We entered the weekend asking whether Lincoln Riley was on the verge of a breakthrough at Southern Cal. (The answer is always no.) We exited the weekend wondering whether Iowa is a playoff teamand whether Texas A&M and Oklahoma can compete with South Carolina and Arkansas for the right to be called the SEC’s worst team.
Here are some lingering "Topp Thoughts" after Week 4:
How bad will it get for Texas A&M?
Battered Aggie Syndrome is back with a vengeance at Texas A&M.
Sometimes, there’s comfort in routine. The sun setting in the west. The line at the DMV being 30-deep. Texas A&M being a total fraud.
The Aggies broke out of the routine last year when they won 11 straight games, made us wonder about their national championship bona fides, and then withered at the finish line.
Well,
consider that playoff berth just another mirage in Aggieland.
It must be becoming familiar. Mike Elko's Year 2 success joins the list of Texas A&M optical illusions, after Kevin Sumlin and Jimbo Fisher previously supplied uprisings that didn't endure.
After a 35-6 loss to LSU that all but eliminates the idea of Texas A&M making a repeat trip to the playoff, Elko admitted to being at a loss for words or immediate answers.
“We’re not playing football at nearly a good enough level,” Elko said. “Obviously, that’s the understatement of a lifetime.”
Here’s another understatement of a lifetime: I am totally out on Marcel Reed.
Whatever magic Reed captured during the Aggies’ win streak last season, it’s long gone. The Gingerbread Man has become a snack for opposing defenses.
Reed was bad in losses to Texas and Miami at the end of last season. He was bad last weekend in a loss to Kentucky, too. He was awful in this rout at the hands of rival LSU, a team the Aggies annihilated 11 months ago.
Spread around the blame. Everything about Texas A&M looked awful, not just the quarterback play.
The Aggies couldn’t move the ball against an LSU defense that couldn’t stop Trinidad Chambliss and Mississippi just one week previously. Couldn’t stop LSU, either. Lane Kiffin got his wind back. He was back to sprinting down the sideline after LSU touchdowns.
After this humiliation, you could predict the type of response on the popular TexAgs message boards, where fans were asking whether the Aggies would’ve been better off hiring Mark Stoops instead of Elko.
Yes, indeed, Battered Aggie Syndrome is back, and a glance at Texas A&M’s schedule shows the worst is still to come.
Race to be first coach fired heats up
With Bill Belichick’s tenure surviving the internal investigation into his program, he’s no longer the frontrunner to be the first coach fired. Luke Fickell endures at Wisconsin after beating Penn State, and vulnerable Michigan State awaits the Badgers.
So, who leads the hot seat standings?
Mike Locksley took his place at the head of the pack after Maryland lost 54-3 at home to UCLA.
Locksley’s buyout checks in at a tick more than $9 million, so he can probably go ahead and book a reservation at Buyout Beach. He’s a fired-coach-in-waiting.
"I still have a lot of confidence in myself and the staff to get this thing fixed,” Locksley told reporters afterward, in what must have sounded like impromptu satire.
Mike Norvell and Greg Schiano remain in the race for buyout bliss, but speeding up from behind, here comes Shane Beamer!
Maybe, a Carolina coach will indeed be the first fired, but make it South Carolina instead of North Carolina. Beamer lost for the eighth straight time against a Power Four opponent after getting trounced by Alabama, 49-18.
“We got a good football team,” Beamer said afterward.
No, he doesn’t. He’s got a team that’ll send him to buyout utopia.
Kirby Smart not satisfied with blowout victories
Ho-hum, Georgia just beat another SEC opponent by 28 points.
This time, the final score was Dawgs 41, Oklahoma 13.
Never mind what the polls say, because Georgia is the SEC’s frontrunner and perhaps it’s strongest national championship contender.
As for the Sooners, well, we tried to warn you: That preseason contract extension for Brent Venables was a textbook example of financial waste.
If Congress wants to “Protect College Sports,” it can start by looking into how athletic departments burn through barrels of money via contract lunacy.
While Texas smoked cigars to celebrate an ugly win at Tennessee, Kirby Smart was miffed Georgia only won by 28 points, when it could’ve been more if not for some second-half deceleration.
“Good teams don’t have lulls,” Smart said. “They didn’t stop us. We stopped ourselves.”
Yeah, give me Georgia all day to win the SEC.
Three and out
1. Alabama’s Keelon Russell looks like the quarterback LaNorris Sellers was made out to be in that fawning piece in The Athletic before the 2025 season. Alabama’s schedule will stiffen in October, but credit its freshman quarterback for the Tide being 4-0.
2. It’s terrible that Oregon’s Dante Moore absorbed a blow to the head that left him in the fencing position on the ground — that’s the sign of a head injury — before he was taken to the hospital. Dylan Raiola played so well in place of Moore in a 41-27 win over USC that I’m not sure how Dan Lanning could send Raiola back to the bench when Moore returns. Moore's gruesome injury might’ve shown Oregon that its best quarterback is the backup.
3. I’m awarding the “September Heisman” to Miami’s Darian Mensah. Forget touchdown-to-interception ratio, Mensah is creating a new stat: touchdown-to-incompletion ratio. Through four games, he’s thrown 14 touchdown passes and just 12 incompletions.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's senior national college football columnist. Listen to his podcast, "College Football Unfiltered." Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Texas A&M's Battered Aggie Syndrome is back. Was Mike Elko success a mirage?
