Quick Slants: Joel Klatt has Iowa's back on Colin Cowherd's show

CHICAGO — Joel Klatt doesn't know if he'll call a football game in Iowa City this year. If he does, he probably should tweet out where he eats dinner.

His money will be no good in Hawkeyeland.

In May, Klatt, a college football analyst with Fox Sports, went on Colin Cowherd's radio show, 'The Herd,' and gave the longtime Iowa antagonizer the business.

Cowherd praised the San Francisco 49ers' draft. The Niners drafted a pair of former Hawkeyes, quarterback C.J. Beathard and tight end George Kittle.

Cowherd, who's trolled Iowa fairly heavily for the last year and a half — calling the Hawkeyes the 'fake ID' of college football and selling T-shirts around that — lavished praise on the Niners' draft. Klatt said, hold it, no room for you on this bandwagon.

'I'm not going to allow you to jump on the bandwagon of C.J. Beathard and George Kittle and say what great picks they were when you've been bashing Iowa for the past year-and-a-half. That's a good program up there.'

Cowherd: 'Oh, yeah, who they playing to start the season this year?'

'I don't care,' Klatt said. 'Who does anyone play to start the season this year?'

The long-awaited media rights deal between the Big Ten and Fox was announced Monday during the Big Ten media days. Fox personalities were available Tuesday morning. Klatt talked about the thing with Cowherd. It's all very adult now. Klatt and Cowherd are Fox employees and Klatt is contractually obligated to do Cowherd's show once a week.

But Klatt, who played QB at Colorado, doubled down on his passionate stance on the Hawkeyes.

'There was nothing staged or rehearsed about it,' Klatt said. 'I listen to Colin's show, I'm a sports fan like everyone else. I happen to perk up when it's college football and I'm generally more passionate about his opinions on college football, because when I disagree, I'm 'I can't wait to go on there.''

On this particular day, Klatt was going on the show to talk NFL draft. But Cowherd's thing with Iowa had been such a strong narrative of the show for the last year and a half, it just kind of came out.

'All of the sudden it hit me like a ton of bricks,' Klatt said. Klatt goes into overblown broadcast voice.

'Oh the 49ers, they get Beathard and George Kittle,' Klatt said. 'I was like, 'Timeout. Are you like all of the sudden this Iowa bandwagon guy?'

'It was literally spur of the moment. I just decided to call him out because I thought it'd be fun. The Iowa fans loved it. I walked off set and hoped people found it entertaining. I checked my Twitter and I was like, 'Oh my gosh, I should travel to Iowa. I might get free drinks for a month up there right now.''

Klatt still goes on the show. He's going to continue to defend Iowa.

'He loves it, and, candidly, that's what makes him so good,' Klatt said. 'He's willing to have people on who disagree with him. There are so many radio hosts around the country who won't do that. That's what makes Colin good. He doesn't shy away from that. He wants both sides presented.'

With Fox buying into the B1G's TV group, along with ESPN and the Big Ten Network, Klatt really doesn't know if he'll be in Iowa City this fall.

'I'd love to get out there,' he said. 'I've got to take advantage of this good equity that I've got.'

The 'spray and pray' recruiting method

Let's preface this with some numbers and the fact that the only thing that might be more cutthroat than college football recruiting is the actual life of a pirate.

According to Herosports.com, in this May 16 post, the average number of scholarships offered by Power 5 schools this year is 175.6. Iowa has offered 98 scholarships (56th of the 65 Power 5 schools). Minnesota has offered 210 scholarships (20th) and Iowa State has offered 331 (second most in the nation, one behind Tennessee as of May 16).

There is nothing NCAA illegal about this. But colleges can accept only 25 prospects, so the math is shaky to say the least.

With this knowledge in hand, you can kind of see why Iowa offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz called out Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck and Iowa State coach Matt Campbell on a Hawk Central podcast in May.

'The guys in Ames and the new guy in Minneapolis seem to have no problem throwing early things out,' Brian Ferentz said on the Hawk Central podcast. 'What I've learned, certainly about the guys in Ames, we'll find out about the guys in Minneapolis, what does an offer really mean?

'I can tell you this much, if the University of Iowa offers you a scholarship and you commit to us, we intend to sign you and we intend to take your commitment.'

This being Big Ten media days, the topic has bubbled up this week.

Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz was asked about his son's comments on Monday.

'He said what he felt,' Ferentz said. 'His observations I think were pretty accurate. But the bottom line is, looking at three schools or 103, everybody recruits a little bit differently. Everybody has a different approach. I'm not going to stand here and be judgmental and say ours is the best way. It certainly isn't. We haven't won a recruiting award in the last 18 years. We've never finished in the top 10. But our goal still is to try to be a top 10 football team in January. That's kind of where my focus is.

'I know recruiting is a big interest point for a lot of people. It's become a sport, an industry. But the sport I'm still most interested in is the one that gets played in the fall. That's where our focus is.'

The top three schools in offers are Tennessee, Iowa State and Kentucky (298). The bottom three are Stanford (32), Washington (61) and Northwestern (68).

Getting the chop

On the first play of the second half against Rutgers last season, Iowa running back LeShun Daniels broke free for what looked like a 75-yard TD. There was a flag and offensive tackle Ike Boettger was called for a chop block, a 15-yard penalty.

Iowa beat the worst team in the Big Ten last year 14-7. So, the play mattered. Ferentz fumed in the postgame, saying the way the rule was written was hard to coach and understand.

'Four different weeks, four different interpretations on the rule,' Ferentz said in the postgame. 'It impacts a game, or potentially could. It did today, our first play of the second half.

'We've created a set of rules that are really hard to understand. I can tell you, I don't understand them.'

Ferentz has apparently gone to the supreme court on this. During Tuesday's interview sessions, Bill Carollo, the B1G coordinator of officials, said, oh yes, he heard from Ferentz.

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Instead of arguing the rule with Ferentz, Carollo enlisted him as part of a survey of all FBS head coaches. What's their interpretation of this low block rule? What would they like to see done, while keeping in mind that, by rule, it's considered a dangerous play.

By the way, the NCAA's website had this on cut blocks last year: 'The rules dealing with low blocks were adjusted to prohibit a player who leaves the tackle box from blocking below the waist toward the initial position of the ball.'

Carollo said the results are coming in and need to be compiled.

'We'll assemble those results, take it to the rules committee, take it to the coordinators and put together a mechanics manual, a philosophy manual, as well as changing the rules, if need be we'll change that rule,' Carollo said. 'But it's been under the microscope the last few years and it was really led by a couple of letters that Kirk Ferentz has written to myself as well as the NCAA, Rogers Redding (the NCAA's secretary rules editor for football) and the rules committee.'

l Comments: (319) 398-8256; marc.morehouse@thegazette.com