FOX Sports’ Joel Klatt Talks Mendoza, Ty Simpson, Giants, Jets & More w/ Rich

FOX Sports lead college football analyst Joel Klatt walked Rich through the moment Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza finally became a first-round NFL prospect on The Rich Eisen Show, and the answer started two plays earlier than the catch everyone is replaying.

The Omar Cooper Jr. touchdown to beat Penn State was the headline. Klatt said the drive that produced it was the real evaluation. "They had not played well that day. It was one of their worst performances," Klatt said. Indiana was backed up inside its own twenty after a sack on first down, the loudest he has ever heard Beaver Stadium, with Penn State edge rusher Dani Dennis-Sutton bearing down. "I thought to myself in the booth, I was like, this is it. Like, they're not a wrap. This is not over," Klatt said. Mendoza took a shot to the face and dropped a strike to H-back Riley Nowakowski to move the chains, and the drive opened up from there.

Klatt then made the case for Mendoza as a legitimate Day 1 quarterback by stacking his college production against the resumes of recent Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks. "In this century, so 25 Super Bowl winners at quarterback, the average number of starts in college for all those guys is 34, 1,100 passing attempts, 70 touchdown passes," Klatt said. "Mendoza is 35, 1,000 and 71. It is identical."

The more provocative pick of the night, Klatt argued, was the Rams taking Alabama's Ty Simpson at thirteenth overall. The talent grade is not the issue. "His talent suggests he's a first-round player," Klatt said. "He's an anticipatory thrower, and in that regard, not many college guys do that." The issue is reps. Simpson started fifteen games at Alabama after sitting behind Bryce Young and Jalen Milroe, and if Matthew Stafford continues at his current level, Simpson may sit two more years in Los Angeles. "You're telling me in seven years, twenty-one to twenty-eight, he's got fifteen starts. That's concerning," Klatt said.

Klatt read the Rams' calculus as roster-driven, not offense-driven. "Sean and Les look at those matchups with the Seahawks and they say to themselves, our problem was not on offense. Our problem was on defense," he said, pointing to the Trent McDuffy trade as the win-now move. "It's rich people problems."

Klatt also flagged the Big Ten landing ten first-round picks for the first time in roughly a decade, praised the Giants' work pulling Abdul Carter and Maui Noah out of the top ten, and credited the Jets for grabbing tight end Mason Taylor and Cooper Jr. on a roster that needed athletes everywhere. The line he kept returning to: "College football's never been better. The parity is incredible."