Three-Point Stance: SEC's top DEs, Vols verdict, best coaching jobs

Rivals.com National Recruiting Director Mike Farrell’s Three-Point Stance is here with his thoughts on the SEC's best defensive ends, Tennessee's disappointing season and the top five coaching jobs of this season.

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I was recently reminded of tweet from last year where I indicated that Texas A&M's Myles Garrett was a better player than Tennessee's Derek Barnett.

I was clearly wrong. In both our mid-season Farrell 50 and our Top 32 for the 2017 NFL Draft I ranked Barnett slightly ahead of Garrett.

So I thought I’d break the question down even further and rank the top five rush ends in the SEC. And as much as I like Barnett, he’s still not my No. 1 guy.

1.) Alabama's Jonathan Allen – Allen came back for his final year and it has paid off. He and Barnett are similar players with Allen slightly thicker on a slightly wider frame and with more ability to play inside as well as outside.

2.) Tennessee's Derek Barnett – Barnett is not only quick off the snap for a player his size but he doesn’t have Tim Williams or Ryan Anderson on the opposite side to help him out so many teams run away from him and roll out to the opposite side. His motor is amazing and if Allen is my No. 1 then Barnett is 1A. He’s proven to me he’s as good as they come.

3.) Texas A&M's Myles Garrett – Garrett has improved his ability against the run but he’s still more one dimensional than the two ahead of him when it comes to pass rush/run stuffing balance. He can be run at and put on skates more than the others. And too many of his sacks have come against weak competition to be higher than the rest.

4.) Alabama's Tim Williams – I know he projects as a linebacker/hybrid at the NFL level but let’s be honest, he’s used as a defensive end in ‘Bama’s scheme and he’s the fastest of this bunch by far. He’s not great against the run and relies on speed more than anything, but opponents know what he’s going to do and still can’t stop it.

5.) Auburn's Carl Lawson – Lawson has moved past his injury issues it seems and will likely play a somewhat hybrid role as well in the NFL. Think poor man’s James Harrison, which is pretty darned good.

This Tennessee season is officially a disappointment now that Florida has locked up the SEC East. The Vols were favored to win the division, beat the Gators head-to-head and still managed to lose the division.

To top it all off, former Florida coach Will Muschamp, who is doing some surprising things early at South Carolina, essentially delivered his old team the SEC East crown by upsetting Tennessee.

So now the Gators have won the SEC East four times since the Vols last took home the division in 2007. And since Tennessee's last appearance in Atlanta, Florida (4), Georgia (2) and Missouri (2) have all made multiple trips to conference title game. That leaves Tennessee in the company of Kentucky and Vanderbilt as the only programs that haven’t played for the SEC crown in the last nine seasons.

Even early on this season against Appalachian State, Virginia Tech and Ohio, before injuries began to take a toll, you could see something wasn’t clicking with this team. But that second half against Florida had me convinced that the Vols had turned the corner. But it clearly wasn’t enough.

With a win over Vanderbilt, Tennessee will move to nine wins this year and could, with a bowl win, reach the 10-win mark for the first time since 2007. But even with double-digit wins, this 2016 Tennessee campaign still smacks of disappointment.

The program's recruiting efforts have taken a bit of a hit as well. The Vols are currently No. 8 in the Rivals.com national team recruiting rankings, but with 27 commitments already in the fold, they have very little room to move up. Meanwhile, programs such as Michigan, USC, Florida State, Florida, Auburn and others have room to jump them easily. The Vols' 2016 class was ranked No. 15 and they could end up in that range for 2017. That’s not horrible by any stretch of the imagination, but could it be reflective of high expectations not being met?

Here are the five head coaches that have done the best job this season:

1.) Colorado's Mike MacIntyre – The Buffs need to extend this man out for a long, long time.

2.) Penn State's James Franklin – From talk of Temple’s Matt Rhule as the Nittany Lions' next coach to playoff contention.

3.) Western Michigan's P.J. Fleck – Row that boat. The MAC may stink but undefeated is undefeated.

4.) Washington's Chris Petersen – Did anyone expect Washington to be a national playoff contender this early?

5.) Oklahoma State's Mike Gundy – Take away the Central Michigan robbery and the Cowboys could be playing for a spot in the College Football Playoff this weekend against Oklahoma.