If we simply want to rank the most accomplished coaches in the SEC, let’s just add up the total number of victories and let that do all the talking.
If that’s your process, that’s fine. Well, it’s not fine. You should seek a new process.
My process of ranking coaches acknowledges accomplishments while also acknowledging context. The latter is important because if you assume that all things are equal when a coach begins a job, you’ve got blinders on. I always like to say that I don’t judge Year 1 coaches for that exact reason. Obviously, decisions in Year 1 can still be criticized, but evaluating a Year 1 and letting that shape the entire perception of a coach feels misguided. After all, Kirby Smart lost to Vanderbilt in Year 1 and Nick Saban lost to Louisiana-Monroe.
But I digress.
Ranking SEC coaches is not about trying to predict who’ll have the best season. It’s about the job that they’ve done and what they’ve set themselves up to continue to do.
So with that, here’s my post-spring ranking of SEC coaches heading into 2025, with 1 thing I like most about each of them:
16. Jeff Lebby, Mississippi State
The thing I like most — Since 2019, he’s been an offensive play-caller for 3 different programs that finished with a top-15 scoring offense in FBS. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s inevitable that it’ll happen at Mississippi State, but Lebby’s offensive track record is still among the best in the sport. Year 1 felt more like a Year 0, especially after Blake Shapen went down with a season-ending injury in the first month of the season. If he stays healthy, a climb toward another top-15 finish can begin.
15. Hugh Freeze, Auburn
The thing I like most — He had consecutive top-8 recruiting classes and seems to understand the whole “talent acquisition” element of coaching in the SEC in ways that his predecessor never did. That bar was low. Unfortunately for Freeze, that bar on The Plains is still low on the heels of a 4th consecutive losing season in the post-Gus Malzahn era. Sooner or later, Freeze’s talent needs to do the talking instead of his propensity to make poor decisions with both his quarterback room and handling late-game situations.
14. Brent Venables, Oklahoma
The thing I like most — Venables was hired for his defensive acumen, and in Year 3, he had a unit that finished in the top 30 in FBS in both scoring defense and yards/play allowed. That unit improved in each of Venables’ first 3 years on the job. That’s the positive, as is the fact that even in a post-Danny Stutsman/Billy Bowman world, that group is stockpiled with proven players at every level. If Venables can show that he knows how to manage a quarterback room half as well as he manages a defense, he’ll work his way out of the basement of this list.
13. Sam Pittman, Arkansas
The thing I like most — We can’t ignore the fact that he was brought on board to clean up the mess left by arguably the worst SEC hire of the 21st century. And to Pittman’s credit, a 2024 that began with him sitting atop every hot-seat list that you could find ended with a 3-win improvement that included a win against a top-5 Tennessee squad. If you believe that Arkansas’s struggles with transfer portal exports mean that the program is in the same place where Pittman found it, you’ve lost all perspective of reality. But at the same time, a winning season in conference play with November Playoff buzz would be the best way to win back public support after a 3rd consecutive 6-loss season.
12. Clark Lea, Vanderbilt
The thing I like most — He clinched bowl eligibility earlier than any coach in the history of the program, and did so because he pulled off arguably the most improbable SEC upset of the Playoff era by taking down No. 1 Alabama. If Lea had just buried his head into the sand and trusted his development after a winless season in SEC play, that wouldn’t have happened. Instead, he adapted by poaching the best parts of the New Mexico State offense and gave that group the autonomy it needed, while giving himself the defensive autonomy to be his own coordinator, en route to its first winning season of the Playoff era.
11. Billy Napier, Florida
The thing I like most — He navigated what was supposed to be a historically daunting schedule by leading Florida to its first 8-win season since 2020, and he did so by winning 4 consecutive games to end the season with his prized true freshman quarterback. It was the first multi-week flex of the Napier era. It was everything that Florida fans had been waiting to see since he was hired, also because it was the first time that Florida’s defense showed a pulse during the 2020s. If not for that stretch, Napier would be in the 14-15 range on this list, but ending Ole Miss’s Playoff chances and the losing streak to LSU was massive.
10. Mike Elko, Texas A&M
The thing I like most — In Year 1, Elko had an all-or-nothing regular-season finale matchup against Texas that could’ve gotten Texas A&M into its first conference championship game of the 21st century. That didn’t go A&M’s way, but if you had told any Aggie fan that the first year of the post-Jimbo Fisher era would include both that and being the last SEC unbeaten in conference play, well, they would’ve said that Elko is right on track. At the very least, a 24-14 mark without a losing season in his first 3 seasons as a head coach (2 of which were at historically lowly Duke) shows that Elko is on track to rise on this list.
9. Mark Stoops, Kentucky
The thing I like most — He’s got more wins than anybody in the history of Kentucky football, and as a result, he’s the longest-tenured SEC coach entering Year 13 on the job. That in itself is no small feat. That’s why paying an excess of $35 million to fire Stoops is more complicated than simply cutting a check to move on from a coach after a 4-win season that ended UK’s longest bowl streak in program history. Stoops is both accomplished and trending in the wrong direction after his 3rd consecutive disappointing season.
8. Shane Beamer, South Carolina
The thing I like most — In Year 4, Beamer took down 4 AP Top 25 teams in what was easily the best season of the post-Steve Spurrier era at South Carolina. He’s now got 7 wins vs. AP Top 25 teams, 4 of which were in true road games. From 2014-20, South Carolina had just 4 wins vs. AP Top 25 teams, only 1 of which came in a true road game. Beamer didn’t just move past some of the lazy, lingering Will Muschamp comps. He smashed them and made Gamecock fans wonder if he’s about to get back to the place that Spurrier had the program at in the early 2010s, AKA South Carolina’s golden age.
7. Eli Drinkwitz, Mizzou
The thing I like most — A 21-5 stretch was unthinkable at a place that had been stuck in mediocrity from 2015-22, but Drinkwitz pulled it off. Consecutive seasons with double-digit wins helped him move into the top half of this list. Drinkwitz did that with rosters that were outside the top 15 of the 247Sports talent composite rankings. I almost think that’s more impressive than what Mizzou did in 2013-14 because those rosters weren’t necessarily built recruiting against SEC teams in the way that Drinkwitz’s 2023-24 rosters were. If he pulls off a third consecutive 10-win season, he’s got a real case to be considered a top-5 coach in the SEC.
6. Lane Kiffin, Ole Miss
The thing I like most — Ole Miss has been playing organized tackle football since 1902, and Kiffin is responsible for 30% of its 10-win seasons. For someone who just wrapped up Year 5 on the job, that’s darn impressive. There’s no question that Kiffin elevated the floor of the program in ways that nobody ever has in Oxford. Beating Georgia like a drum was the best win of the Kiffin era, though it’s bizarre to think that it came amid the most disappointing season of the Kiffin era. Time will tell what Ole Miss’s Playoff window really is in the expanded format, but for now, it can appreciate the best 4-year stretch since the John F. Kennedy administration.
5. Josh Heupel, Tennessee
The thing I like most — In the last 3 seasons, Heupel is 20-1 at Neyland Stadium with the lone loss coming to No. 1 Georgia in 2023. That’s the meat of a 30-9 overall stretch — one in which Heupel became the first Tennessee coach in the 21st century to earn 3 consecutive AP Top-25 finishes — which is easily the best 3-year mark in 2 decades. In that stretch, the Vols took down Alabama and Florida twice apiece. That matters. The struggles against Georgia and the mediocre record in true road games also matter, but Heupel was brought in to get Tennessee past the decade of dysfunction (shoutout Mark Nagi). Disappointing 2024 ending and weird 2025 offseason aside, he’s done that and much more.
4. Brian Kelly, LSU
The thing I like most — Kelly owned the longest active streak of 10-win seasons until it ended in 2024 because he won 9 games. After that dud 2017 season at Notre Dame, he won 83 games. You can do a whole lot worse than that. You can also do a whole lot worse than 17-7 vs. SEC competition. While Kelly’s LSU tenure will be defined by whether he wins a national title, let’s not pretend that he’s on the hot seat and completely overrated. Kelly ranks 8th in win percentage vs. AP Top-25 teams (min. 15 games) among active FBS head coaches … at .500. Yep. That’s how hard it is to beat elite teams. Don’t take for granted what it means to win a bunch of games and be in contention.
3. Kalen DeBoer, Alabama
The thing I like most — Among active FBS head coaches, DeBoer has the best winning percentage vs. AP Top-25 teams at 0.833 (min. 15 games). That’s a 15-3 mark against ranked foes at the time of the matchup. He’s got more wins vs. AP Top-25 teams (15) than Hugh Freeze (14), Lane Kiffin (11) and Mario Cristobal (8), all of whom have been FBS head coaches for at least 12 years. DeBoer just finished his 5th such season as an FBS head coach at his 3rd different program. As much as DeBoer’s Year 1 at Alabama was defined by the lows at Vanderbilt and Oklahoma, he still went 3-1 vs. AP Top 25 teams, and he also picked up his 6th win vs. an AP Top-10 team (he’s 6-1 in those games). That’s 1 less than the aforementioned Kelly, who just finished Year 21 as an FBS head coach.
2. Steve Sarkisian, Texas
The thing I like most — Consecutive semifinal trips is no joke, especially when the latter happens with a quarterback who was playing through a torn oblique. Here’s the list of coaches who earned consecutive semifinal trips:
Steve Sarkisian Ryan Day Lincoln Riley Kirby Smart Nick Saban Dabo Swinney Jim HarbaughSarkisian, Day, Swinney and Smart are the only coaches in that group who are still at the school where they accomplished that feat. That’s significant. Sarkisian did something similar to Josh Heupel by rebuilding a program that was completely lost during the 2010s, but he took it a step further by reaching the SEC Championship in Year 1 in the conference. Heupel is still searching for that first semifinal berth while Sarkisian is searching for Playoff berth No. 3 with a likely preseason top-2 squad. Sarkisian just delivered Texas its best 2-year stretch in 15 years, and he’s got the most prized recruit of the 2020s leading the second-favorite to win a national title. Life is good in Austin.
1. Kirby Smart, Georgia
The thing I like most — Smart is riding a streak of 8 consecutive top-7 finishes in the AP Poll, which tied the longest such streak of Saban’s career (2011-18). A down year for Georgia included a top-7 finish, as well as an SEC title in the first year of the 16-team era. Not too shabby. While you could argue that Smart is coming off consecutive disappointing seasons after starting No. 1 in the AP Poll, it’s worth noting that 2017 Alabama is the lone preseason AP No. 1 to win a national title in the last 20 years. In other words, it’s hardly an indictment of a coach if he fails to win a national title as a preseason No. 1. That’s really the only knock that you can apply to Smart, who still hasn’t lost a home game in the 2020s. If he can bounce back with a title in 2025, he’ll have “team of the decade” status locked in for Georgia before the start of 2026. Even if he doesn’t, Smart’s spot at No. 1 is safe until somebody else starts winning titles.
SEC Head Coach Rankings: A post-spring look at all 16 coaches heading into 2025 Saturday Down South.
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