Joel Klatt reveals his most underrated, overrated teams in college football

Four weeks into the 2025 college football season, and as the calendar prepares to turn the page to October, it’s the perfect time to take stock of the sport’s contenders and pretenders ahead of Week 5’s superb slate of games.

During a recent appearance on FS1’s The Herd with host Colin Cowherd, FOX Sports analyst Joel Klatt took the opportunity to assess the game’s most underrated and overrated teams according to the latest Associated Press Top 25 poll. And Klatt delivered as only he can.

First, Klatt tapped a pair of former Pac-12 teams currently in the Big Ten — No. 21 USC and unranked Washington — as his underrated teams.

“I think USC is the most underrated team in the country. I don’t think people really realize how real USC is,” Klatt said Wednesday. “I think you could make a case that Washington is the most underrated team without one vote in the AP (poll), which is just ridiculous.”

The Trojans (4-0, 2-0 Big Ten) currently lead the Big Ten standings as the only team with multiple conference victories following convincing wins over Purdue and Michigan State the past two weeks. USC also features the third-ranked offense in the FBS averaging 583.8 total yards and 52.5 points per game to rank fifth nationally in scoring. The undefeated Huskies (3-0, 0-0) are the second-highest scoring team in the country averaging 55.7 ppg, though opens Big Ten play Saturday against No. 1 Ohio State (3-0, 0-0).

When it comes to overrated, Klatt turned his attention to the SEC, where he called out No. 13 Ole Miss (4-0, 2-0 SEC) and No. 17 Alabama (3-1, 0-0) for being frauds. Klatt expects both could be exposed in highly-anticipated Top 25 showdowns Saturday against No. 4 LSU (4-0, 1-0) and No. 5 Georgia (3-0, 1-0), respectively.

“Overrated, that’s a tougher one … I would look at a team like Ole Miss, Ole Miss might be overrated,” Klatt continued. “They’ve got LSU and they’re weirdly favored in that game. I don’t buy that at all. … Ole Miss struggled to beat Kentucky and Arkansas, that’s an Arkansas team that lost to Memphis. (Trinidad) Chambliss is their new quarterback, he’s a D-II transfer that came from Ferris State and won a national championship there. But now they’re going to face a defense that’s really good. LSU’s defense is fantastic and in a lot of ways is the reason that they’re undefeated.”

Klatt then turned his attention to Alabama, suggesting the Crimson Tide’s road woes under second-year head coach Kalen DeBoer will carry over to its trip to Athens on Saturday night. Alabama is just 1-6 in its last seven games away from Bryant-Denny Stadium.

“I think Bama struggles this week. … What people are failing to realize is Bama is terrible on the road,” Klatt continued. “If you go back to last year, they’ve played totally uninspired at Vandy and lost on the road. They got throttled by Oklahoma, which Oklahoma was not a great team last year. … They come out after a full offseason, in the first game of the year, and got blasted by Florida State on the road.

“Now they’ve got to go on the road at maybe the toughest place to play in the country, where Georgia hasn’t lost since pre-COVID,” Klatt added, referring to the Bulldogs’ 33-game win streak inside Sanford Stadium. “They’ve got the longest home winning streak in the country, and Georgia is coming off a confidence-builder in which they were down 21-7 on the road in Neyland Stadium vs. Tennessee and came back and won. That conference still goes through Georgia. I think Bama is in serious trouble this weekend.”