One week of college football was enough for Joel Klatt to switch things around in his rankings.
After his preseason No. 1 team, Oregon, was taken down to the wire against Boise State, Klatt has a new team at No. 1 in his top 10. And many teams made strong cases to be considered as the best program in the nation this weekend, with Ohio State, Texas, Georgia, LSU and Miami (Fla.) all making big statements in their season-opening wins.
So, as we now have one week of college football in the books, here are the 10 teams that Klatt thinks are the best in the country.
10.
Klatt’s thoughts: 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 upfront running the football. Quarterback Jayden Maiava is outstanding — I hope he’s healthy; he got nicked up a little bit late in that game against Fresno State.
And then their defense ends up pitching a shutout. I don’t think Fresno State is anywhere close to a Boise State, but we were questioning, “What was USC’s 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, USC’s coordinator, specifically, in their second game against Fresno State. And they played hard throughout, and they got the shutout.
9.
Klatt’s thoughts: I don’t think UTEP is great, but Oklahoma was dominant. They beat UTEP 51-0. John Mateer threw three touchdowns. Isaiah Sategna was electric. He had a punt return for a touchdown, he was great on offense.
Oklahoma faces Michigan next. I have one question for Oklahoma and one only: can they run the ball independently of John Mateer? I think that’s a question. I don’t think that’s going to be answered against UTEP. We’ll see against Michigan, because as much as Michigan struggled, I thought their defense was still pretty strong.
I liked what I saw from Oklahoma. I think that they’ve got future NFL players all over the place. I think that’s an elite team.
8.
Klatt’s thoughts: Josh Hoover comes to Indiana, and a lot of us were wondering how he would do replacing last season’s Heisman winner and national champion Fernando Mendoza. I think what got lost in the conversation leading up to this season is that 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. 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.
I was incredibly impressed with Josh Hoover, even if I wasn’t blown away by Indiana. Indiana did not play great on the defensive side of the ball. I did not think they ran it as effectively as they wanted to run it or as they thought they would be able to run it. Maybe some injuries played into that. What I did see was a passing game that was elevated from a year ago — that passing game is elite.
7.
Klatt’s thoughts: This felt very different from the Michigan near-upset, where I was watching Michigan and was like, “Oh no.” Caution lights, panic, all of it. Oregon, I don’t feel like that. Now, I had Oregon at No. 1. I’m not just going to keep them No. 1, and I’m not going to just 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’m going to move Oregon all the way down, and they’re going to be my No. 7 team in the country.
Do they still have enough talent to win the national 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.
The QB play was the difference in Week 1; Dante Moore was the difference for Oregon, elevating the Ducks and getting them into a position where they can come back and win that football game.
6.
Klatt’s thoughts: Now I know Georgia won big and you heard all these statistics, like they averaged 11 yards per play. OK, it was Tennessee State. So, we get it. It was 63-3. Quarterback Gunner Stockton was 15 of 16, over 200 yards and three touchdowns. Georgia ran for 10 yards per carry as a team.
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 head coach Kirby Smart. I think they’re going to be there all the way until the end. And I still think that the SEC goes through Georgia.
But, I saw two other SEC teams that I felt like were more talented on Saturday. And maybe that was just Tennessee State, and we’ll see. We’ll come to find out as Georgia’s schedule starts to get a little bit more difficult.
5.
Klatt’s thoughts: A team that I was very high on, but I’m going to move down. Notre Dame won the game on Sunday night, but it was a close game against Wisconsin. And maybe Wisconsin is a lot better — and I think that they probably are, based on what we saw. Notre Dame beat Wisconsin 41-13, they outscored them 28-3 in the second half, so they kind of pulled away.
I didn’t love the run game — that was something that I just thought, and maybe this was a fool’s errand on my part, that Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price were fantastic, but man, you know they’ve 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 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. But Notre Dame’s 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.
4.
Klatt’s thoughts: Miami goes out to Stanford and wins, 45-6. They were dominant. Dominated the line of scrimmage. Darian Mensah looks like he could be a star. He threw for 400 yards, 27 of 30.
And then there was the real star: Malachi Toney. Now you know why, when I did my preseason All-Americans, it was so easy for me to just say like, “Yup, Jeremiah Smith and Malachi Toney are your preseason All-American wide receivers.” Malachi Toney is unbelievable. Twelve catches, 234 yards and three touchdowns.
I think Miami is better than last year. 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.
3.
Klatt’s thoughts: This is a program that I watched on Saturday night, and I thought to myself, “OK, yup, that’s real.” Lane Kiffin is real. He’s answered his critics. That is one of the happiest fan bases in college football when they wake up on Sunday and when they wake up on Monday. 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 No. 3 team in the country — they move from No. 8 to No. 3.
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 offseason just to see, 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, an SEC schedule, the adversity that comes with it? We’ll see, because I do still think that it’s a bit of a transactional roster. But it’s pretty clear to me that Lane is trying to build the combination of the Nick Saban discipline and toughness, and the flash and star power of the early-2000s Pete Carroll teams.
2.
Klatt’s thoughts: Texas was outstanding against Texas State. Some of those questions about the run game and defense — I thought they answered them. I think Will Muschamp as defensive coordinator is going to work out really well for them. They’ve got talent everywhere. We might see three or four Longhorns picked in the first 10 or 15 picks of the NFL Draft. Quarterback Arch Manning looked really good, first-year wide receiver Cam Coleman looked really good, running backs Hollywood Smothers, Raleek Brown, wideout Ryan Wingo — that is a really, really good football team.
1.
Klatt’s thoughts: Ohio State is No. 1. They beat Ball State again. It’s like Georgia and even Texas — Ohio State didn’t get threatened whatsoever, but all of these teams did exactly what you should do. They went out there and just totally took care of business.
The run statistics look a little inflated compared to the way they actually ran it on a play-by-play 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 quarterback Julian Sayin is still the real deal. Jeremiah Smith is still the best player in college football — eight catches, 151 yards and two touchdowns. Ohio State broke a couple of long runs there, both Jacksons — Bo and Ja’Kobi. I thought that they looked good and they did exactly what you would expect. They didn’t mess around. I know that Ball State isn’t as good as Boise State. Ball State’s nowhere close to Clemson. But Ohio State just went out there and totally dominated, 56-3, and they went about their business, and they’re No. 1.
Now, was it close? Yes. This is not like an easy, absolutely far and away, “Ohio State is No. 1.” … All of these teams in the top eight, I still think very highly of. 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.
Joel Klatt reveals his first top 10 of the 2026 season
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