While watching some of the countless number of college football games on the tube last weekend, my wife noticed ESPN was making numerous knowing references to what they had dubbed Separation Saturday.

Since she knows only too well that I spent most of my life covering college football games, my wife naturally queried: “Chuck, what does Separation Saturday mean?”

And, of course, I had no idea.

“All I can say,” I replied, “is that I hope we won’t be watching Divorce Saturday in six weeks.”

Later, one of the ESPN throats came to the rescue, explaining that Separation Saturday would reveal, in effect, which teams were contenders and which teams were pretenders. Well, I guess that means we’re due for a string of Sleepy Saturdays now that ESPN has already separated the wheat from the chaff.

In the final analysis, ESPN was simply hyping the third week of the college football season, beating the drum in an attempt to convince us to watch the games, and at the same time improve its ratings so it can charge cable operators and dish networks more for its services.

With the excitement of the season openers past and no light visible at the end of the tunnel, you didn’t expect the omnipotent cable sports network to label it Doesn’t Really Mean Squat Saturday, did you?

Still, if you believe last weekend really was Separation Saturday, then you can’t feel too good about Kansas University’s chances of winning enough games to earn consecutive postseason bowl bids for the first time in school history.

After home victories over a couple of Loo-ze-anna lukewarm sauces, the Jayhawks staged another one of their Willy Loman acts, blowing a double-overtime game at Toledo. Then again, the game wasn’t actually played on Separation Saturday. It was played the night before, meaning a more appropriate label might have been Armadillo Friday.

I can sum up the Jayhawks’ primary weakness in two words: inexperienced quarterback.

Kerry Meier ranks last in the Big 12 in passing efficiency ratings and he leads the league in interceptions with seven. Meier, a red-shirt freshman, was charged with five turnovers in the Toledo turnaround.

By the way, Meier’s five giveaways are not a school record. Individual turnovers is not a stat you’ll find in the KU books, but quarterback Dylen Smith is believed to own the school oops record. When he was a senior in 2000, Smith threw five interceptions and coughed up two fumbles in a 34-16 loss at Oklahoma.

When a freshman QB coughs it up, they chalk it up to inexperience. When a senior QB plays giveaway, they say he should know better. Either way, a turnover is a turnover is a turnover.

KU’s giveaways have been magnified, too, because the defense can’t buy a takeaway.

To tell the truth, the Jayhawks are lucky to be 2-1 when you consider only one of the nation’s 119 NCAA Div. I-A teams (Hawaii) has a worse turnover margin.