Lincoln Riley

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — That didn’t take long. We’re barely a month (sorry, Big Ten and Pac-12) into this twisted college football season and a powerful separation is underway.

On one side — the serious contenders for the national title.

On the other — coaches who flinch whenever a fresh text message arrives.

Relax. The Top Five/Bottom Five has already figured everything out.

TOP FIVE

1. Alabama (2-0) — No Tua. No worries. Crimson Tide quarterback Mac Jones leads the Southeastern Conference with a QB rating of 222.07. Nick Saban lost four of the top 15 players taken in the NFL Draft. Can you tell?

2. SEC East Big Three (6-0) — Georgia, Florida and Tennessee are doing their best to flip the balance of power in the SEC back from the West to the East. Not only have they combined to win all six of their games, they’ve done it by a combined margin of more than 17 points.

3. Mike Gundy (3-0) — On the week of the Oklahoma-Texas rivalry game that has lost 33 pounds of PSI, look who sits atop the Big 12 with the only team unbeaten inside as well as outside the league?

Oklahoma State. Take a bow, Mike Gundy. Just make sure the microphone is turned off.

4. BYU (3-0) — Have you checked the numbers the Cougars have posted in three games? Scoring margin — plus 41 points per game. Yards per play — 8.1, more than double the opponent. Third down conversions — better than 51 percent.

Just avoid the fine print. BYU has played Navy, Troy and Louisiana Tech. Give the Cougars an A for scheduling.

5. Clemson (3-0) — Unbeaten Miami is coming to town Saturday. We’ll see if the Hurricanes are back.

BOTTOM FIVE

5. SMU students — SMU is a terrific school. The student body brings sizzle. I enjoyed covering a basketball game there on that night Russ Smith went wild for Louisville in 2014.

But you need to mask up, kids.

When police and administrators noticed many of the 1,000 students that were admitted to SMU’s game against Memphis Saturday were ignoring mask and social distance requests they issued two warnings.

Many chose not to listen.

They were asked to leave — and then missed the Mustangs upsetting No. 25 Memphis on a last-minute field goal.

4. SEC East Bottom Four (0-8) — Not only are Kentucky, South Carolina, Vanderbilt and Missouri winless, they are also 0-5 in games against the SEC West.

3. Mike Leach (1-1) — Remember 2017 when Leach’s Washington State team beat USC and Oregon — and then lost to Cal?

How about the befuddling losses to Portland State in 2015 and Eastern Washington in 2016?

Well, a week after Leach and the Bulldogs won at LSU, they came home and helped Sam Pittman begin to fix the program he’s building at Arkansas.

Which Mike Leach will come to Kroger Field and Kentucky Saturday night?

2. Big 12 — Oklahoma State, Kansas State and Iowa State are all wonderful stories but when your Big Two of Texas and Oklahoma trudge into their rivalry game this weekend out of the national championship picture, you’ve got a problem.

1. Outrageous Coaching Salaries — They say the financial issues created by the novel coronavirus pandemic will make athletic directors flinch before handing out more of these contracts to pay top college football coaches at least $6 million per season.

I’ve got a better reason not to do it — it’s no guarantee of greatness.

According to the salary totals published by the Los Angeles Times, four coaches of teams ranked in the Top 20 who are scheduled to earn (pre-pandemic) close to $27 million this season all lost Saturday.

The list:

Lincoln Riley of Oklahoma, 6.15 million. He’s 1-2, with losses to Kansas State and Iowa State.

Tom Herman, Texas, 6.75 million. He’s a shaky 2-1, with a loss to TCU and a narrow win over Texas Tech.

Gus Malzahn, Auburn, 6.9 million. He’s a shaky 1-1, fortunate to beat Kentucky.

Jimbo Fisher, Texas A&M, $7.5millon. He’s a shaky 1-1, fortunate to beat Vanderbilt.

In fairness, Malzahn and Auburn lost to Top Five Georgia and Fisher and A&M lost to Top Five Alabama.

But neither the Tigers nor the Aggies were a threat to win those games Saturday.

Call me old fashioned, but I suspect followers of both schools are wondering why they’re paying Top 10 wages for Top 30 results.

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