Joel Klatt discusses some barriers that he believes will keep certain teams out of the College Football Playoff Tuesday morning.

USC was one of the programs Klatt mentioned. The FOX analyst likes what he’s seen from Lincoln Riley, Heisman winner Caleb Williams and so on. He just has one gripe… the defense; specifically USC’s group of incoming defensive transfers such as Bear Alexander, Anthony Lucas and Christian Roland-Wallace among others.

Klatt believes that if the defense plays like they did last season they will not make the 4-team CFP field come January.

Check out his reasoning below:

“You have one thing to fix at USC… defense. if you can’t play defense, you will not go to the playoff. Not in that conference, not against a team like Oregon, not against Oregon State and not against Utah. USC was absolutely allergic to tackling last year.”

The Trojans are one of 3 Power 5-esque teams in action on Saturday, August 26. USC will take on San Jose State to kick off their 2023 campaign.