Bottom 10: S-E-C! S-E-C?

— -- The Bottom 10 inspirational thought of the week:

Maybe it's been crazy and maybe I'm to blame
But I put my heart above my head
We've been through it all and you loved me just the same
And when you're not there I just need to hear...

Hello, my friend, hello
It's good to need you so
It's good to love you like I do
And to feel this way
When I hear you say, hello...

-- "Hello Again" by Neil Diamond

It was July 4 and I was sitting on the beach with my stack of college football preseason magazines. You know the ones. As I devoured them page by page a steady stream of foot traffic trucked by back and forth, ignoring me as I ignored them.

Then a guy in a Roll Tide tank top stopped and shouted. "Hey, man. I've been walking by here all week and I've seen you reading those magazines every day! But you're always reading the back pages. I ain't seen you looking at the front of one of them yet. What the hail are you doing?!"

"Research," I told him, flipping my Lindy's around to reveal the page I was reading, the one with the corners folded over, highlighter marks all over it, and a big photo of Kansas safety Fish Smithson. "Rock Chalk, son."

Listen, any schmoe can start up in the high rent end of a magazine that proudly proclaims "WE RANK ALL 128 FBS TEAMS!" But here at Bottom 10 Headquarters, located in the storage room where Paul Finebaum stocks the Turtle Wax for his head, we believe in starting with team No. 128 and climbing our way up.

It's like Bruce Wayne when he had to get out of that cave prison with a broken back. It's excruciating. But did you see that look on the Dark Knight's face when he finally emerged? Sure, he had no idea where he was and still had to travel thousands of miles to get back to Gotham City only to have a weird fight with an unintelligible bad guy, get stabbed in the ribs and die in a nuclear blast ... but hey, he still looked relieved, right?

Over the weekend you may have recognized that same look on the faces of UCF, Texas State, Eastern Michigan, Louisiana-Monroe and, yes, Kansas. All were contenders for the 2015 Bottom 10 crown and all emerged in 2016 as winners. We certainly saw that look on the faces of the Jayhawks fans, who stormed the field after the team's first win in 15 games. Sure, it was against Rhode Island, a bad FCS school. And sure, they still have to go to Memphis, Texas Tech, Baylor and Oklahoma all before Halloween. But hey, they still looked relieved, right?

Anyway, like Neil Diamond dialing the phone creepily at 2 a.m., we're glad to have them back on the line as we emerge from the darkness of summer.

With apologies to Yussel Rabinovitch and Steve Harvey, here's the first Bottom 10 of the 2016 season.

1. Huh-why-yuh (0-2)

2. North Texas Forty (0-1)

3. Charlotte 0and1'ers (0-1)

4. Warshington State (0-1)

5. S-E-C! S-E-C!

6. Buffalo Bills, er Bulls (0-1)

7. New Mexico State (0-1)

8. UMess (0-1)

9. Northwestern (0-1)

10. Kansas (1-0)

Waiting list: Temple of Doom (0-1), Tulane to Turn Back Now (0-1), UVA (0-1), I-OW-uh State (0-1), Stuck in a Rutgers (0-1), FI(not A)U 0-1, Colora-DOH! State (0-1), replay delays so long you could go mow the lawn, cheap shot late hits when games are over.