Joel Klatt wants to know if the Washington Huskies can get a little respect.
Not from the four-letter network whose college football coverage constantly draws the former Colorado Buffaloes quarterback’s ire. But, instead, from the AP Poll.
More specifically, the AP Poll voters, who have come under fire multiple times now this college football season.
First, it was because a USC beat writer decided to move up Florida a couple of spots after its loss to South Florida, while leaving the USF Bulls unranked. That led to the idea that perhaps we should reconsider the AP Poll, considering it’s a byproduct of an era of the sport that no longer exists.
And with the Washington Huskies coming into this Saturday’s game against Ohio State unranked, that idea may have the backing of one, Joel Klatt. The lead Fox CFB analyst was perplexed that a program that had run roughshod over Colorado State, trounced UC Davis, and beaten Washington State by 25 on the road, entered Week 5 of the season unranked.
“The AP Poll is such a joke,” Klatt said on his eponymous show. “Washington got zero votes in the AP Poll. Are you guys willfully ignorant, or just ignorant? Because that’s a joke. You mean to tell me that there are teams down there getting three or four votes that would get absolutely slaughtered by Washington? Please tell me you just forgot that they’re in college football. Please tell me that this is a sign that you don’t stay up late for games on the West Coast. Please tell me that you just haven’t seen the Huskies play, because they’re all the way tucked up there in the great Northwest.
“Because they’ve got the No. 2 scoring offense in college football at 58 points per game. They’ve got a hell of a quarterback [Demond Williams Jr.], a coach [Jedd Fisch] that has built a winner before. [Jonah] Coleman is terrific. He’s running the football well. This is a legitimate team, with the second-longest win streak — at home — in all of college football. And they don’t have one vote in the AP Poll? What a joke. The AP Poll continues to show and reveal why it is so bad.
“Why do we even talk about it? I don’t know. I shouldn’t give it the oxygen that I’m giving right now. It’s just frustration. Tell me you don’t watch the sport without telling me you don’t watch the sport. How do I know? No one put Washington in their top-25. That’s a joke. That’s an absolute joke.”
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Klatt’s frustration with AP voters isn’t new. Last season, he called out voters for their inconsistent treatment of teams like USC, Miami, and Tennessee, questioning whether they actually watch the games they’re voting on. That same frustration has carried into this season, with the Washington snub being the latest example fueling the Fox analyst’s criticism.
But for Klatt, it’s bigger than just Washington getting snubbed this week.
“If you’ve listened to this show, you’ll have known that it’s been since the summer time, that I’ve been talking about Washington as a dark horse,” Klatt continued. “In fact, I listed teams like Missouri in the SEC as a dark horse in the College Football Playoff. I’ve listed teams like Washington in the Big Ten as a dark horse for the College Football Playoff. I listed a team like Georgia Tech as a dark horse for the College Football Playoff out of the ACC. We have been shining lights on these teams. It’s not our fault that the AP voters can’t do their job.
“Washington is very good, folks. Very good. That game, against Ohio State this weekend up in Seattle, started out as like an 11-point line. It’s been bet all the way down. Why? Because the public is smarter than the AP. Period. Facts. I don’t know how else to put it. The public is betting this down because they know Washington has a very good football team… I know I spent a lot of time on them, but that’s apparently because nobody knows about Washington. This is a very good football team, and I remain shocked that no one will pay attention.”
Whether Washington validates Klatt’s confidence against Ohio State this weekend remains to be seen. But his broader point about AP voters potentially missing prominent storylines has become a recurring theme this season. If the Huskies can hang with the Buckeyes in Seattle, it might prove that the betting public — and one very frustrated Fox analyst — were paying closer attention than the pollsters.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.