Joel Klatt will be behind the microphone, providing analysis of the Rutgers football season opener against Washington State in Seattle on Thursday night for the Fox Sports 1 broadcast. He also knows a little something about a Mike Leach-run offense.

A former walk-on at Colorado, Klatt went on to become a three-year starting quarterback for the Buffaloes, earning all-Big 12 honors while setting numerous school-records throughout his career that ended in 2005.

Klatt, who will join play-by-play announcer Tim Brando and sideline reporter Jenny Taft on the call, spent time with NJ.com earlier this week to offer his take on the Rutgers-Washington State matchup:

NJ.com: Give us your early impressions of Rutgers and Washington State.

Klatt: "I'll start with Washington State. I played against (coach) Mike Leach when I was a player and then I covered him fairly extensively as a broadcaster and his teams have a very certain look about them, they're made up very similarly. That's exactly what I see of Washington State. This is a team that could just as easily be his really good Texas Tech teams: Big offensive linemen, all sorts of wide receivers, not necessarily big or fast but guys he knows he can count on to run the correct routes, that get open in space, understand the offense. Usually a running back that he likes but never is going to feature, a quarterback who's somewhat underrated, can throw the heck out of the ball, be very accurate and is a very intelligent guy.

"Offensively they literally look identical to what Texas Tech used to be. And defensively I think Mike Breske is just trying to find the right combination and find the right philosophy that's going to work for him to play defense with a Mike Leach-coached offense. It's really difficult to do. No one really found the exact way to do it at Texas Tech, and I think he's just trying to find his way through that.

"I spent more time on Rutgers because I'm less familiar initially with Rutgers. But I was shocked -- you have a sense of, 'OK, this is a team that's moving into a new conference and by all accounts they're probably going to struggle a little bit at least to get into that middle- or top-tier of the Big Ten initially.' And then I started looking at the returning starters that they have and where they're struggling, it was very clear to me the skill-position players on both sides of the ball are the only things holding Rutgers back. They have a lot of starts back on the offensive line, a lot of starts back on the front-7, including Steve Longa, who I think is a really, really good player. For a young guy to able to do what he was able to do last year, 120 tackles is pretty significant. I love what he brings defensively. As well as the front seven, there's not a lot of holes.

"But then I saw the corner depth and I'm like, 'Oh my gosh.' it's going to be so difficult to compete at the highest level when you're starting a kid who was your second-leading rusher as a true freshman, when he's going to have to go against this air-raid offense, which I can tell you from experience, I've seen very experienced corners struggle covering this offense. Wide receiver and corner, that's clearly where they're struggling right now. And the sooner that Kyle Flood can get that really solidified, the better they're going to be.

"I'm telling you, they're good. I like what Rutgers brings back. Even at safety, I like what they bring back. Gary Nova is probably better than people think he is. They have a really strong offensive line but they've got to find some skill-position players.''

NJ.com: I'm sure you spent some time evaluating the quarterbacks. What jumps out to you about Connor Halliday and Gary Nova?

Klatt: "Halliday is the prototypical Leach guy, not real big in stature, but he's smart and he has a really thick skin, which you gotta have with Mike Leach. Because Mike Leach will tell you exactly what he thinks, almost all the time, especially to his quarterbacks, and he expects his offense to run a certain way. He wants it run perfectly all the time, and Connor Halliday fits that very well. All of his quarterbacks have been of the same mold. And an interesting aspect is Graham Harrell joined their staff as an offensive analyst. He was their quarterback when they won 11 games at Texas Tech. I think that's going to pay huge dividends to Halliday because trust me it's a lonely position and if you have somebody there that you can bounce ideas off of, that also played for that guy, it's only going to be beneficial.

"So I think that's an important piece, very similar to how Mike Teel came and joined Rutgers' staff with Gary Nova. So there's a lot of similarities there between the two. But Nova to me reminds me a little bit more of myself. He seems to be a very quality leader, a guy that's not going to set the world on fire with his statistics, probably turns the ball over more than he should. But it's hard to get him off the field because he knows the offense inside and out. That's the sense that I get just watching Gary Nova. Probably should've had a better career so far based on how he was recruited, but regardless of that, being a two-year captain means something so his peers clearly respect him.

"What I believe is going to help him is Ralph Friedgen came in and he's got Mike Teel back, so he's got some real offensive-minded guys that are going to help him manage the system, get the football into the right places, so his efficiency should increase. I expect the interceptions to go down and his percentage to go up this year.''

NJ.com: Is the path for Rutgers to win controlling the ball, working the clock and keeping Halliday off the field?

Klatt: "You know what, I've talked about this at length with Gary Barnett, who was my coach at Colorado. We only talked about this in hindsight, and this is going to sound completely counter-intuitive but unless you are so sound as a team, similar to what Stanford is, where they know they can control the game offensively, unless you're that good, the equation to beat Mike Leach is more turnovers than it is clock-management. They'll turn the ball over, even more so than Rutgers, which is a lot. Rutgers turned the ball over 30 times last year, Washington State turned it over 35 times, which was 122nd in all of college football. That's the recipe to beat Mike Leach because you take the offense off the field with sound, opportunistic defense. Third downs become very important, turnovers become important.

"It's important that Rutgers takes care of the ball themselves and score points when they march it down the field. Teams that play basic defense, they let them throw underneath, they tackle the ball-carrier, force them to play 10-, 11-play drives, tend to have more success. So it's less about what your offense does. It's getting off the field on third down and creating turnovers and can you be sound and not allow explosion plays? That's really the recipe to beat Mike Leach.''

NJ.com: I'm assuming you break down more Pac-12 and Big 12 games, but does Rutgers have the look of a Big Ten team when you watch them on tape?

Klatt: "Not yet, because the Big Ten is pretty specific. But they have the potential to be that. I think they're undersized right now compared to Big Ten teams and I think people will realize that as the season plays out. But they remind me at this point of maybe a lower-tier Big Ten team. You're going to see Ohio State, or Michigan State, or Wisconsin, or Nebraska, and you're going to sit there and say, 'My gosh, these guys are monsters.' Because they are. They're huge teams.

"We played Wisconsin in a bowl game and I was just shocked by how big they were. Big 12 teams weren't that big. So I think where the trend is going to have to go up for Rutgers.''

Keith Sargeant may be reached at ksargeant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @KSargeantNJ. Find NJ.com Rutgers Football on Facebook.