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College football Believe it or Not: Ed Orgeron a top-5 coach, Wisconsin a title contender, Scott Satterfield is best coach hire

By Michael Collins & Patrick Schmidt

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In this week’s believe it or not, we look at whether Ed Orgeron is a top-five coach, and whether Jim Harbaugh can break an ugly streak.

The college football season is beginning to get crazy (just ask the fans in Athens) and the storylines and hot takes just keep getting better.

The unbeatens are beginning to drop like flies, and the postseason picture is beginning to come into focus. With that, another edition of, “Believe it or Not”, with FanSided college football experts Michael Collins, and Patrick Schmidt.

Believe it or not, Ed Orgeron is a Top 5 coach

Schmidt Says – Believe it: The top three head coaches are Nick Saban, Dabo Swinney and Lincoln Riley. Those three names are non-negotiable but there is a conversation about who rounds out the top five. David Shaw and Chris Petersen have great reputations and win-loss records but they’re not having great seasons.

The same can be said for former national champion, Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M. Jim Harbaugh isn’t in the conversation. James Franklin has a case depending on how this season finishes for Penn State. Tom Herman may be in the conversation in the near future. Ryan Day may work his way into the conversation by November. Needless to say, there’s a lot of candidates and Ed Orgeron is among them.

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Just look at what he’s been able to do since taking the LSU job. It took a few beatings at the hands of Alabama, but the Tigers have finally built a modern offense. Credit Orgeron for hiring Joe Brady to transform the passing game and credit Orgeron for convincing Joe Burrow to come to LSU as a grad transfer when he left Ohio State on blind faith that these changes would be made.

And now LSU is the No. 2 team in the nation with one of the nation’s most explosive offenses and Burrow is a Heisman candidate and rapidly moving up the NFL Draft big boards.

The overwhelming reason Orgeron is now a Top 5 coach is his success against great teams. Since 2016, Orgeron has seven wins against Top 10 teams. Only Nick Saban and Urban Meyer have more with nine such wins. Dabo Swinney only has six wins. He’s come a long way since his first head coach job with Ole Miss and has learned from his mistakes to grow into a top-five college football coach.

Collins Says – Not (kind of): Slapping the label of a Top 5 coach on Ed Orgeron is both fair and unfair. Orgeron does a lot of things well. He motivates his players and really inspires their loyalty. His folksy, affable personality is a win with both the media and fans. Most of all, Ed Orgeron is good for the college game.

But a Top 5 coach? Not so fast my friends.

For me, if someone is to be put into that coaching echelon, they really need to be masters of coaching the game, which Orgeron is not. Give credit to Coach O for recognizing his shortcomings and bringing in Steve Ensminger and Joe Brady. It’s obvious those moves have paid off in a huge way.

But prior to that, Coach O’s teams were just another group of better-than-average ones. The truly great coaches – Saban, Swinney, Riley among others – find incredible success because of their football acumen, not simply because of the people they have surrounded themselves with.

Right now, at this time I’d have to list the top five coaches in the nation as Nick Saban (duh), Dabo Swinney, Lincoln Riley, Chris Petersen, and Kirby Smart. Orgeron is on his way up that chain, but not quite there yet.

Believe it or not, Boise State is back and they’re College Football Playoff dangerous

Schmidt Says – Not: It’s not that Boise State isn’t back. I don’t think they really went anywhere. But no, they’re not a threat to make the playoff. We’ve seen this story before with a Group of Five team who may run the table and how the playoff committee views those cases.

UCF went undefeated and needed to buy tickets to get to the playoff or watch it on TV. That’s as close as they are getting. That’s the system that’s in place. Now, if you want to talk about the Group of Five staging their own four-team playoff, then sign me up for that. Otherwise, this is the world Boise State has to live in.

The good thing is quarterback Hank Bachmeier‘s hip injury suffered in the Week 7 win isn’t believed to be overly serious. I think Boise State is in control to get the New Year’s Six bowl berth and get to the Cotton Bowl.

Collins Says – Believe It: I’ve said for a long time, if there’s one Group of Five team who could shatter that glass ceiling and make it into the College Football Playoff, it’s Boise State.

The Broncos are the original BCS-buster, and they’re returning to that form today. They are scoring points in bunches and look as well-coached as any team in the nation. Because of their history of being able to consistently hang with the big boys and pull off some outlandish upsets, the playoff committee will be more receptive to Boise State being a playoff team.

Their schedule in the Mountain West isn’t the most intimidating, but it’s better than some from other Group of Five conferences. Add to that a win against Florida State (albeit, not vintage FSU) and a win against a very good Marshall team and their resume is already beginning to stack up.

If the playoff committee has to choose between an undefeated Boise State team, and a one-loss team from a Power-5 conference, there’s a strong chance they give the Broncos the nod.

Believe it or not, Wisconsin’s defense makes them national title contenders

Schmidt Says – Believe it: Wisconsin has the nation’s best defense with four shutouts in their first six games. Defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard is going to be offered a head coaching job this offseason if he wants it because of his unit’s production and total domination. The Badgers are allowing 4.8 yards per game and have only allowed four touchdowns.

By comparison, the Wisconsin defense has scored four of their own touchdowns and have a safety to boot. Not only do they lead the nation in scoring defense, but they lead in rush defense, pass defense, total defense, and opponent third-down conversions.

They are the college equivalent of the 1985 Chicago Bears.

This unit is absolutely good enough to lead Wisconsin to a national championship. This means beating Ohio State in the regular season and potentially again in the Big Ten Championship Game. Then, beating two of Alabama, Clemson, LSU, and Oklahoma in the College Football Playoff. It’s possible. Is it likely? The Badgers have the seventh-best title odds at 16-1. So it is possible.

I won’t predict them to win the national title today but it’s long overdue to put them in the conversation with the teams who have great offenses and questionable defenses.

Collins Says – Believe It: Wisconsin has been playing in the shadow of Urban Meyer and Ohio State for years. They’re the Big Ten version of Georgia…coming oh so close but never quite reaching their goal because of one missing piece or another.

I don’t see any missing pieces in this Wisconsin team, and Urban Meyer is wearing a headset for FOX Sports instead of on the sideline. When they do in fact face Ohio State on October 26 in the Horseshoe, it will be a solid win for the Badgers that will propel them into the top four teams in the nation to stay.

This Badger defense is good enough to stop anyone in the nation, and for a change, Wiscy isn’t dependent on a one-man show at the running back position. No one is going to mistake Jack Coan for Tua Tagovailoa, but he’s a heady team leader who doesn’t make mistakes. He puts his team in a position to win and he’s got a ton of receivers and backs at his disposal to whom he can distribute the ball.

Against Michigan, Coan hit six different receivers. against Michigan State, he threw it to eight different receivers, and against USF he hit nine. He’s completing 76 percent of his passes and only has one interception this year.

You take that kind of quarterback efficiency and combine it with arguably the best running back in the nation and the best defense in the nation, and you are staring down the barrel of a serious national title contender.

Believe it or not, Louisville’s Scott Satterfield was the best coach hire this offseason

Schmidt Says – Believe it: I’m not including Ryan Day in this conversation because that was pre-determined and Ohio State didn’t go through a traditional coaching search. Plus, Day already had three games on his resume as the team’s interim coach when Urban Meyer was suspended. Following Meyer’s retirement (one-year FOX vacation), hiring Day was a no-brainer.

But outside of that caveat, Louisville getting Scott Satterfield looks like a godsend. And he wasn’t even their top target. Louisville alum and Purdue’s head coach Jeff Brohm was the top target after Bobby Petrino was put out to pasture. It would have been a great hire on paper, but Brohm elected to stay at Purdue and continue building up that program. Brohm may have second thoughts about that now.

However, Louisville falling into Satterfield has been a much-needed breath of fresh air at a program where Petrino, Rick Pitino, and Tom Jurich let it turn toxic. The former Appalachian State coach was used to building up programs and competing for championships. It’s clear he left the program in great standing as the Mountaineers are now ranked in the AP Poll Top 25.

After beating previously undefeated Wake Forest to improve to 4-2 overall and 2-1 in the ACC, Louisville might be ranked in the near future too. The Cardinals host No. 3 Clemson on Saturday in a game the oddsmakers aren’t giving them much credit as 22-point underdogs, but don’t sleep on Satterfield’s team making things interesting. In the big picture, though, Satterfield has Louisville trending in the right direction sooner than anyone could have imagined.

CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd had 12 other programs making better hires than Louisville last year, including Liberty hiring Hugh Freeze, West Virginia hiring Neal Brown and Dana Holgorsen at Houston, among others. If he re-ranked them today, Satterfield would be at the top. In the non-Ryan Day division, of course.

Collins Says – Believe It (for now): If you’re looking at immediate returns and a swing in the W-L record, then Scott Satterfield is absolutely the best hire who wasn’t already on a team’s staff.

Two weeks ago I was in Louisville for the game against Boston College, and even walking among the tailgaters, in the stands in Cardinal Stadium, and even in the press box, you feel a huge difference. The fans are excited again and have seemingly recovered from the Petrino poison.

Satterfield was handed a hot mess of a program doused with kerosene by Bobby Petrino and Tom Jurich, and thus far he’s successfully kept it from burning down.

I’ll add one small caveat to this. We have yet to see what Geoff Collins can really do at Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets may not win another game this season, but no new head coach came in at more of a disadvantage than Collins. He inherited players who were recruited to run a specific gimmick system, and they simply aren’t suited to make his offense click.

Within a couple of years, Collins will have that program on track and he’ll be mentioned among the best coaching hires of this year. You just can’t see it yet.

Believe it or not, Jim Harbaugh will finally win a game as an underdog at Michigan this week.

Schmidt Says – Not: Believe it or not, Jim Harbaugh is 0-7 as an underdog as Michigan’s head coach. Wolverines fans won’t want to believe it but they’ve lived through it. The most recent loss was a humbling one at the hands of Wisconsin who were 3.5-point favorites. That ignited the Harbaugh hot seat talk once again.

Now, Harbaugh and Michigan have to go to Happy Valley to take on the undefeated No. 7 Penn State Nittany Lions who opened as 7.5-point favorites. Penn State has the No. 2 scoring defense, No. 3 rush defense and No. 4 total defense. That’s a recipe for disaster for Michigan and their broken offense.

No, I don’t believe Harbaugh will get his first win as an underdog this weekend at Penn State.

Collins Says – Believe It: Go ahead and send this to the Freezing Cold Takes Twitter account if you want, but I think Michigan pulls off this upset.

Why?

It’s certainly not because I have any great faith in Michigan or Jim Harbaugh, but you sometimes see the deck stacked a certain way.

It’s a White-Out game for Penn State, and the Nittany Lions only hold an overall 7-8 record in those games. Looks pretty, but doesn’t seem to have the desired effect on opponents.

College GameDay is in town, and Penn State’s record with ESPN sitting in the backyard is 3-4 overall and 1-1 under James Franklin.

Additionally, James Franklin is 1-3 going head-to-head against Harbaugh in these games, and it’s safe to say that Penn State had a better team in at least two of those losses.

But here’s the biggest reason I think Michigan pulls off this upset. Under James Franklin, Penn State seems to inexplicably bungle away one game they should have easily handled every season. It happened to them against Michigan State (twice), Pitt, Temple, and Illinois.

This will be that game for Franklin in 2019.

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