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The next college football game is still more than six months away, but you might already have a sense of which programs are moving in the right direction. At least that’s what FOX Sports lead college football analyst Joel Klatt believes. In the most recent episode of “The Joel Klatt Show,” Klatt shared three teams he thinks are trending in the right direction and three teams that are trending toward taking a step back in 2026. As Klatt iterated, this isn’t necessarily a list of teams that he thinks will or won’t make the College Football Playoff. Rather, it’s a list of teams that are either building momentum or have lost some control this offseason. So, let’s take a look and see which teams Klatt likes at the moment and who he thinks might need a reality check. Trending up USC Klatt is optimistic about USC because of its foundation. “I think it’s time to get a little bit bullish on USC,” Klatt said. “This is a team that has the experienced quarterback coming back. I think we all now understand that’s what it takes to be successful in college football. So, you’ve got Jayden Maiava back. “Here’s the part that I actually think is more impactful: How about getting the entire offensive line back? Now, we’re talking because you’ve got a quarterback, offensive line and the entire backfield back. King Mack, who had to fill in after Waymond Jordan was injured, is back, and you have both him and Jordan back in the backfield. So, you’ve got what I believe to be, at least the potential of, the best running game Riley has had since his OU days. You remember those old Trey Sermon, Rodney Anderson days when they were just running roughshod over everybody? I think USC can be a dominant run team.” To Klatt’s point, that run game helped USC rank sixth in the Big Ten in rushing last season. Klatt believes that continuity will help the Trojans fill the void left by wide receiver Makai Lemon going to the NFL, as he also praised USC’s recent defensive coordinator hire. “Lincoln Riley lost D’anton Lynn, the defensive coordinator whom I was a big fan of, but he brings in Gary Patterson,” Klatt said. “I really love the idea of having Gary Patterson here for Lincoln Riley. He built a winner at TCU. He’s a defensive-oriented guy, he’s got high energy and a wealth of experience Lincoln can use and bounce things off of. That’s a win. Now, I think Lynn is great. So, I’m not saying this is an upgrade or a downgrade. But it’s a win for Lincoln Riley and USC to get Gary Patterson. UCLA Klatt isn’t predicting UCLA to make the CFP next season. However, he thinks the Bruins can have a “decent year,” play in a bowl game and possibly do “more” than that because of new head coach Bob Chesney.” “I think UCLA is clearly pointing in the right direction and pointing up,” Klatt said. “Bob Chesney’s a very good football coach. The reason I know that is because when Curt Cignetti left James Madison, a lot of those players left. It’s not like Chesney was left some war chest at JMU to continue to win. Guess what he did? Continue to win. Nine wins in his first season post-Cignetti, and Cignetti took 13 players with him to Indiana. Then, he took JMU to the playoff in Year 2. He went 21-6 in two seasons. He knows what it’s about. He’s a very good football coach.” Chesney’s two seasons at JMU were actually his first two years coaching in Division I. Prior to that, Chesney was one of the top coaches in the lower levels of college football. He went 111-46 over 14 seasons between his stops at Salve Regina, Assumption and Holy Cross. In addition to Chensey’s pedigree, Klatt also believes UCLA is in a great spot at quarterback entering 2026. “[Chesney] doesn’t have to start over at the most important position. He has a two-year starting quarterback — one at Tennessee, one at UCLA — and Nico Iamaleava is 25 starts in and he’s a five-star player,” Klatt said. “I know Tennessee fans don’t like this guy and maybe a lot of fans don’t like him because of everything that happened last offseason, but the fact remains that was not a good football team, except for him. He was the one that would give them a chance. Now, you surround him with some better players.” Virginia Tech Similar to UCLA, Klatt has Virginia Tech here because he likes their head coach and quarterback. “I think Virginia Tech made a great hire with James Franklin,” Klatt said. “That’s a good football coach who just kind of capped out with his ceiling at Penn State. You can’t argue with what he was able to accomplish at Penn State. The guy was successful, very successful. He didn’t win some of the bigger games and they ran him out, which is fine. I’m not saying they shouldn’t have. Candidly, I would’ve admitted that it was time for a change. But he was a very good coach. He goes to Virginia Tech, which is a place that I think he can fit and he’s recruited that area very well over his career.” Franklin has proven that point to be correct. He quickly helped Virginia Tech’s 2026 recruiting ranking improve to No. 30, while the Hokies’ transfer portal class ranked 19th this offseason, per 247 Sports. One of the highlights of that transfer portal class was quarterback Ethan Grunkemeyer, whom Klatt shared an interesting anecdote about. “I hope he doesn’t get mad at me for telling this, but Grunkemeyer played really well against Indiana and Penn State,” Klatt said. “After the game, I was texting with Indiana defensive coordinator Bryant Haines in preparation for future games and I was like, ‘Credit to that offensive line, they ran the ball well.’ He texted back, ‘I was so impressed by their quarterback.’ One of the two or three defensive coordinators I respect the most in college football is Haines, and when he tells me that a guy was unbelievable and hard to stop, that tells you something.” Stock down Alabama Klatt’s reasoning for placing Alabama as a team with its stock down is simple: It isn’t on the same level as the two elite teams in the SEC, Georgia and Texas, which is a new reality in Tuscaloosa. “The reality is, they’re coming off back-to-back four-loss years,” Klatt said. “The best part of their team was Ty Simpson — by a wide margin — and they’re losing him. I don’t love what’s going on down there. They got blown out by Georgia in the SEC Championship Game. They got blown out by Indiana. Indiana did whatever they wanted to do. They ran the ball 50 times straight at Alabama. This is not the Alabama of two, three, four or five and certainly not 10 years ago. Alabama has been trending down and I think that trend is going to continue.” As Kalen DeBoer has gone 20-8 in his first two years at Alabama, Klatt has concerns for him at quarterback and across the roster. “They have got to figure out their quarterback for next year. Is it going to be Austin Mack or Keelon Russell? They’ve got zero starts between them in an era where experience is everything you need at that position,” Klatt said. “When you look at Alabama’s portal, it was OK. I don’t think it was great. To me, it was a trajectory thing for Alabama. They’re on a trajectory that is down. I don’t think that’s going to stop. It has to level out at some point in order to go back up. But I don’t sense that moment of Alabama leveling out soon.” Alabama had the 17th-best transfer portal class in the country, but only the sixth-best transfer portal class in the SEC, per 247 Sports. The Crimson Tide also lost a few starters in the portal, watching wide receiver Isaiah Horton go to Texas A&M and defensive linemen Qua Russaw and James Smith go to Ohio State. Florida State It’s been a rough couple of years for Mike Norvell at Florida State after the Seminoles went 13-1 in 2023, posting a 7-17 record in the last two years. Klatt doesn’t see that changing any time soon for a myriad of reasons. “It’s hard for me not to put Florida State on this list,” Klatt said. “Florida State was down bad and there really isn’t any light at the end of that tunnel. What happened after Week 1, beating Alabama, did not go well. Quarterback looks like it’s going to be Ashton Daniels, who bounced around and was Auburn’s backup last year and played at the end of the season after starting out at Stanford. Is that the answer you want? I don’t know. “Then, late in the coaching carousel process, Gus Malzahn, their offensive coordinator, decides to retire. I like Mike Norvell. I think Mike Norvell’s a pretty good football coach. I think that’s a challenging place. They went the portal route and then once you miss in the portal route, it’s like trying to get back on the merry-go-round when it’s going really fast. It’s tough to do. It hasn’t worked out for them.” While Florida State had the 15th-best recruiting class and 27th-best transfer portal class this offseason, per 247 Sports, Klatt doesn’t believe that’s going to lead to a sudden turnaround. “In the last two years, they’re 0-9 on the road. Is it going to get better next year? If you just base it off who they brought in, both in the high school level and from the transfer portal, I question it,” Klatt said. “Now, how good is the ACC going to be? I don’t know, but they’ve been good enough to beat Florida State.” Utah Finally, Klatt has Utah among his teams trending in the wrong direction, even though he doesn’t blame the Utes for the way they handled former head coach Kyle Whittingham’s departure. After going 11-2 this past season, Klatt thinks Utah will take a step back this year due to the coaches and talent it lost to Michigan. “Not only did Kyle Whittingham jump back into the coaching ranks, but he did so at a blue blood, where it was going to be incredibly enticing for those loyal to Kyle at Utah to join him and take a run at this thing. That’s exactly what happened,” Klatt said. “Jason Beck, who was outstanding for Utah as the offensive coordinator, leaves, and now he’s at Michigan. A couple of Utah’s best players, defensive lineman John Henry Daley and cornerback Smith Snowden, are gone to Michigan.” Klatt continued to iterate that he thought Utah did “everything right” with its succession plan, naming defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley its head coach in waiting ahead of the 2024 season. But he thinks Whittingham’s decision to go to Michigan will put a halt to the momentum the program built in 2025. “It had been setting things up for a number of years, and that might be what hurt Utah in this whole carousel,” Klatt said. “Utah had been setting this up for Morgan Scalley, the defensive coordinator, to take over for Kyle Whittingham at the right time. It was going to be the Bob Stoops to Lincoln Riley and the Urban Meyer to Ryan Day handoff. Then, it wasn’t. I’ve got to tell you, it concerns me for Utah.”​Latest Sports News from FOX Sports

Daytona International Speedway (Daytona Beach, Fla.) — A lot can change on one eventful Sunday. Tyler Reddick, a 30-year-old Californian, is now a Daytona 500 winner following a roller-coaster few years — on and off the track. Entering his seventh year of Cup racing, Reddick won back-to-back titles in what is now the O’Reilly Series — and did it for two different teams (JR Motorsports and Richard Childress Racing). Reddick is married to Alexa DeLeon — daughter of Jose DeLeon, who spent 13 years as a pitcher in the major leagues — and they have two children: Beau (6) and Rookie (15 months). Last fall, Rookie needed surgery to remove a kidney, where a tumor was pressing up against an artery, causing signs of heart failure. Reddick, driver of the No. 45 car for Michael Jordan-owned 23XI Racing, won the regular-season Cup title in 2024 and then went winless in 2025. Now coming off the biggest win of his career, he sat down with me Monday morning before flying to New York City to embark on the Daytona 500 winner media tour: Who is Tyler Reddick? Tyler Reddick is a Northern California kid born and raised, grew up dirt racing on the short tracks and outlaw carts, and he was a dirt racer that ran dirt for well over 10 years before he ever got his first opportunity racing asphalt. And of course, it was very fitting that I got my opportunity from a fellow dirt racer himself in his roots in Ken Schrader and getting to drive asphalt for the first time with him [and his ARCA team]. A dirt kid that got an opportunity from one of the greats in our sport and led to me paving my way, if you will, up the NASCAR ranks. How would your wife describe you? Father. Impatient sometimes. I’m a bit all over the place, meaning if I don’t have something to do or something going on during the day, I can be a lot to deal with sometimes. But thankfully, I have a good schedule that kind of keeps me regimented. I’m definitely the type that it’s hard for me to sit still, I think my wife would say, I’m a great father, great husband, and we work really hard to be able to share these moments together as a family. It’s important to us. [INSIDE THE WIN: How 23XI Hopes to Build on Historic Daytona 500 Win] Well, if you don’t like to sit still, and you have two young kids who probably don’t sit still, you’re fine, right? Perfect. So do you handle that part of it well? Most of the time. When I’m sleepy, I’m not great at it, but you adjust, you adapt as your family grows as things change. Things are on that side are going well. On the great days, it’s awesome to celebrate with your family. And I’ve learned to on the bad days, it’s also great because when you get to when you get back to the bus or go to the plane or you get home after the race when they stayed home, they’re able to pick you up from your low spot and bring you back to just being dad outside of the car. So in a lot of ways, it’s a positive boost on the good and bad days. Do people ask you often why you named your kid Rookie? A couple of people have. Reason is Alexa’s grandpa. Alexa’s nickname growing up, she was his little Rookie. They watched a lot of baseball growing up together. Her dad obviously played, and her grandfather loves baseball. Her grandfather’s a huge, huge baseball fan. We enjoyed kind of going off the path a little bit with Beau, but it seems like there’s a lot of Beaus running around nowadays. But at the time, it felt like it was a name that was just not common, and think for all the right reasons, of all the names we were kind of throwing around, the one that I liked the most, that she loved, was Rookie. And my son, Beau, loved it too. So it just, it just fits. Right now, when he’s being cute, Rookie’s a little cookie. And when he gets a little bit older and starts running around and being rough on stuff, he’ll be a Rookie in that sense, too. So it’s very funny how when your child is born, you don’t know what they’re going to grow up to be or who they’re going to turn into. They’re obviously yours, but they somehow just live up to their name. Beau is a Beau, and Rookie is just, he’s Rookie, like just the name fits for whatever reason. Were you in a dark place last year? I think so. Any time for me that I go a couple weeks without winning, I feel that I never would have, in my worst nightmare, wrote up that I would go here without winning. But it became reality for me. And once that happens, it’s like man, was Homestead [in 2024] my last win? It’s a possibility I may never win again. It hits you. It really does. Sometimes that’s just how it happens. One day you just don’t win again. And is that it? And thankfully for me, I’ve at least won one more. I don’t think I’m by any means done winning, but when you go on spells like that when it’s just nothing seems to fall into place, nothing goes right. It’s a lot to deal with. You have big expectations for yourself with owners like Denny Hamlin, Michael Jordan and your team. We expect each other to go out and compete for championships, to win races like the Daytona 500 and win races in general. So last year was a tough year for us, but I feel like we came into 2026 in a better place because of the hard times we went through. And then there was probably a time when Rookie had his kidney tumor where you didn’t care whether you were winning or not last year? That is fair. When I was in the car, I still wanted to win. I cared about that. But certainly, it was very different. I was in a place where that priority was being home, was being at the hospital with Rookie, and if things fell in the right place with what he had going on, and he was going to be stable enough for a few days for me to go race, it essentially fell into place every week for me to go to the racetrack. And going into it, it didn’t look like it was going to go that way. It was very realistic that when I got home from Kansas [in the middle of the playoffs], I wasn’t going to get back in the car again. Things just kind of fell where I could be at the hospital all week, and then I could hop on a plane with Coach [Joe Gibbs] or Denny, whoever it was, and get to the track the last minute, then get in the car and go racing, get in the car at the airport when I got home, and go straight back to the hospital. When I was still in the car during those times, I wanted to win really bad for a number of reasons. But, it was weird where I had no desire, nothing to go to [our shop] Airspeed, to work, or put anything into racing. It was when I was home and when my family needed me was where I needed to be. Do you ever second-guess a text or question a text you would send to Michael Jordan? It’s important to be myself. But, yes, I do find myself when I text my bosses to make sure I proofread it once, twice, maybe three times before I send it. Not when I’m texting my mom or my dad or my wife. [INSIDE THE CELEBRATION: Michael Jordan: ‘Feels Like I Won a Championship’] But Michael isn’t intimidating to text? I had a spell where I was really bad about texting anybody back. I realized I was in a bad spot when he texted me, and I thought I responded, and I saw him a week later, and he’s like, “Thanks for the text back.” And everyone just started laughing because I don’t think I was texting anybody back during that time. We do go back and forth [on text]. A lot of times he’s telling me good job or trying to pump me up after a rough race. I would consider you a little bit more of a free spirit than some of the other drivers. Is that the California in you? Or is that the Scott Bloomquist, Ken Schrader training? It’s a little bit of everything where I grew up in Northern California on a lot of farmland where I live, we lived on a lot of acres, and I’d just always go out and explore. So I definitely feel like my roots were a bit more country and off the beaten path where I was born and raised. Just the more I grew up, the more I kind of branched into who I am. I feel like there’s a time and a place to be serious, but I think it’s super important to have fun doing what you’re doing. So I tried to keep it the serious moments, be focused, but keep it as light-hearted as possible. Because you dedicate your whole life to this. It’s important that you have fun, you do it with people that you love and care about as well. Would it be fair to say on the competition side, it took a while to find that balance? It really did. There was a period in time there where I thought, the more crazy I act, the higher my odds of winning go up for whatever reason. Some of that’s balanced out for sure. And when you get married, when you have kids, you kind of have to grow up at some point,too. It’s all helped balance it out. I still have my crazy side. I just show my crazy side when I play with my kids, when we’re having fun, roughhousing, I’m crawling around on the ground with Rookie. What did you learn from Schrader and Bloomquist on the track? I feel like some of the stuff I just talked about with both of them, honestly. They were very passionate about what they did, but they also love what they did and made sure that they had fun doing it. And that was important. I saw a lot out of Scott. I never met someone that worked harder but also played harder too. That’s what it’s about. It’s easy in racing to just let the weight of expectations get you down, and if you don’t enjoy what you’re doing while you’re doing it, if things aren’t going well, it’s really easy to get into a dark place. And so I’ve just always found that working with people that you like and finding ways to have fun while you’re working just helps it all balance out with the length of the season, and when you have a rough stretch, helps you get through it. Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.​Latest Sports News from FOX Sports