Lincoln Riley, Brent Venables among college football coaches who didn’t earn their paychecks in September

Six coaches enter October with more questions than wins that matter at schools paying a premium for answers. A few opened in the preseason top 15 with College Football Playoff expectations, while others began the year knowing slow starts could put their jobs in jeopardy.

There's still time to turn things around, but the warning signs are hard to miss: offenses without any semblance of confidence and defenses getting exposed. At this level, high-end salaries come with the expectation that a coach can fix those problems before they cost his team a season.

The next few games bring tougher opponents and fewer excuses. For the few coaches within this group already sitting on some of the nation's hottest seats, the coming weekends will decide whether September was a stumble or the beginning of the end.

Ahead of schedule after reaching the CFP in Year 2 last fall, Elko raised the bar and must now live with it. Slight regression was inevitable given vast personnel changes, but you can't lose to Kentucky at home and not be reamed for it.

That lackluster effort was troubling enough before Saturday's 29-point beatdown at the hands of LSU, which further exposed the program's offensive…

Original source: https://www.cbssports.com/