Joel Klatt says it will be 'really difficult' to get parity in college football

One of the biggest topics of conversation in college football is parity in the sport. Specifically, how can a sport dominated by a handful of teams get more parity in it? Unfortunately, college football analyst Joel Klatt warns that getting parity is going to be really difficult.

Klatt spoke about parity during the mailbag section of The Joel Klatt Show when he was asked about how quickly Penn State could win a national championship.

“So, here’s the hard part, Jeff, is that I would also love to see a little bit more parity,” Joel Klatt said. “I would love to see the national championship move a little bit more than it has.”

Putting aside UCF’s 2017 claim, a Group of Five team hasn’t won a national championship since BYU in a weird 1984 season. 13 of 17 of the last national champions have come from the SEC, with Florida State, Ohio State, and Clemson being the only others to win during that span.

“Having said that, it’s going to be really difficult because of the numbers that I just broke down to you. I mean, look at where all the best players in the country are going to play college football. I don’t see a team being able to win a national championship unless they can average for four straight years, a top-five overall recruiting class. That’s basically what it takes to win a national championship.”

According to the On3 Consensus Rankings, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Ohio State, and LSU make up the top five classes of 2023. Three are in the SEC, while Texas will be moving there shortly. For its part, Ohio State has won a national championship in the playoff era. For its part, Penn State was ranked 14th.

At the same time, it seems like Joel Klatt believes there is hope for parity in the future of the sport.

“Now, how the transfer portal is going to affect that, how NIL is going to affect that, heck, how the expanded playoff is going to affect that, I’m not totally sure. Injuries are going to play way more of a factor in the future with the 12-team playoff and the portal will continue to play a huge factor. Look at what happened this last year with TCU making the national championship. Not that TCU is ever going to be Georgia. I mean, my goodness, after that game,” Klatt said.

“But, I think the door was basically shut after these last couple of years and I think it’s starting to slowly open, but I maintain–I maintain–if you’re gonna play with and beat some of these teams like Alabama and Georgia and even Ohio State in your own conference, you better start averaging out over a four-year span, about a top four, five, six class in the country in order to go out and win a national championship. So, I don’t know, Jeff. I don’t know.”

Joel Klatt teased possible changes in the college football hierarchy

There is clearly a set hierarchy in college football. However, Joel Klatt thinks that may be changing soon.

“Thinking about Alabama, this program that has been really the king of the mountain up until Georgia comes along in the last couple of years, and now they’re going to be breaking in to new coordinators and a new quarterback. Then you start to think to yourself, ‘Man, Georgia is going to have a new quarterback and Todd Monken has been flirting with some job interviews so they may, although not official, may have a new play caller and a new quarterback,” Klatt said.

“And then you look at Ohio State and in my estimation, these are the three programs that are like running college football, because they recruit at the highest end. These are the teams that you’ve got to go through and Ohio State is also going to be breaking in a brand new play caller and a new quarterback. And it just got me thinking to myself listen, if there’s a year where you might get some new blood, like we saw with TCU and to some extent Michigan, even though they were in back to back years, where you might get some just like craziness happened in college football, might this be the year in 2023?”