It’s one thing to be cheap.

It’s another to be a bargain.

LSU coach Ed Orgeron isn’t cheap. That implies being of small value.

Orgeron is a bargain. In fact, he might be the best bargain among all college football coaches.

And the Tigers are cashing in.

LSU is paying Orgeron $4 million per season and this season he has his team (6-0 and 2-0 in the SEC) ranked No. 2 in the country.

Alabama is paying Nick Saban more than double that – a hefty price to have your team ranked one spot higher than Orgeron’s in the AP poll. Clemson is paying Dabo Swinney more than double Orgeron’s salary and his team is ranked one spot lower than Orgeron’s.

OK, so the real gauge of a coach’s value comes at the end of the season, not in mid-October. But you get the point – Orgeron might be a downright steal.

His salary ties him for the 24th highest-paid college in college football with Virginia Tech’s Justin Fuente. How’s that working out for you, Hokies?

Even if LSU wins 12 games, reaching that incentive will cost LSU only an additional $500,000. Reaching the CFP would kick in another $250,000.

Peanuts.

Orgeron’s contract makes him the 8th-highest paid coach in the 14-team SEC.

OK, Saban is in a class by himself, having won 5 national championships at Alabama (not to mention 1 at LSU).

The Tide are rolling again this season, having just gone into College Station to knock Texas A&M and Jimbo Fisher’s $7.5 million salary right out of the AP Top 25.

Kirby Smart took Georgia to the title game 2 years ago, even took Saban and the Crimson Tide into overtime before finishing No. 2, so his $6.6 million doesn’t seem out of whack.

Smart, though, is making a fraction less than Auburn’s Gus Malzahn, who gets a chance to show his worth when he plays Orgeron’s team in 2 weeks, then plays Smart’s team 3 weeks after that and Saban’s team 2 weeks after that.

Florida’s Dan Mullen checks in right after Smart with a salary just north of $6 million. (His team lost to Orgeron’s by 2 touchdowns a few days ago.)

Will Muschamp is making $4.4 million over at South Carolina. His team pulled one of the biggest upsets last weekend by beating Smart’s team in double overtime, though some observers felt that happened in spite of Muschamp rather than because of him after his decision to try a 57-yard field goal could have cost the Gamecocks the game at the end of regulation.

You know who else is making more than Orgeron? Mark Stoops. (He’s Kentucky’s football coach in case you didn’t know.) Stoops will make $4.75 million this season, part of his reworked deal.

It’s not just SEC schools that are looking at Orgeron’s salary and LSU’s performance, then looking at their coach’s salary and their team’s performance and wondering where they went wrong.

The second-highest paid coach in college football? Harbaugh, Jim. That $7.5 million is a lot for Michigan to pay so it can beat Army in double overtime.

Texas is paying Tom Herman $5.5 million. He strung LSU along waiting for this job to come open, so LSU grabbed Orgeron.

Last month, Orgeron’s team beat Herman’s team in Austin. Last Saturday, Oklahoma beat Herman’s team in the Red River Showdown. Herman’s making progress, but no Longhorn fans are forgetting Darrell Royal just yet. Or Mack Brown for that matter.

It looks like 5 million (as in $5 million per year) is an unlucky number for schools paying guys to try and rebuild their football programs. We’re looking at you, Nebraska (Scott Frost) and you, Florida State (Willie Taggart).

Iowa’s paying a little less to Kirk Ferentz, but the Hawkeyes are still paying an awful to have 9-6 losses to Top 10 teams and a trip to the Outback Bowl every year.

We’ll see where Orgeron and the Tigers wind up this season. Maybe he won’t look like such a bargain after he plays Malzahn’s team and Saban’s team and Fisher’s team and tackles the postseason.

And this isn’t to suggest that any of the aforementioned schools would trade their coach and his salary for Orgeron and his salary if they had the opportunity.

Orgeron is where he has dreamed of being, where he belongs. Heck, he’d probably give LSU a home-team discount if anyone else ever came courting him.

But he isn’t going anywhere after signing a 2-year extension in the spring that runs for 4 seasons after this one.

Given the way LSU has been playing and the way Orgeron has been recruiting, he might be headed for additional renegotiations that make him less of a bargain in the not-too-distant future.

And the Tigers wouldn’t mind seeing him earn that.