Urban Meyer names top 3 college football coaches doing the best jobs in 2025

On an episode of The Triple Option this week, starring Rob Stone, Mark Ingram II and Urban Meyer of the Fox Big Noon Kickoff college football show, the trio discussed Meyer's view on the top coaches in the sport through five weeks.

Stone posed a query to Meyer: name his top coaching performances of the year. However, Meyer sort of side-stepped that version of the question and named South Florida head coach Alex Golesh as a top performer, though when it came to coaches doing the best job overall in college football, he presented three names on top plus a fourth right behind them.

"Yeah, I think that’s a different question," explained Kiffin. "Performances, you’d have to have Golesh from South Florida, but who’s doing the best job? I put Dan Lanning, Ryan Day, and Lane Kiffin, with Bret Bielema nipping at the toes of Lane Kiffin."

Lanning at Oregon, Day at Ohio State, and Kiffin at Ole Miss are Urban Meyer's top three coaches. He adds that Illinois head coach Bret Bielema is still right up there despite his team's 53-point loss to undefeated Indiana and their second-year head coach Curt Cignetti.

"So, body of work so far in 2025, again, it’s Lanning, Day and Kiffin," Meyer reiterated. "And then I’d put Bielema right below."

That's three Big Ten coaches and the leader of the current top dog in the SEC, Ole Miss, making up the list. His specific top three are also the coaches of three of the top four programs in the Week 6 Ap Top 25 Poll, with Mario Cristobal at Miami, who's ranked third, the only one not making the list.

Meanwhile, Bret Bielema is an exceedingly remarkable detour from the other three, already having a loss this season while captaining a program that isn't anywhere near the other three this season or in the recent string of seasons. The Illini did bounce back from a 63-10 loss to Indiana by beating a USC team that traveled from two time zones away only to still kick off at 11 AM local time.

Perhaps if Bielema can steer Illinois to a home win over Ohio State here in a handful of weeks, he can switch places with the Buckeye head man for at least the rest of this season.

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