College Football HQ

SEC head coach rankings fuel debate across college football

A recent head coaching ranking found plenty of critics.
Joe Cox|
A 10-win season at Vanderbilt somehow landed Commodore coach Clark Lea at 10th in a controversial SEC coaching ranking.
A 10-win season at Vanderbilt somehow landed Commodore coach Clark Lea at 10th in a controversial SEC coaching ranking. | Randy Sartin-Imagn Images

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Texas A&M AggiesOle Miss RebelsVanderbilt CommodoresAlabama Crimson Tide

In the college football offseason, an SEC head coaching ranking sounds like a fun exercise in futility. Consider that five coaches haven't coached a regular-season game at their current school and you've already got a rough situation.

Then there's tough calls like Lane Kiffin and Kalen DeBoer. DeBoer is on a hot seat at Alabama and Kiffin is one of the hottest coaches in college football. But DeBoer is the one with a CFP coaching win.

Count on the Internet to react to the list and not get emotional and overstated, right? Not so much. Here's the list and a sampling of some of the criticism that has rebounded from admittedly a pretty shaky effort.

Elko at 8th?

After taking Texas A&M to the College Football Playoff in his second year at the school, and his fourth as a head coach, Mike Elko comes in at eighth in the rankings. To say that's surprising might be an understatement.

Kiffin, while he coached Ole Miss to a CFP berth, has never coached a CFP game. Heupel did get Tennessee to the CFP in 2024, but he has the same 0-1 CFP record as Elko.

DeBoer's issues

For that matter, Alabama's Kalen DeBoer at third after a pair of four-loss seasons is interesting. Nick Saban, it is worth noting, didn't have a pair of four-loss seasons at Alabama. In nearly two decades. DeBoer did in two years, yet he's sitting at No. 3.

Holy Clark Lea!

On the other hand, the most consistently noted under-ranked coach has to be Vandy's Clark Lea at 10th... well, or maybe another coach. But Lea's ranking is the hardest to justify. 17 wins in the last two seasons and 10 wins in any season at Vanderbilt would certainly seem to at least outflank, say, Shane Beamer, who is 33-30 at South Carolina and has never won 10 games in a season there.

For Pete's Sake

One other issue here is Pete Golding. The Ole Miss coach who took over a fractured team heading into the College Football Playoff and led it to the school's first two CFP wins and a semifinal game that came down to the final seconds is... 14th. All the new coaches (hello there, Will Stein) have a beef, but Golding's is something different.

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Joe Cox
JOE COX

Joe is a journalist and writer who covers college and professional sports. He has written or co-written over a dozen sports books, including several regional best sellers. His last book, A Fine Team Man, is about Jackie Robinson and the lives he changed. Joe has been a guest on MLB Network, the Paul Finebaum show and numerous other television and radio shows. He has been inside MLB dugouts, covered bowl games and conference tournaments with Saturday Down South and still loves telling the stories of sports past and present.

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