Joel Klatt explains why he has Florida State ranked No. 8

Joel Klatt is backing up his rankings from earlier this week, where he made waves by putting the Florida State Seminoles at No. 8.

During the latest episode of The Joel Klatt Show, the FOX analyst elaborated on why he has the Seminoles so low, even if the College Football Playoff committee has Florida State in the dance.

“If you’re listening to this, one of those stood out. If you’re watching this, clearly one stands out. I acknowledge that. We’ve got an undefeated team that’s 10-0 and I’ve got them ranked No. 8 in the country,” Klatt said. “So first, I don’t want you to pay attention to the No. 8. That’s really not what this is about. This is about, there are eight really good teams in this season, so someone’s got to be No. 8. At some point, you’ve got to start ranking these teams based on, ‘Hey, let’s play them tomorrow on a neutral site, who do you think wins?’ That’s kind of what I did here, except for one. In my mind, I played these guys and just said, ‘Who do you think wins, right now, tomorrow.’ That’s how I ranked teams. The problem was, I’ve got the Washington win over Oregon, and you’ve got to honor that. You have to honor that.

“If I was going just by my criteria based off of who wins on a neutral, I’d have Washington No. 7. But they beat Oregon, so they’ve got to be up there ahead of Oregon. I like Oregon a little more than Texas, and Texas has the win over Alabama. So that’s how that all goes.”

While Klatt isn’t a believer in Florida State at the moment, Seminoles faithful can take solace in the fact that he’s not the one putting teams into the College Football Playoff. That responsibility falls on the shoulders of someone like Boo Corrigan, who has Florida State as one of the top four teams at the moment.

“Florida State really good offensively, has been really good defensively,” the CFP selection committee chair said. “Don’t undersell the Miami-Florida State rivalry, as well. That’s been going on for years. Miami hit a big play for that touchdown in the second half and we thought Florida State was a dominant team in there. 

“Washington continues to win. Really good defensive second half against Utah, and as we looked at it and evaluate it, as y’all can appreciate, the debate is getting stronger every week as we get more and more data points going through this. But we ended up with Florida State at four and Washington at five.”

Alas, time will tell if Florida State can continue to assert their dominance, but the Seminoles have all they need in front of them.