Kirby Smart Loses No. 1 Spot in New College Football Coaching Rankings

The Georgia boss has been eclipsed for the top spot in Bruce Feldman's college head coach rankings.

Georgia coach Kirby Smart has lost the top spot in Bruce Feldman's annual college football coach rankings. | Stephen Lew-Imagn Images

In any ranking, being on top leaves only one direction to move. It's true of No. 1 ranked teams, but it's also true of anyone ranked the best at anything. And staying the best is a difficult and thankless task. Take the case of Georgia football coach Kirby Smart, who has now fallen from the No. 1 overall ranking in Bruce Feldman's head coach rankings.

Smart's Small Slide

Feldman, who writes for The Athletic, had Smart as the top overall coach in college football after last season, but dropped him to No. 2 this year. Indiana's Curt Cignetti, fresh off his first national title and the culmination of a remarkable improvement of Indiana from perpetual cellar dwellar to undefeated national champion, grabbed the No. 1 overall spot in Feldman's rankings.

Feldman notes that Smart won his national titles in what he calls the old era of college football. SInce then, while Feldman admits that Smart's 36-6 record has been solid, he notes that Smart's teams "haven't finishished inside the top five the past two seasons" which he states is "relevant to Cignetti leapfrogging him." Smart does remain top in the SEC and second overall given Georgia's continued success.

That certainly wasn't the case before Smart. Georgia hadn't won a title since 1980 and while Smart's predecessor Mark Richt was generally successful, he always came up a play shy of moving Georgia to the top of the college football heap. In fifteen seasons at Georgia, Richt won two conference crowns and reached the league title game four more times. UGA had seven top 10 finishes in Richt's tenure, but Georgia hired Smart after the 2015 season.

Former Georgia coach Mark Richt won in Athens, but not as much as Kirby Smart has won since his departure. | Joshua L. Jones / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Kirby's Resume

In a decade with the Bulldogs, Smart is 117-21. That record is even better if his 8-5 first season is taken out of the equation as Smart struggled with a team largely made up of Richt's players. But in his 10 seasons, Smart has won two national titles, four SEC titles, and reached the SEC championship game eight times. The Bulldogs have finished in the top seven in the final AP poll in each of the last nine years.

In 2025, Georgia rolled to an SEC title, avenging its lone regular season loss to Alabama with a win over the Tide in the SEC championship game. But a spot in the College Football Playoff became a season-ending 39-34 loss to a Lane Kiffin-less Ole Miss squad.

Smart is unquestionably the top (and now longest-tenured) SEC head coach. Interestingly, Feldman's second SEC choice is Alabama's Kalen DeBoer, who Feldman ranks at fourth nationally. DeBoer is likely the top ranked candidate facing something of a coaching hot seat.

Indiana's Curt Cignetti has lapped Kirby Smart in Bruce Feldman's coach rankings. | Rich Janzaruk/Herald-Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images