Joel Klatt: Tennessee is not a national championship-caliber team

With what he has seen this season, Joel Klatt doesn’t think that the Tennessee Volunteers can win the national title.

Klatt gave that take about the Vols during his show on Monday. While they’re definitely good enough to be one of the best teams in the country, being one of the actual contenders isn’t what he thinks that they are.

“You look at Tennessee? Let me just quickly say this about Tennessee. I think Tennessee is a hell of a football team. I really do. They are a top-echelon team. There’s no doubt – but they are not a top-level team, alright, and those two things are different. Those two things are different,” said Klatt. “There are teams that can play great and then there are teams that can win on the top level. When I say win on the top level, I mean, like, you can win a national championship. I just don’t feel like that about Tennessee right now.”

Klatt’s biggest issue with Tennessee’s chances of contending is the offense that they run. That’s the case even though he understands its purpose and how successful that it has been during the tenure of Josh Heupel.

“Tennessee, right now, is maxing out what they can do because of the way that they kind of play offense. I felt this way about this offense for a long time. It’s a really hard opinion to give because it’s an insanely productive offense and it’s an offense that can, at times, look like the best offense in college football. But this offense that they use?…Here’s what it’s predicated on – space and athletes. That’s what it is,” Klatt explained. “It’s forcing you into a position that you’re uncomfortable in as a defense because, if you’re using that offense, you’re banking on the fact that the guys that you have with the ball are better than the athletes that are trying to tackle them. So you’re putting that situation in space where there’s a microscope on it or a spotlight on it, okay. One win for you creates even a bigger win because of the space there.”

However, while that may be, Klatt knows it’s not nearly as effective in games against the other best teams nationally. For example, Tennessee is averaging 35.5 ppg. overall this season, which is 18th overall in the country. When you look into it, though, the Volunteers are averaging 63.7 ppg. in the non-conference and 23.4 ppg. in the SEC. Split that between Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Mississippi State, the three teams currently in last in the league, with Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, and Florida, two of which they’ve lost to and one of which took them to overtime, and those averages are different as well at 28.7 ppg. versus 19.5 ppg.

Again, Klatt doesn’t necessarily have an issue with the offense itself. It’s just that using that attack against other top teams, or at least ones better equipped to defend it, and not having anything else to turn to has become a problem for him with Tennessee.

“That’s well and good until the other athletes are just as good as you…This offense has a ceiling. You can tell me it can be the No. 1 offense in college football. That’s fine – as long as your athletes are better than the opposition. When the talent is equated? This is what it means to be on the top level is to win matchup games – you’ve got the same amount of talent on your roster as they do on theirs. Who wins a matchup game?” Klatt thought. “See, you can’t implore systems that bank on the fact that your going to have better players than your opposition. You just can’t do that. You can’t win matchup games like that. Can you win here or there, you get them in your environment? Yes. But can it sustain itself to a championship? Probably not, probably not because someone’s going to figure you out. If you don’t have a secondary pitch, if you don’t have a secondary option as an offense? Then you’re going to get shut down. That’s what we see from Tennessee.”

“Like, where do you go when the athletes in space-philosophy isn’t working? See, you’ve got to have an answer. So, if you look at the other great teams in the country? I think that they have an answer…You take something away from them, even if its their bread and butter? They’ve got an answer. We can go do something else. I don’t feel like that about Tennessee,” continued Klatt. “That doesn’t mean that they can’t be really good and it doesn’t mean that they can’t win games that are matchup games, in particular in their home stadium. But it’s not sustainable because, at some point, you don’t have your fastball and, if you don’t have a secondary pitch, you don’t get outs to continue the baseball analogy.”

Tennessee, with their team as a whole, will continue to put themselves in games and win as they’re still at 8-2. Even so, this offense is the difference for Klatt in the Vols just winning games and winning it all.

“That’s why, for me, I’m really concerned about Tennessee at the top level,” Klatt stated. “Is this a national championship-caliber team? I do not think it is and it’s for that reason.”