The Top Whatever: Kentucky is good. Make peace however you can.

This is The Top Whatever, the weekly ranking of only the college football teams that must be ranked.

1. UCF. Champs stay champs with a 56-36 win over Florida Atlantic. McKenzie Milton might have telekinesis, or he might just be a great quarterback. That we can confuse the two is probably the highest compliment a quarterback can get, and only really applies to one other quarterback in college football right now.

That’s right: LSU’s Joe Burrow.

* It is not Joe Burrow, but instead Tua Tagovailoa of Alabama.

2. Stanford. 38-31 over Oregon. Don’t look at the box score, don’t watch the tape, and don’t try to figure out why Oregon, with the ball and needing only to run out almost all of the clock by taking a knee, decided to instead call an actual run play. Oregon running back CJ Verdell fumbled, Stanford kicked a tying field goal, and Oregon looked shellshocked. Overtime was probably over before it even started.

Do know this: Stanford got hammered around the field at Autzen Stadium for a half, nearly went down 30-7 at one point ...

... and kept plugging away numbers in their spreadsheet football machine until something worked. The Cardinal vultured easy scores off turnovers, and after a frustrating start used Bryce Love on play-fakes while turning the game over to K.J. Costello at quarterback.

It worked because Stanford receiver J.J. Arcega-Whiteside matched up against most DBs looks like a dad playing backyard ball against his son. It worked because the Cardinal on the road in a brutal environment followed their game plan like they were running through practice.

It worked because Stanford got lucky, sure. But luck has to be handled well, and it is hard to handle luck better than turning what seemed like an imminent Oregon TD into a fumble run back for a TD of your own. It is hard to do much better than getting the gift of a fumble with the clock winding down and trailing by three, yes, but lesser teams have panicked in the situation, too.

Oregon outgained Stanford by huge margins in every major category (including, well, turnovers). That didn’t matter in the end, because Stanford plays the right kind of cold, opportunistic football that doesn’t sweat — especially when they get the gift of three turnovers.

It’s Stanford, the coldest rich school in college football. Giving them freebies is just an insult.

3. Kentucky. Won 28-7 over Mississippi State.

Kentucky is 4-0. The last time the Wildcats were 4-0, the year was 2008, and the American banking industry nearly collapsed. Am I saying that Kentucky football being actually good will trigger a new financial crisis?

No, what I am saying is that Kentucky fans don’t really care what happens because a.) a lot of them don’t trust banks anyway and would be fine living by barter in a post-apocalyptic society, and b.) no one, not even Kentucky fans, is sure of what to do with this information either.

Mississippi State came in averaging 311 yards a game on the ground. They left Lexington with 56 rushing yards and the justified opinion that Kentucky — in football — might be good.

Again, this is confusing for everyone, so the deeply underrated Benny Snell posting pictures of himself carrying a bulldog like a loaf of bread seems like a great coping strategy for all concerned.

P.S. That 2008 Kentucky team finished 7-6. LIFE IS UNPREDICTABLE. TAKE A LOFTY RANKING WHILE YOU CAN AND RUN WITH IT, WILDCATS.

4. Alabama. 45-23 over Texas A&M. The Aggies didn’t look too overmatched, actually. They stifled the run game, holding the Tide to a measly 109 rushing yards. In fact, they outgained Alabama on the ground, though most of the Aggies’ 130 came on one 54-yard sprint by QB Kellen Mond.

What I am saying is that Tagovailoa — four TDs and 387 yards passing, no big deal, all done with the shining aura of a natural born demigod, the touch of a young Aaron Rodgers, and adorable cartoon birds singing on his shoulders — is perfect. There is nothing to be done about that.

The run game, however, is not perfect. The defense lost some battles one-on-one with Texas A&M’s skill players. All of this is building to an epic and well-rehearsed Nick Saban detonation in the middle of a press conference this week about how Y’ALL THINK WE CAN JUST ROLL ‘EM OUT HERE AND WIN, DON’T YOU? Book it, despite Alabama having no real obvious peer right now.

5. Clemson. 49-21 over Georgia Tech. A game that didn’t tell you anything you didn’t already know about either team, save this: freshman Trevor Lawrence is Clemson’s quarterback now, and incumbent starter Kelly Bryant is on the way toward spot play at best.

Everyone pretty much knew this already, so yeah: nothing new.

The Yellow Jackets look like they’re going to focus on their coursework this season and instead let football be the pleasant weekend diversion that it should be.

6. Georgia. 43-29 over Mizzou, a result that depends on the editing, when it comes to saying whether it was good or worrying for Georgia.

For example:

• This was the Bulldogs’ closest win of the season! (They won by 14 on the road in a game that never really felt out of control.)
• The defense allowed 172 yards and four scores on the ground, far too many for any team, much less one that prides itself on run defense! (The defense held Mizzou QB Drew Lock, who averages like 900 yards a game against anyone else, to 221 yards and no passing TDs.)
• The offense struggled early! (They did, and it still didn’t matter, and this is all Kirby Smart struggling to find something wrong with a team where very little is going wrong.)

7. Penn State. That 63-24 win over Illinois followed the same pattern of every Nittany Lion game. There is a sluggish start. Then, the gassing-up of the opponent in response to that team looking competent.

See the moment this week when, for a few precious seconds, those watching Illinois take a lead over Penn State for in the third quarter thought “Maybe Illinois is good this year!”

Then, Penn State unloads all of the points in about 15 minutes of play and destroys everything in sight. Remember this if they get down by any margin to Ohio State: it’s fine, because Penn State has 35 points tucked away somewhere. Once they find it, oh buddy, that’s when you are in trouble.

8. Buffalo. A 42-13 win over Rutgers doesn’t count for much. We’re talking about Rutgers, one of the few completely verified terrible teams of 2018.

Still, credit to the MAC’s big blue monster for being 4-0, and also for not being content to eke out a win over a Power 5 team. Nope, Buffalo dropped the entire house on Rutgers, then had that house demolished, and then dropped another house on top of that house.

See, Buffalo? There is at least one actual sports franchise in your city.

9. Notre Dame. A 56-27 win over Wake Forest does mean a little something. The 56-point outburst came about mostly as a result of Brian Kelly starting backup QB Ian Book over Brandon Wimbush.

Book threw for 325 yards and two TDs, the offense blew the hell up after struggling for much of the season, and Notre Dame played a great defensive game against an offense that had been shredding opposing defenses. (No, really, this is a thing in 2018. They’re good.)

Also, Wake Forest tried to come out in a field goal formation without a kicker.

10. Ohio State. A 49-21 win over Tulane doesn’t say much, though it does help answer the question “Which school where even the smart students have puked on themselves in a social setting has the superior football team?”