LSU Football: Ed Orgeron ranks as one of the top coaches in college football

LSU football head coach Ed Orgeron is ranked by The Athletic among the top coaches in college football.

It should be no surprise that LSU football head coach Ed Orgeron is ranked by The Athletic as one of the top coaches in the country.

The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman and Stewart Mandel each released their top 25 college football coaches on Thursday.

Mandel had Orgeron at No. 3 (behind Nick Saban and Dabo Swinney), while Feldman had Orgeron at No. 4 (behind Saban, Swinney and James Franklin).

I’d say Mandel got it right. Feldman, however, did not.

I’m not foolish enough to think Orgeron should be listed above Saban or Swinney just yet. Both of those coaches have multiple national championships to their name. Orgeron should definitely be slotted in just behind them.

But putting Franklin ahead of Coach O?

That’s puzzling.

Sure, Franklin is a good coach. He had unprecedented success at Vanderbilt. And he’s led Penn State to three 11 win seasons in six years.

But he’s never won a national championship. And he’s certainly never won 15 games in a season.

Orgeron’s 25 wins over the last two years are more impressive than any two year stretch of Franklin’s career.

Feldman is usually spot on. But I think his attempt to remove the recency bias from his rankings caused him to miss the mark on this one.

Saban and Swinney are the clear top two head coaches in the country at this point.

And Coach O is the clear No. 3 head coach in the nation.

After those three, there’s a big gap to whoever is next.