What's going on, everybody? Welcome into the show this week. I'm Joel Klatt. This is breaking the huddle and it's brought to you by Dr. Pepper. It is the one fans deserve. Now lots to get into today. My top 10, a huge break down to the top three defenses in the country. We've got Desmond Ritter, the quarterback of Cincinnati on deck.

And then we'll get to some clap back. Let's get into the top 10 though, because we got to fly that breakdown of the defenses is going to be lengthy. Here's my almost top 10 teams. The teams that just did not quite make it Oklahoma state, huge win, Kentucky continuing to win Oregon. Obviously a huge tumble down after that loss to Stanford. Let's take a look though at my top 10 teams in the country. Start with BYU, then Michigan State Mel Tucker doing some great things. Michigan, huge win over Wisconsin. Ohio State looks to be finding their footing. Oklahoma.

Got dropped down a little bit for me because Cincinnati had a huge win Penn State Iowa, Georgia and Alabama. Now I think those top two have kind of separated themselves out. So let's look at this top 10 and try to digest it for just a moment. What do we see? We see two basically group of five teams. Cincinnati great chance to get in. By the way, huge back to back. Double digit wins on the road. Indiana and Notre Dame. They had an off week in between, but that team is doing great things. Top 10 scoring defense, their quarterback Desmond Ritter. This guy is putting him

in a position himself in the Heisman trophy conversation just with the fact that he's been great for so long. Thirty and four as a starter and we'll talk to him coming up later in the program. But the other big thing here is all this big 10. I mean, check it out. Five teams from the big 10. Four of them from one division, the big 10 East. Now here's what's going to happen, folks. If you're a fan of one of these teams, what's going to happen is they're either going to use the other in order to prop themselves up and potentially make sure that they're

going to playoff run or they're going to eat themselves and they're going to just bury themselves by beating each other. Okay, now Ohio State fans, if I'm looking at this, Ohio State has a great opportunity to overcome that early loss to Oregon and get back into that playoff conversation because of all these other ranked teams in their division. They're going to have a chance to beat Michigan and Michigan State and Penn State. That's going to be amazing for them, but you can say the same argument for the other teams Michigan, Michigan State or Penn State. They've got the opportunity and the bullets in the chamber as far as their schedule goes with the other teams.

And that's what happens in their division. That if they went out, they would certainly be a playoff team. And I think any team from the big 10 East, if they only have one loss at the end of the year in conference, they're probably going to be a playoff team, in particular if they win the big 10. Now, having said all that, let's move out less because Iowa. How does Iowa fit into this? Well, folks, Iowa has a great defense. We're going to break that down in a little bit, but they also have a much easier schedule moving forward than the other big 10 teams because the other teams are going to be able to play off.

They're not in the East with everybody else. Hawkeye fans, this game this weekend is huge. It's monumental. If Iowa wins this weekend, there's not a big threat to them in the latter course of their schedule. Then they would be in the driver's seat for a playoff birth. We're talking about, what was it? You know, 2015 all over again, where they were in the big 10 championship game as an undefeated with all they needed was a win over Michigan State in order to go to the college football playoff. I did that game.

I remember that game like it was yesterday. Iowa is in a great position. They host Penn State and then that schedule moving forward, not great. Oklahoma, big red, red river rivalry weekend. They got to get past Texas. I think that's going to be very tough for them. So what do we take away from the top 10? The East, you either going to eat yourself or you're going to boost yourself into the playoff. Iowa, this is basically their season this week against Penn State and Cincinnati. Watch out folks. Those bear cats are for real.

It's a legitimate chance to go to the playoff. And I think a lot of people in college football would be rooting for that. A little Cinderella. Finally, in our sport, crashing the big dance. The Dr. Pepper tuition giveaway is back to enter for a chance to compete for up to $100,000. Upload a tiktok using I deserve tuition contest and the official sound sweet tuition to show why you deserve tuition. Okay, we know that Georgia has been dominant on defense. Like some of the best defense. Maybe that we've

never seen, but we also know that Iowa and Penn State, matchup coming up this Saturday, have been playing great on the defensive side. Here's where they're ranking right now in the college football world in terms of top scoring defenses. These are your top three. Georgia, Iowa and Penn State, all given up less than basically 12 points a game. Obviously, Georgia ridiculous 4.6, but here's the thing. They all play very distinctly different styles of defense. Okay, so there's more one more than one way to skin a cat here when you're

talking about stopping the opponent. So how does that work? What styles of defense do they play? Well, let's take a look. Let's deep dive into what we're actually seeing from these defences. We'll start with Georgia. Georgia's defense. Listen, they went on defense with overwhelming dominant force and superior talent, kind of a shock and awe mentality. And that's exactly what happened against Arkansas. That game was basically over before it started. Let's take a look at early in this game. What Georgia was doing defensively to stop Arkansas.

First of all, right here, you've got a third down early in the game, the first third down in the game and just a win from the defensive tackle. So if we look at this, even from the top view, you got a one on one matchup. It's a push pull and he's into the quarterback. Boom, the sack, the quarterback. You're next to your own goal line. That's over. There's the one on one right here. The quarterbacks in the backfield. Boom, push, pull, overwhelming dominant force and superior talent. He gets a sack early in the game. Now we move on. And this is still early in the game. You're down basically.

14, nothing at this point. What is Arkansas doing? Well, trying to run the football. They've got the numbers. It's seven for seven. You can block the defensive front. But can you overwhelming superior talent? Stuff the run without run ratios without runners. Again, you've got seven guys in the defensive box. Seven guys up front for Arkansas. You're supposed to be able to run the ball into that look. It's supposed to be a dominant run team. They give the fake. Boom. No chance. Absolutely no chance. And if you take a look at what Georgia was

able to do early in that football game. At one point, Arkansas had run three offensive plays. Two penalties for negative five yards. And they were down 14, nothing. Shocking off. There was no chance that Arkansas was going to come back from that because you weren't going to get the ability to score a bunch of points against this Georgia defense. And like that. Three offensive plays. The game was basically over. Basically over.

The dominant force superior talent. Shocking off. Bam. It's like an atomic bomb goes off right away. Arkansas was done. Didn't matter what was going to happen. The rest of the game. They were never coming back from a 14 zero deficit in that game. So now let's take a look at how Iowa wins on defense, which is distinctly different from the shocking on superior talent that Georgia uses. How does Iowa win on defense? They went on defense with steady discipline play that relies on effort and sound structure. They are.

They are suffocating. They don't mind if you gain a few yards here and there because eventually they feel like you're going to make a mistake. They're going to play the same defense over and over and over again. Rally to the football. And then you will make a mistake eventually. It's suffocating like a boa constrictor. They just wrap their arms around you. And eventually they succeed. Let's take a look at the Maryland game and I'll show you exactly what was going on. Here's early in the game. And here's the structure I'm talking about. It's called quarter quarter corner corner safety.

And then you've got a half into the boundary. Okay. So they're going to give up some yardage on this play. Makes a nice read to a tag a lot of viola. It makes a nice read. They get a completion. They try to rally up. Miss tackle. Okay, look and it's a first down. Well, what are they going to do? Let's go to the next play now. What's the next play look like for Iowa? Same exact structure. You're going to have the quarter quarter half. And then what do we see? All right. Well, they're just going to flip this out. They think, okay, we're going to try to gain a few yards. We'll look at the hustle and the effort. Look at all these Iowa.

They're going to be the defenders. Okay. This is the kind of the suffocating style I'm talking about. They're hustling. They're pursuing to the football. Gain a few yards. Now let's go to the next snap. What does the next snap look like? Well, it's the same structure. Quarter quarter half. They know what their job is. Now you're going to get a little flip out there. And what do you see again? Positive yards, but look at all the Iowa defenders. You're not giving up the first down. They're continuing to suffocate you. They're in the right spot the entire time. Well, what does that lead to later in the game?

These two same structure quarter quarter half. Now let's look at the linebacker's technique in a straight dropback. He knows his job. So he's going to carry this vertical route with his eyes on the quarterback because he's in zone coverage. And as he gets depth, he's going to force a very tight window throw that gets tipped up and it's intercepted. They made a mistake. They forced a mistake. I want to go back to that play because what we're going to see here is the tight window throw. The linebacker is forcing the quarterback to throw it over his head and yet short of the safety. It's called a layered throw.

This is one of the toughest throws to make for a quarterback. He tries to fit it in. That's a mistake. The tip ball. Did you know that five of Iowa's 12 interceptions have come on tips? Why do they get tips? Because all of their eyes are on the quarterback. That suffocating zone defense forces you to eventually make a mistake. So they don't win with overwhelming force and superior talent. It's sound structure. It's effort. It's disciplined and it's suffocating. That's how Iowa wins on defense.

Well, how is that different? Georgia, Iowa from Penn State. How does Penn State win on defense? Well, it's very different. They win on defense with multiple looks, athleticism and length. They've got some great players. Clearly, right? Now they've got a couple of transfers that have helped them on the defensive line, but their athleticism and length. The linebacker spot and maybe more importantly, at the secondary spots allows them to take chances upfront, allow for tight coverage.

And then they force the quarterback to make decisions quicker than he wants to make them. Okay, so that's the multiple looks. It's confusing. It's confusing for the offensive line is confusing for the quarterback. And then they allow the athleticism and length to take control, athletic and opportunistic. Let's take a look at the way Penn State wins on defense. Here is the Indiana game. They would eventually shut Indiana out. What do we got right here? Well, you're going to take advantage of that athleticism by playing man coverage.

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