can wake up and tell themselves, we can do it too. And that's why this is the golden age of college football. We will be back on Thursday morning with our brand new, way too early, top 10 for 2026 as we start looking ahead to what is undoubtedly going to be another exciting and great college football season. We'll see you then, everybody.
