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Joel Klatt names the best team in college football right now

Joe Cox|
FOX Sports analyst Joel Klatt weighed in on the top team in college football after Week 9.
FOX Sports analyst Joel Klatt weighed in on the top team in college football after Week 9. | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

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Ohio State Buckeyes

After a Week 9 that was fairly formulaic in terms of college football's top teams, FOX analyst Joel Klatt weighed in on college football's top teams. Klatt played things fairly close to the vest, concurring with the AP on the vast majority of college football's top ten teams. That includes the No. 1 spot, where Klatt stuck with Ohio State.

The Buckeyes were off in Week 9, but with a 7-0 record, an opportunistic offense, and a historically stout defense, OSU is certainly a defensible choice for the top spot.

Klatt's Top 10

Klatt's top six teams are identical with the current AP rankings. Klatt only points of difference come below that. Klatt apparently values Notre Dame and BYU slightly more than AP voters did. He ranks the Irish seventh, which is a substantial jump above the 12th place ranking the Irish hold in the AP poll. The 5-2 Irish have lost only to Miami and Texas A&M, both current top 10 teams. But Notre Dame's only win over a currently-ranked team is a Week 8 victory over USC.

On the other side of things, Klatt showed disrespect for a pair of AP top 10 squads. No. 8 Georgia Tech and No. 9 Vanderbilt weren't judged worthy of Klatt's top 10. Tech is 8-0, but has no wins over teams currently ranked in the top 25 and will only face on in the regular season finale with Georgia. Vanderbilt lost to Alabama, but has wins over Missouri and LSU in the last two weeks, and has ranked Texas and Tennessee teams ahead on its schedule.

Klatt, FOX, and the CFP

Given Klatt's alignment with FOX and FOX's alignment with the Big Ten, it's unsurprising that it isn't a Big Ten school that Klatt slots down a notch or two. The league seems relatively set in CFP terms, with Ohio State and Indiana both almost certainties, with the teams boasting 96% and 96.8% CFP probablities per ESPN's FPI. Oregon is a very likely third team with a 75% shot. But the odds of a fourth Big Ten team look long, with Michigan (14.9%) and USC (13.3%) the most likely fourth Big Ten teams.

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Joe Cox
JOE COX

Joe is a journalist and writer who covers college and professional sports. He has written or co-written over a dozen sports books, including several regional best sellers. His last book, A Fine Team Man, is about Jackie Robinson and the lives he changed. Joe has been a guest on MLB Network, the Paul Finebaum show and numerous other television and radio shows. He has been inside MLB dugouts, covered bowl games and conference tournaments with Saturday Down South and still loves telling the stories of sports past and present.

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