Joel Klatt says that USC football is ranked too low, blasts AP poll voters

The latest college football polls have been released and despite a dominant 48-0 win over Utah State in week two, the USC Trojans still haven't cracked the top ten. Monday, on his podcast, FOX college football analyst Joel Klatt said that the Trojans are ranked too low.

When the Trojans came up, Klatt was actually talking about how daunting of a schedule that Michigan has coming up. That includes a September 21 game against USC in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

“Now you’re staring at a USC team that looks like they are for real,” Klatt said, referencing Michigan’s upcoming schedule. “I put them in my top 10, and they deserve to be in the top 10.

Klatt went on to fire shots at the Associated Press voters who have USC just 11th in their poll. For what it's worth, USC is also just 11th in the coaches poll this week. However, Klatt's ire was directed at A.P. voters.

“The AP voters are terrible," he said. "They just move [USC] up and down. I’m sorry if you have an AP vote and you’re listening to this, I love you, I love your passion for the sport, [but] give me a break with what you gave us in the AP Poll. That was terrible.

“Like Tennessee and USC are clearly two of the best top-10 teams in the country, and so that’s where they should be. And you don’t have them there. And I think that that’s garbage. Miami as well. Miami as well.”

For what it's worth, Klatt revealed his top ten teams and USC was seventh in his ranking. He has Georgia, Ohio State, and Texas as teams "1a, 1b, and 1c" respectively saying those programs are on a tier to themselves.

Then, he puts Ole Miss, Miami, and Tennessee ahead of the Trojans. After USC, he rounds out his top ten with Alabama, Penn State, and Utah.

Certainly, USC fans believe that their team belongs in the top ten. After all, few teams have been more impressive this season than the Trojans.

Week one's 27-20 victory over LSU on a neutral field in Las Vegas is one of the best wins of the season by any team thus far in the young season. Then, on a day when the nation saw a number of top 25 teams such as Penn State, Alabama, Oklahoma, and Oregon struggle to beat teams they should have handled with ease, USC pummeled a Group of 5 team in Utah State.

Perhaps the Utah State game was on a little too late for most of the voters to watch. Or perhaps the voters are just asleep at the wheel and looking just at records and not ranking teams based on how they've actually looked this year.

Whatever the reason, the Trojans have looked like one of the best ten teams in the country thus far. What's more, their new physicality has been evident, especially on the defensive side of the football.

The good news for the Trojans is that they will soon get their shot to prove they are worthy of a high ranking.

Though Michigan is no longer considered elite after they were embarrassed at home by Texas this past weekend, if USC can dominate the Wolverines in The Big House the way the Longhorns did, people will be talking about what is going on in Los Angeles.

Then, if they can take down No. 8 Penn State in the Coliseum on October 12, the buzz surrounding the Trojans will be too loud to ignore. In other words, the Trojans have opportunities to prove that they are a top-ten team and a College Football Playoff contender. Still, Klatt is correct in his assessment that USC deserves to be a more highly-ranked team after two games.