Greg McElroy names the best available job in college football right now

On his latest episode of the YouTube show Always College Football, ESPN's Greg McElroy shared his take on how the 12 current open FBS college football jobs stack up against one another.

Since several of these schools are likely to target the same individuals as their next head coach, we might as well pit the jobs head-to-head and decide which programs have the most to offer in this current cycle. After all, reports seem to suggest that Lane Kiffin will have his pick of the litter, if he even wants to leave Ole Miss.

So, if Greg McElroy were Lane Kiffin or Urban Meyer or whoever winds up being the hottest coaching name this cycle, here is how he would rank the very top, elite of the elite, jobs that are open:

1. LSU Tigers
2. Florida Gators
3. Penn State Nittany Lions

McElroy likes the SEC programs up top and noted in his video that recent volatility from Florida and more recent national championships from LSU make the difference at No. 1, while Penn State as an upper-tier Big Ten job is the clear third horse behind the southern powerhouses but in front of the other

McElroy's 2nd Tier

Virginia Tech Hokies band members yell | Brian Bishop-Imagn Images

4. Virginia Tech Hokies
5. Arkansas Razorbacks
6. UCLA Bruins
7. Oklahoma State Cowboys
8. Stanford Cardinal

These are the remaining five open power conference college football jobs that aren't quite near that Florida-LSU-PSU level. Virginia Tech perhaps was in that tier back in the aughts, but nowadays the Hokies are tallying more losses to Old Dominion than wins after November 30. But they still get the nod over a bottom-tier SEC job in Arkansas with their upper-tier status, for now, in the ACC. Then you have UCLA splitting the game between Oklahoma State and Stanford jobs that could be toward the bottom of the entire power four, quality-wise.

Although, it'd be fun to see one coach offered the Virginia Tech, Arkansas and UCLA jobs, because those are three totally different programs with differing strengths and weaknesses entirely. It's almost hard to even stack them up against each other.

Group of 5 Jobs

9. Colorado State Rams
10. Oregon State Beavers
11. UAB Blazers
12. Kent State

Greg McElroy rounded out the final third of his open job rankings by ordering the four Group of Five posts that have come open. In a bit of a surprise, recent power conference member Oregon State is not the top dog, with that title instead going to Colorado State. But those two jobs are definitely a step above UAB and Kent State, who populate some of the bottom-of-the-barrel conferences.

So, Lane Kiffin in a Golden Flash quarter zip come February? Just kidding! But poor Kent State does have quite the mountain to climb to nab a quality coach up against what could be 30 or more total open jobs this 2025 coaching cycle.