For years, it was essentially a given that the No. 1 slot on my annual college football coach rankings would go to Nick Saban, but in the wake of his retirement there’s a new — and obvious — top choice. And with Jim Harbaugh leaving for the NFL after winning the national title, another head coach who would’ve been in my top three is off the list. College football has undergone massive change in recent years with the portal, NIL and widespread conference realignment, among other things. For those reasons, I think it’s reasonable to be more reactive here.
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One caveat: Even with all of the shake-up in the sport, I think it’s hard to include coaches who haven’t spent at least three seasons as a head coach (Dan Lanning, Jon Sumrall and Mike Elko are among the top names that come up just shy of that mark this year). It’s just too short of a shelf life to compare resumes with other coaches.
Since Stewart Mandel and I began doing these dueling Top 25 coach rankings, this seems to be by far the hardest year to do it. So without further ado, here we go. See how this year’s ranking compares to last year’s here.
(Click here for Stewart Mandel’s rankings.)
1. Kirby Smart, Georgia (2023: No. 2)
The easiest one to ID on this list. Smart is 94-16 with two national titles, and he’s 86-11 since that 8-5 debut season. In the last seven years, Georgia has finished no worse than No. 7 in the final AP poll. Smart is 24-0 the past three years in SEC regular season games. The gap between him and the second spot is pretty wide right now.
2. Dabo Swinney, Clemson (2023: No. 3)
He’s not just here because he has two national titles. Swinney is 170-43 with six top-four finishes since 2015. The program has backslid some amid the rise of the transfer portal era, where his resistance to change has cost the Tigers. Clemson is 30-10 over the past three years, which obviously isn’t bad, but things feel a little stale there.
3. Lance Leipold, Kansas (2023: No. 10)
The guy is a wizard. He’s turned Kansas into a Top 25 football program after several horrific years. In his debut season, he led the Jayhawks to the program’s first road win at Texas and snapped an 18-game Big 12 losing streak (and a 56-game losing skid in conference road games). In his second season, he got KU into the Top 25 for the first time in 13 years. In 2023, Kansas went 9-4, including its first win over Oklahoma in 26 years and its first top-10 win in 15 years. Kansas finished ranked for the first time in 16 seasons. The 59-year-old Leipold is a coaching miracle worker. Prior to his time at Kansas, he got Buffalo into the Top 25; before that, he won six Division III national titles. The biggest winner in this year’s coaching carousel may be Kansas because Leipold is still coaching there and just signed a new deal.
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4. Kalen DeBoer, Alabama (2023: No. 16)
He’s coming off two remarkable seasons at Washington, which went 4-8 the year before his arrival and made it to the national championship game in Year 2. Since the start of 2022, the Huskies are 25-3 and a staggering 10-1 against Top 25 teams. DeBoer is 12-2 all-time against ranked opponents. At Fresno State, he went 12-6. He was 67-3 at Sioux Falls and won three NAIA national titles. Overall, he’s 104-12.
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5. Ryan Day, Ohio State (2023: No. 6)
The Buckeyes are coming off a rough year by their sky-high standards. They had to replace C.J. Stroud and a pair of NFL offensive tackles but still started 11-0 with top-10 wins against Notre Dame and Penn State before losing a close one to Michigan and getting shut down by Missouri in the Cotton Bowl. Things are especially tense in Columbus now that Ohio State has lost three in a row to the hated Wolverines, but Day has the Buckeyes primed to make a national title run. The 44-year-old’s record is jaw-dropping: 56-8 and 39-3 in the Big Ten. He’s had three top-four finishes in the postseason AP poll. Last season was his worst as a head coach, and Ohio State still finished No. 10. Overall, he’s 18-8 against Top 25 opponents and 10-7 in top-10 games.
6. Brian Kelly, LSU (2023: No. 8)
The 62-year-old Kelly has been very consistent, having now posted seven consecutive seasons of 10 wins or more and a postseason top-16 ranking. Kelly puts together very good teams. The challenge is, can he produce a great one? He’s just 3-5 against Top 25 opponents in two seasons at LSU, and his squads have been blown out in a lot of big games. Since his BCS title game loss to Alabama while at Notre Dame, Kelly’s teams are 5-13 against AP top-10 opponents.
7. James Franklin, Penn State (2023: No. 5)
Franklin and Kelly’s cases are more similar than one might think. Kelly had a way better offense last year and Franklin had a much tougher defense, but both pile up double-digit-win seasons. They haven’t come close to winning a national title, except for Notre Dame’s aforementioned blowout loss to Alabama in Miami more than a decade ago. Penn State is 21-5 the past two seasons but just 1-4 against top-10 teams in that stretch. Franklin has turned in four 11-win seasons since 2016 there and has elevated Penn State back into a powerhouse, but the Nittany Lions struggle to match up with Ohio State and Michigan. Last year’s offense was a dud. Franklin fired offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich and brought in Andy Kotelnicki from Leipold’s Kansas staff in hopes of taking that next big step.
8. Kyle Whittingham, Utah (2023: No. 9)
A noted tough guy, Whittingham always fields teams molded in his image. The Utes are physical, relentless and never to be underestimated. His teams are 39-16 over the past full four seasons, and the Utes have beaten USC three times in the past two years.
9. Lincoln Riley, USC (2023: No. 7)
Riley is one of the most creative offensive minds in the college game. He’s great with QBs, having groomed multiple Heisman winners. He’s 74-18 as a head coach, and he’s still only 40. The big question is whether his program can produce a stout enough defense to win a national title. Riley made a big splash in his debut season at USC, going 11-3 to pull the program out of a ditch. Last year was a dud: The Trojans went 8-5 with the defending Heisman Trophy winner at quarterback. To their credit, they looked crisper and more dialed in during their bowl win, with Miller Moss replacing Caleb Williams. It feels like there was a reboot of the USC system, and that was probably a good thing. Riley shook up his staff this offseason as the Trojans make the move to the Big Ten. It will be fascinating to see where USC goes from here.
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10. Mike Norvell, Florida State (2023: No. 21)
Another really, really good offensive mind. I think the Seminoles got hosed last year by the College Football Playoff committee, but their 13-1 season showed Norvell has built the program back into a powerhouse. Remember, FSU had gone 18-20 in the three years before he arrived. The place was reeling for a few years before he got it going again. In the past seven years, the 42-year-old Norvell has posted four 10-plus winning seasons. In his fourth year at Memphis, he went 12-1; in his fourth year at FSU, he went 13-1.
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11. Steve Sarkisian, Texas (2023: NR)
The former BYU quarterback has really evolved from his earlier days as a coach and made significant strides after his time at Alabama working under Nick Saban. Sarkisian has always been a sharp offensive mind, but he hired a great staff at Texas and dialed in on the things that matter most to winning big in college football. That was really in how disciplined and tough the 2023 Longhorns were. After going 5-7 in Sarkisian’s first year, they went 8-5 and then 12-2, primed to compete for national titles. I suspect he will keep moving up this list.
12. Chris Klieman, Kansas State (2023: 13)
Rival coaches have been saying for a while that Kansas State is the best-coached team in the Big 12, and the Wildcats usually back those comments up. They are 19-8 the past two seasons and won the Big 12 in 2022. Klieman is 3-2 in games against top-10 opponents the past two years. The 56-year-old also won four FCS national titles at North Dakota State.
13. Jeff Brohm, Louisville (2023: NR)
The Cardinals’ former star QB hit the ground running back home at Louisville, going 10-4 and getting his alma mater to the ACC title game. He’s an aggressive play caller and a good gameplanner. He’s 4-3 against top-10 opponents since 2018. That is not easy to do coaching at a place like Purdue, which has only had one 10-win season in over 130 years of football. Brohm was 17-9 in his last two years at Purdue and went 30-10 in three years at Western Kentucky.
14. Mark Stoops, Kentucky (2023: No. 18)
Kentucky’s only losing record since 2016 came during the pandemic-altered 2020 season when the Wildcats did not play any nonconference games and went 5-6. Over the previous 70-plus years, Kentucky football’s longest stretch of winning seasons was four years. In over a century of playing football, Kentucky has had four 10-win seasons, Stoops is responsible for two of them.
15. Kirk Ferentz, Iowa (2023: No. 23)
The outstanding defense/dismal offense thing has been going on awhile, but the Hawkeyes just keep winning. In Iowa’s last four full seasons, the Hawkeyes have won 10 games three times. They are 31-13 in Big Ten play the past five years. Ferentz is 68, but like Whittingham he has a great eye for finding and developing talent.
16. Dave Clawson, Wake Forest (2023: No. 12)
He has dropped a few spots from last year, but what Clawson has done at Wake has been remarkable. He has led the Demon Deacons to eight wins or more four times; the program has done that only five other times since World War II. Clawson’s also the only head coach in NCAA history to win 10 games at four different D-I football programs.
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17. Josh Heupel, Tennessee (2023: No. 22)
The Vols had been a punch line for a long time before Heupel came in from UCF. On the strength of his big-play offense, Tennessee went 11-2 in 2022, smashing LSU in Baton Rouge and then taking down Alabama the following week. Amazing turnaround job. With Hendon Hooker gone, UT fell back a little last year, going 9-4, but they didn’t fall apart. He has proven to be a superb hire.
18. Matt Rhule, Nebraska (2023: No. 15)
It was a shaky first season in Lincoln, but in fairness to Rhule, it’s been really shaky there for a long while. The 49-year-old Rhule knows how to get things turned around. His 5-7 debut wasn’t disastrous, and he’s had some big recruiting wins already, especially landing quarterback Dylan Raiola.
Rhule’s overall college record (52-50) isn’t jaw-dropping, but stretches of his season-by-season record are. At Temple, he went 2-10 in Year 1 and won 10 games two years later. He went 1-11 in Year 1 at Baylor. Two years later: 11-3.
19. Luke Fickell, Wisconsin (2023: No. 11)
Also down a few spots from last year, Fickell went 7-6 in his debut season in Madison. That followed a 57-18 run at Cincinnati, including a CFP berth.
20. Mike Gundy, Oklahoma State (2023: NR)
There’s been so much change around Gundy, but he just keeps winning games in Stillwater. Overall, the 56-year-old is 166-79. He has won Big 12 Coach of the Year three times and has now had eight seasons of 10-plus wins since 2010. That is impressive.
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21. Lane Kiffin, Ole Miss (2023: NR)
Like his old buddy Sark, Kiffin has grown quite a bit from earlier in his career. He’s 29-10 in the past three years at Ole Miss, and Rebels fans should be very fired up about the direction of the program in the post-Saban SEC. He’s 7-8 against Top 25 teams since taking over in Oxford. In his career, that number drops to 10-23.
22. Jonathan Smith, Michigan State (2023: NR)
The SoCal native was an excellent QB for Oregon State and an even better coach. In 2022, Smith went 10-3 at a place that had won just seven games combined in the three years before he took over. Last year, the Beavers were 8-4 before Smith made the big jump to Michigan State. Smith has a keen eye for coaching talent and knows how to develop a culture.
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23. Hugh Freeze, Auburn (2023: No. 19)
It was an underwhelming first season for Freeze at Auburn, as the Tigers went 6-7 and lost to three top-15 teams by a touchdown or less. But Freeze is a proven winner. He got Liberty into the top 20 in his second year. At Ole Miss, he led the Rebels to a top-10 finish for the first time since the ’60s and beat Saban’s Alabama teams twice. And in his first FBS head coaching job, he got Arkansas State, a program that went 15 years without a winning season, to 10-2.
24. Jedd Fisch, Washington (2023: NR)
Fisch is only 16-21 as a head coach, but the trajectory of his program at Arizona was soaring upwards, going from one win (coming off a 12-game losing streak) to five wins to 10-3 with all of his key pieces returning for 2024. The Wildcats went 5-2 against Top 25 opponents last year, winning four of those in blowout fashion. The 47-year-old Fisch has proven he knows exactly what he’s doing on and off the field.
25. Rich Rodriguez, Jacksonville State (2023: NR)
I wanted room for another dozen, but here’s my last guy in the top 25. I don’t think enough people realize how good of a coach Rodriguez is. The 60-year-old godfather of the zone read went 60-26 with three top-10 seasons in his last three years at West Virginia. Then, he accepted the Michigan job, which was a weird fit at a weird time for the program. He really struggled getting traction at Michigan, raising his win total from three to five to seven before getting fired. Then, he won 26 games in three seasons at Arizona; U of A has never won more than that in any three-year stretch in program history. Rodriguez has gone 18-6 in his two seasons at Jacksonville State.
Just Missed the Cut: Troy Calhoun, Air Force; Jamey Chadwell, Liberty: Matt Campbell, Iowa State; Jeff Traylor, UTSA; Mario Cristobal, Miami; Eli Drinkwitz, Missouri; PJ Fleck, Minnesota; Dave Doeren, NC State; Willie Fritz, Houston; Mack Brown, North Carolina; Jason Candle, Toledo; Jeff Monken, Army.
(Top illustration photos: Kevin C. Cox, Eakin Howard, James Gilbert / Getty Images)
