Joel Klatt admits his viral NCAA Tournament stance ‘was a terrible take’

FOX Sports analyst Joel Klatt drew instant scrutiny this week when he made the claim that the only reason the Group of Five was in the College Football Playoff was the threat of litigation. He also suggested, in a parallel vein, that the NCAA basketball tournament isn’t an effective way to crown a champion in the sport.

He railed against Cinderellas a bit and just generally came off seeming a touch antagonistic toward both college basketball and the G5. On Thursday, he apologized for his delivery.

“I had an interesting take. It was a bad take. It was a terrible take,” Joel Klatt said on The Joel Klatt Show. “I have this take about the NCAA Tournament that is a bad take. And it’s a hot take. But it’s what I believe about the NCAA Tournament.

“Now, to be fair, what I said on their show on Monday morning early was sloppy and worded wrong. So it was kind of like I landed the plane but it was in a corn field and so like we had to hit the eject and the plane didn’t crash necessarily. Here’s the deal: I did not articulate what I wanted to articulate.”

He later spent a few minutes on his podcast further outlining his thoughts on Thursday morning. But has his stance really changed?

“Here’s the take: The NCAA basketball tournament, if the objective was to crown the best basketball team of the college basketball season, then it’s a bad format,” Klatt said. “And because of that, then it’s not fair, is what I said. And I said it is a joke and it’s the dumbest, and that’s obviously going to grab headlines. That’s stupid of me to use those terms.

“But the structure of the NCAA basketball tournament, its objective is entertainment, it’s meant to be a gauntlet. So the point is the best college basketball team for the year doesn’t always win the NCAA basketball tournament. That tournament is set up to just crown its own champion. It’s a made-for-TV, entertainment event. And it’s great. And by the way, I do love the NCAA basketball tournament. But if you’re asking me if it’s structured properly to crown the best team of the season, then the answer is no.”

Klatt would admit his opinion is unpopular. But he was unflinching in defending the heart of his point, even if not his delivery of the initial comments.

“Now… it’s a hot take. It’s a bad take,” Klatt said. “Not everyone’s going to share that with me, because everyone loves the entertainment value of Cinderellas in the NCAA basketball tournament. But there’s the thing, if you’re actually honest with yourself, you love the Cinderellas early, but late, you want to see the best teams playing against each other. You want to see incredible regional finals. You want to see Kentucky and Duke with (Christian) Laettner hitting it at the buzzer. Why? Because that’s greatness. So I root for good teams to become the participants late in the tournament.”

Here’s where the argument starts to come back around to the Group of Five and the College Football Playoff a little more. The links that were perhaps missing or not well-enough established in Joel Klatt’s initial go-round were filled in.

“In college football, ours is much more selective. We have 12 teams of 130-whatever in college football,” Klatt said. “So once we’re down to 12, well, now we don’t really want Cinderellas. And I will maintain that opinion. You can disagree and more power to you.”

As for the NCAA basketball tournament, perhaps it was just a case of Joel Klatt conflating two ideas and two different opinions that didn’t need to intersect. Maybe.

Still, the analyst stuck to his guns on his overall points. Especially with the G5 in the playoff.

“The way I said it on Monday morning was so dumb. Dumb take,” Klatt said. “And I prefaced it by saying it’s like the hottest of all takes. There’s 68 teams in the NCAA basketball tournament. So yeah, people love the Cinderellas, but you want the great teams playing late. That makes it awesome in the Final Four and the regional finals. And I’m saying we’re already at that point in college football.”

So what should the Group of Five do if they’re no longer welcome in the playoff? Well, Klatt suggested an alternative. It’s likely to be controversial. But it’s not something totally out of the realm of possibility, either.

“By the way, I’m not a Group of Five hater,” Klatt said. “I think it would be better for the Group of Five if they played their own championship, so that we could celebrate them. Focus on them. More teams could be involved, more fanbases could be involved. That would be awesome. I think that would be great for everyone. Not having to go up to Autzen and face one of the best five teams in the country. That’s impossible for JMU. … I will just say I think it would be better if they played their own playoff.”