Kirby Smart stands alone.
Nick Saban is playing golf, hunting fairways in retirement, while Jim Harbaugh is off to chase the Lombardi Trophy.
A year ago, we could’ve debated who ranked as college football’s best coach: Smart or Saban?
Smart had won back-to-back national championships, but Saban owned seven rings, and although his Alabama dynasty was past its peak, Saban remained nearly unmatched on the recruiting trail. Harbaugh, himself a skilled motivator and proven tactician, headed up the tier behind Smart and Saban.
With Saban and Harbaugh departing, there can be no debate: Smart is college football’s best coach.
Who checks in behind him?
Here’s how I rank the top 10:
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10. James Franklin (Penn State)
Franklin’s 18 victories in his final two seasons at Vanderbilt remain one of the greatest low-key accomplishments of this millennium. He’s a steady performer, with five double-digit-win seasons at Penn State. The main downside? He’s not a great big-game coach, and Ryan Day owns him, although Ohio State owning Penn State predated Franklin.
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9. Dan Lanning (Oregon)
Oregon’s 37-year-old wunderkind worked for Saban and Smart, and he shares at least two qualities with his former bosses: He recruits well, and he knows how to motivate. The lingering question is whether he can match wits with the best of them. He’s 0-3 against Kalen DeBoer and got crushed in a head-to-head with Smart in 2022. At least Lanning won’t have to face DeBoer as frequently after he left for Alabama.
8. Dabo Swinney (Clemson)
Swinney joins Smart and North Carolina’s Mack Brown as the only active coaches to have won a national championship. At one time, Swinney would’ve trailed only Saban in a coaching pecking order, but Swinney’s program tapered off since the onset of NIL and transfer free agency. Nevertheless, he’s averaged 11.6 wins the past 13 seasons. Clemson remains consistently good, if not elite, and will frequently contend for a spot in the 12-team College Football Playoff.
7. Lane Kiffin (Ole Miss)
No coach has mastered assembling and melding transfer talent better than Kiffin, and by beating Brian Kelly and Franklin last season, he showed he can win clashes against other top coaches. Kiffin remains a top offensive mind, and he’s winning at a rate Ole Miss hasn’t seen since the 1960s. He’s recruiting at a middling level, but as long as he keeps winning big in the portal, the Rebels will enjoy staying power and playoff-contender status.
Norvell mines the transfer portal as well as anyone this side of Kiffin, and he recruits high school prospects well, too. He flexed his coaching chops by going 14-1 in 2023. In eight seasons at Memphis and FSU, he’s reached at least 10 victories four times. Unlike those I’ve ranked ahead of him, Norvell has never made the playoff. For that, blame an unfortunate injury and the playoff committee’s deference to the SEC.
5. Kalen DeBoer (Alabama)
DeBoer’s career record speaks for itself: 104-12. At Washington, he went 3-0 against Oregon and 2-0 against Texas. He took a Pac-12 team to the playoff for the first time since the 2016 season. He’s a good schemer and squeezes every ounce of production out of the talent he assembles. The final question as he embarks on a new job: Can he recruit at the level required to win big in the SEC?
4. Ryan Day (Ohio State)
No one should question Day’s recruiting ability. He’s one of the nation’s best at stockpiling top prospects, and this winter, he’s become more active in signing top transfers. Harbaugh had Day’s number, but Day doesn’t have to worry about that anymore. With Harbaugh descending the throne, Day becomes the Big Ten’s king.
3. Steve Sarkisian (Texas)
Past Texas coaches recruited well but failed to deliver consistent on-field results. Sarkisian can recruit — and more. Saban trusted him as his offensive play-caller, for good reason. Few are better orchestrating an offense. It shows at Texas. More, he’s established a culture of toughness that Texas lacked for too long. Texas is back, and Longhorns fans have Sarkisian to thank.
2. Brian Kelly (LSU)
In two seasons at LSU, Kelly won 20 games, beat Saban, reached the SEC Championship and signed and developed a Heisman Trophy winner. And, by all appearances, he’s just getting warmed up. Kelly’s 2025 recruiting class is shaping up as his best yet. The former Notre Dame coach remains a consistent winner. A national championship is the only thing missing from his résumé. That could be around the corner, because his LSU tenure is trending up.
1. Kirby Smart (Georgia)
The name of the game is recruiting and developing talent. Nobody does that better than Smart. He learned the blueprint from Saban and successfully implemented it at Georgia. Smart usually fares well in a coaching chess match, too. Saban was the one coach who could outwit him. Smart went just 1-5 against the GOAT. That’s not a problem anymore, and Smart takes the mantle as the unquestioned ruler of college coaches.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s SEC Columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.
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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Ranking college football coaches, Kirby Smart to Steve Sarkisian
