College Football Stock Watch: Why USC is Heading in Right Direction, and Alabama Isn’t

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.”