Joel Klatt reveals new-look Top 10 following Week 4

With Week 5 coming right around the corner, the best teams in college football are starting to become clear. Well, FOX Sports analyst Joel Klatt thinks that’s happening in a major way.

Klatt listed Georgia, Ohio State and Alabama as his respective top three as he revealed on “Breaking the Huddle with Joel Klatt” Wednesday night. Then, he said there was a steep drop-off to the rest of the pack.

“The top three have really separated themselves out from college football. … Four all the way through 10, I don’t want to say they’re interchangeable, but you clearly have some tiers here,” Klatt said. “There are some teams that probably feel like they should be included in the top 10.”

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Here is Klatt’s full top 10 after Week 4.

1. Georgia
2. Ohio State
3. Alabama
4. Michigan
5. Clemson
6. Kentucky
7. Oklahoma State
8. USC
9. Penn State
10. Tennessee

Joel Klatt: The talent discrepancy between the top three and the rest is ‘stark’

Klatt dove into the biggest differences between his top three and the rest of the teams in college football. He also cited some important recruiting stats to back up his point and illustrate why Georgia, Ohio State and Alabama are having so much success.

“What is indisputable right now is these top three,” Klatt said. “Why is that? Well, talent. Well, that’s pretty clear, yes. But do you know how clear it actually is? The discrepancy between talent — between the top three and the rest of college football right now — is pretty stark.

“If you look at those top three teams right now in my rankings — Georgia, Ohio State and Alabama — you’ll find that since the beginning of the Playoff era, they’ve gotten 35% of all five-star recruits over that time period. Less than 3% of the schools are taking 35% of the top-tier talent. That’s a remarkable discrepancy.”

Given the big gap in talent, Klatt said that makes for parity across the rest of the game. That’s why some of last week’s upsets, including Kansas State’s win over Oklahoma, could be attributed to comparable roster talent.

“How do we get a situation where Tulane beats Kansas State on one week and then Kansas State turns around and beats Oklahoma the next? Because you can make a strong argument that Tulane is a lot closer to Oklahoma than even Oklahoma is to a team like Alabama or Georgia or Ohio State,” Klatt said. “The gap is growing and growing and growing year over year. These top three teams are so much better from a talent perspective than everybody else.

“That doesn’t mean that they won’t lose or that you can’t beat them. We just saw Michigan beat Ohio State a year ago. It just means that it’s low probability. … So as we work through the season, these teams are going to continue to win by big margins while everybody else can be susceptible to a loss at any moment. Why is USC in a tough, dogfight style game in Corvallis against Oregon State? Because Oregon State is a lot closer in talent to USC than USC is even to Alabama. The gap right now between everybody else is very small and then from everybody else to the top three is very large.”