2025 college football coach rankings: Deion Sanders, Bill Belichick headline Power Four coaches ranked 68-26

68 Jeff Lebby: Lebby inherited a difficult situation at Mississippi State, and the results reflected that in his first season. The Bulldogs finished 2-10 overall, with their lone wins coming against Eastern Kentucky and UMass. They were 0-8 in SEC play, losing by an average of 17.8 points per game. Still, based on my philosophy in these rankings, where I rank all coaches with no college head-coaching experience at the bottom, this ranking feels harsh. 2024 rank: 66 (-2), Highest Rank: 64, Lowest: 67 67 Frank Reich: Speaking of inheriting difficult situations, Reich takes over a Stanford program that didn’t expect to have a new coach in 2025, even if results under Troy Taylor suggested it should have. Reich is seen as a placeholder while Andrew Luck conducts an extensive search this season. He has NFL coaching experience, but coaching in the NFL is a bit different than coaching Stanford in 2025. 2024 rank: N/A, High: 59, Low: 68 66 Brent Brennan: The team Brennan inherited from Jedd Fisch was seen as a contender in the Big 12 last season. They returned a QB coming off a great season in Noah Fifita and a first-round talent at WR in Tetairoa McMillan. Despite this, the Wildcats stumbled to 4-8 and 2-7 record in the Big 12. Worse, they lost their Big 12 games by an average of 27.3 points, disproving the theory that every game in the Big 12 is close on a weekly basis. 2024 rank: 56 (-10), High: 62, Low: 68 65 Tony Elliott: Elliott has managed a lot at Virginia, including tragedy in his first season. After going 3-7 in 2022 and 3-9 in 2023, the Hoos took a step forward last year with a mark of 5-7. You do have to wonder how much more patience Virginia will have if it fails to make a bowl game again in 2025, particularly when considering how wide-open the ACC looks outside the top three teams. 2024 rank: 62 (-3), High: 60, Low: 66 64 David Braun: The encore was not as good as the debut. Braun received a lot of deserved credit for helping the Wildcats overcome the distractions of Pat Fitzgerald’s unexpected and late ouster in 2023, going 8-5 and nearly winning the Big Ten West. Last season wasn’t as fun, as the Wildcats finished 4-8 and 2-7 in conference play. He’s 12-13 after two seasons, which isn’t awful considering the expectations. 2024 rank: 53 (-11), High: 62, Low: 66 63 Brent Pry: Things feel headed in the wrong direction in Blacksburg. Nobody minded much when Pry went 3-8, but expectations rose after the Hokies rode a strong finish to a 7-6 record in 2023. They followed it up last year with an uninspiring 6-7 mark, and there’s a bit of heat on Pry’s seat entering 2025. 2024 rank: 50 (-13), High: 43, Low: 65 62 Scott Frost: Frost returns to UCF hoping to rekindle the magic from his last stint in Orlando, the one that led to his ill-fated return to his alma mater, Nebraska, where he went 16-31 and 10-26 in the Big Ten. No-so-fun-fact if you’re a UCF fan: Frost has now been a head coach for seven seasons (including the 2022 season he didn’t finish), and the 13-0 season at UCF in 2017 is the only time his team finished with a winning record. 2024 rank: N/A, High: 53, Low: 66 61 DeShaun Foster: Expectations were not high for Foster last season! He had the honor of being the lowest-ranked coach in the Power Four in his debut campaign, and after a 1-5 start to 2024, it looked like he’d live up to it. But the Bruins finished well, flirted with bowl eligibility and added a big-time QB in Nico Iamaleava this offseason. Things are looking up for Foster entering Year 2, and he’s the first coach so far in these rankings to move up from last year. 2024 rank: 68 (+7), High: 48, Low: 64 60 Scott Satterfield: There was a wide array of opinions on Satterfield among our panelists this season. One of our voters had him as high as 30, while nobody else had him better than 56. After a 3-9 debut at Cincinnati in 2023, the Bearcats improved to 5-7 last year, but they’re still only 4-14 in the Big 12 under Satterfield. 2024 rank: 59 (-1), High: 30, Low: 66 59 Mike Locksley: The head Terp took a tumble. Maryland had been relatively predictable in Locksley’s first five seasons and had gone 23-16 from 2021 to 2023, but the wheels fell off last year post-Taulia Tagovailoa. The Terps finished 4-8 overall and 1-8 in the Big Ten. The only thing saving them from last place in the Big Ten was Purdue. As our rankings show, recency bias can be quite powerful. 2024 rank: 41 (-18), High: 52, Low: 61 58 Sherrone Moore: Moore was an interesting case last season as nobody was entirely sure where to put him. On one hand, he had very little head coaching experience, which usually leads to a low ranking among our crew. On the other, he already had a career win over Ohio State! Well, now that we have a full season in the books, our panel didn’t seem overly impressed with his first year at the helm in Ann Arbor. 2024 rank: 52 (-6), High: 49, Low: 60 57 Sam Pittman: If we were to ask our voters to rank coaches on the likelihood we wouldn’t be ranking them at all next year, Pittman could very well finish at the top. He entered the 2024 season on the hot seat and finished 7-6, but the 3-5 mark in SEC play didn’t turn the dial down much. Pittman’s Arkansas teams have never finished a season with a winning record in conference play, and unless there’s a jump forward in 2025, they could look to start over in Fayetteville. 2024 rank: 58 (+1), High: 39, Low: 60 56 Jake Dickert: Dickert comes to Wake Forest from Washington State to replace the retired Dave Clawson, and he’s taking over a historically difficult job. But Dickert’s used to that. It’s not as if Washington State was the easiest place in the world to win, but he won there with a 23-20 mark in his four seasons. He also helped navigate a very difficult situation the last two years with the dissolution of the Pac-12. 2024 rank: N/A, High: 44, Low: 61 55 Justin Wilcox: The situation at Cal feels tenuous for Wilcox. The results have certainly been consistent, but there have been few highs. This year, Wilcox has new coordinators coming off a 6-7 season and 2-6 mark in the Bears first year in the ACC. There’s also a new general manager in town in Ron Rivera, and that doesn’t feel like great news for Wilcox. 2024 rank: 57 (+2), High: 47, Low: 57 54 Bill Belichick: Now, here’s an interesting case study of how our voters think. Belichick has won six Super Bowls as a head coach and two as an assistant. He’s widely considered one of the greatest football coaches of all time. And I had him 66th on my ballot. Why? Because none of that success has happened at the college level. Our John Talty had him at 19 because he’s Bill Belichick. In the end, he finished here. It’ll be interesting to see where he’s ranked a year from now. 2024 rank: N/A, High: 19, Low: 67 53 Clark Lea: It should come as no surprise that Lea made a considerable leap in the rankings this year. After dropping last year when he followed up a 5-7 mark with a 2-10 record, the Commodores went 7-6 last year, with an upset win over then-No. 1 Alabama. Now, the goal is to sustain that success in 2025. 2024 rank: 63 (+10), High: 42, Low: 57 52 Brent Venables: Generally, any time you go from winning 10 games to six, you’re going to tumble in the rankings, and Venables was no exception. The first year in the SEC was a rough one for the Sooners. While five of their losses came against teams that finished the season ranked, the final loss was in a bowl game to Navy. That’s never a great look for an SEC team. 2024 rank: 34 (-18), High: 42, Low: 56 51 Barry Odom: Odom is not a P4 newcomer. He went 25-25 in four seasons at Missouri. He was fired following the 2019 season after the Tigers lost its last five games and was replaced by Eli Drinkwitz. After a successful stint as defensive coordinator at Arkansas, he took over at UNLV and had a fantastic run there, going 19-8 over the last two years, including 12-3 in the conference. Now he’s tasked with turning around a Purdue program that crashed and burned under Ryan Walters the last two seasons. 2024 rank: N/A, High: 38, Low: 61 50 Bill O’Brien: All things considered, I thought O’Brien’s first season at Boston College went better than expected as the Eagles finished 7-6. Still, the excitement garnered from a season-opening win over Florida State was quickly diminished by the Seminoles being terrible. So it’s no surprise O’Brien is treading water in the rankings. 2024 rank: 51 (+1), High: 40, Low: 63 49 Jonathan Smith: Only one coach fell further in the rankings this year than Smith. He began his tenure with the Spartans ranked 27th based on the success he had at Oregon State, but he stumbled to a 5-7 debut with his new squad. Personally, I feel this punishment is extremely harsh — 5-7 isn’t a huge letdown based on expectations — but clearly my fellow voters felt otherwise. I’m fine being the high vote on Smith, though. 2024 rank: 27, High: 39, Low: 53 48 Joey McGuire: There was a fairly wide range of votes cast for the Texas Tech coach, which is understandable. He’s never had a losing season at Tech and is coming off an 8-5 record, so you can’t rank him too low. But he’s never won more than eight games in a season, either, so even if you’re a fan, you can’t rank him too high. In the end, this feels about right, but if Tech’s transfer class hits this season, we might see McGuire rocket up the board. 2024 rank: 44 (-4), High: 35, Low: 52 47 Hugh Freeze: Freeze’s place in our rankings was not frozen. In fact, it thawed quite a bit, as he fell 14 spots after going 5-7 at Auburn last year. Through two seasons, he’s only 5-11 in SEC play, and if we go back to his final year at Ole Miss, Freeze is 7-17 in the SEC. Given how quick Auburn has been to pull the trigger before, you wonder what could happen if the Tigers don’t make a push in the SEC this season. 2024 rank: 33 (-14), High: 32, Low: 55 46 Fran Brown: Any time you greatly exceed expectations in a season, you’ll find yourself climbing in our rankings, and Brown did just that. He was ranked 67th last year as a first-time head coach and then went 10-3 at Syracuse. Now, he climbs 21 spots. Can he pull off the encore? 2024 rank: 67 (+21), High: 36, Low: 60 45 Billy Napier: First, let me congratulate Napier on still being here. I really didn’t think he’d make it another year when I was staring at Florida’s death march of a 2024 schedule. But the Gators went 8-5, and Napier is getting at least one more season. It’s somewhat surprising that he didn’t climb a little higher. 2024 rank: 47 (+2), High: 31, Low: 51 44 Manny Diaz: Nobody thought Duke would win nine games in Diaz’s first season, but he doesn’t climb as much as you might think. My theory is that his time at Miami — which, honestly, wasn’t as terrible as some want you to believe — still weighs on his overall standing amongst the panel. 2024 rank: 48 (+4), High: 27, Low: 56 43 Greg Schiano: I’m convinced a few of our voters haven’t watched a Rutgers game in years. Schiano led the Scarlet Knights to consecutive winning seasons for the first time since 2011-12. The 2011 campaign was the last of Schiano’s first stint, and then Kyle Flood took over in 2012. And he falls in the rankings this year! Schiano has steadily built the program to respectability in the Big Ten, but he receives too little credit for it. Only five coaches received a higher range of votes than he did. 2024 rank: 40 (-3), High: 24, Low: 59 42 Rich Rodriguez: Welcome back to the rankings, RichRod! Rodriguez returns to West Virginia, where he enjoyed his greatest success after leading Jacksonville State to a 27-10 record the last three seasons. That includes an 18-8 mark in their first two seasons as an FBS program. 2024 rank: N/A, High: 28, Low: 57 41 Willie Fritz: This one hurt me the most. While I wasn’t the lowest voter on Fritz, I was lower than I wanted to be. He’s long been one of my favorite coaches, but after a 4-8 debut at Houston that featured one of the most anemic offenses in the country, I couldn’t justify putting him as high as my heart wanted. It seems my fellow voters mostly agreed with my assessment. 2024 rank: 26 (-15), High: 17, Low: 58 40 Luke Fickell: The Wisconsin coach takes the honor nobody wants this year. Fickell was ranked 17th last year and fell to 40th. That 23-spot tumble is the largest of any coach remaining at a Power Four school. Simply put, the first two years in Madison haven’t gone as hoped, as he’s 13-13 overall. If we include his lone season at Ohio State, Fickell is 19-20 as a Power Four coach, including 11-15 in the Big Ten. He can still rebound in a major way if Wisconsin has a good season, but it’s tough to justify placing him higher than this right now. 2024 rank: 17 (-23), High: 38, Low: 48 39 Jedd Fisch: Fisch had a tough act to follow at Washington, taking over a program that reached the national title game in 2023 but lost nearly every significant contributor from that team. All in all, a 6-7 record was respectable, but it’s certainly a better start than the one Fisch had at Arizona, and things worked out pretty well there. 2024 rank: 31 (-8), High: 33, Low: 57 38 Dave Aranda: Aranda is the yo-yo of coaches in these rankings, but that’s what happens when you go from 2-7 to 12-2 and then from 3-9 to 8-5. He’s been at Baylor for five seasons, and only two have ended with winning records overall and in Big 12 play. In the end, he’s 31-30, but there are reasonably high expectations in 2025. For Aranda’s sake, let’s hope the results don’t follow the previous pattern. 2024 rank: 55 (+17), High: 26, Low: 48 37 Pat Narduzzi: Narduzzi will remain one of my favorite coaches regardless of results, simply because I enjoy the man’s personality. The 2024 season was a nice bounce back for Narduzzi and the Panthers, recovering from a 3-9 mark in 2023 to go 7-6. However, I suspect that’s not good enough in Narduzzi’s eyes, as this is a program that won the ACC in 2021 but has only been 10-14 in league play since. 2024 rank: 38 (+1), High: 22, Low: 51 36 Mark Stoops: When you’re the coach at a program with low expectations, they love you when you exceed them. But the moment you fall back down to Earth, where everybody thinks you should be? Well, it gets rough, and it got rough here. After a remarkably consistent run from 2016-23, Stoops’ Wildcats team fell to 4-8 last year. While most of our voters only docked him a few points from where he stood last year, one low ballot was enough to knock Stoops down a few extra pegs. 2024 rank: 20 (-16), High: 24, Low: 58 35 Sonny Dykes: Dykes is a tough call when putting together my bracket. The man did lead TCU to a title game not too long ago, but even at the time it felt a bit fluky, and TCU has since found its level. I can only speak for myself, but I’m not convinced the program is in better hands now under Dykes than it was under Gary Patterson, and that affects my ballot (45th). 2024 rank: 22 (-13), High: 21, Low: 45 34 Mike Gundy: There were a wide range of votes cast for Gundy this year, and I suppose it depends on how you view things. You can’t dismiss everything Gundy has accomplished during his time in Stillwater, but you also have to question if he’s the right man for Oklahoma State today. The sport is evolving, and Gundy has shown some stubbornness in evolving alongside it. Was last year’s 3-9 mark a one-off or the beginning of the end? 2024 rank: 15th (-19), High: 16, Low: 51 33 Deion Sanders: Only one coach climbed higher than the 28 spots Coach Prime leaped this season, and this jump shouldn’t come as a surprise. While the on-field results didn’t match the off-field hype in 2023, Sanders’ Colorado team improved to 9-4 and was in the hunt for a conference title until the end of the season. Oh, and Travis Hunter won the Heisman. Now, we sit back and see how things will go with Hunter and Shedeur Sanders off to the NFL. I won’t be surprised by any outcome, honestly. The team could crater, or it could win the Big 12. 2024 rank: 61 (+28), High: 23, Low: 43 32 Matt Rhule: Rhule’s Nebraska was able to cross a bowl game off the to-do list last year, but he still fell three spots in our rankings. After all, there’s a difference between 6-6 bowl eligibility and 8-4, so you’ll have to forgive some of our voters if they weren’t overly impressed with Rhule’s sophomore season in Lincoln. 2024 rank: 29 (-3), High: 21, Low: 40 31 Dave Doeren: The situation isn’t dissimilar to the one I described with Stoops. Everybody loves the overachiever until they stop overachieving. Doeren had only one losing season at NC State from 2014-23 and was routinely a pain in the ass for the league’s top teams to deal with. Last year, the Wolfpack dropped to 6-7, were on the wrong end of a couple of beatdowns (from Tennessee and Clemson) and their best win was probably at North Carolina. 2024 rank: 16 (-15), High: 20, Low: 44 30 Brent Key: I can’t help but wonder where Brent Key would be ranked had Georgia Tech forced a ninth overtime and beaten Georgia. He already took a huge leap just for going 7-6 last year, and you know the upset win over Miami and the near-miss against Georgia carried most of that weight. 2024 rank: 54 (+24), High: 24, Low: 37 29 Mike Elko: Elko’s greatest attribute at Texas A&M last year was that he wasn’t Jimbo Fisher. If Jimbo had gone 8-5 while looking mostly outclassed in losses to Notre Dame, South Carolina and Texas, it would’ve been ugly. But it was only Elko’s first season, and we’re still in the honeymoon era. I don’t say this as a knock because I believe Elko was the right hire for the Aggies. I just think some folks were a little too impressed by wins over mostly mediocre teams. 2024 rank: 32 (+3), High: 16, Low: 44 28 Shane Beamer: The Gamecocks nearly reached the CFP last season, picking up wins over Texas A&M, Missouri and Clemson and a close loss on the road to Alabama. So it shouldn’t surprise you to see Beamer take a significant jump in the rankings, as he’s gone from No. 46 last year to knocking on the door of the top 25. 2024 rank: 46 (+18), High: 18, Low: 38 27 P.J. Fleck: I said last year that Fleck was criminally underrated by our panel, considering what he’s built at Minnesota, and it looks as though the others have come around to my side. Fleck climbs 12 spots after winning eight games last year, and his .598 win percentage is the third-highest among Minnesota coaches to coach at least 50 games. 2024 rank: 39 (+12), High: 23, Low: 34 26 Kalani Sitake: Nobody saw BYU’s 2024 season coming. Not after a first season in the Big 12 that saw it go 2-7 in the conference. But the Cougars rebounded in a major way, finishing last season 11-2, even if there was a bittersweet aftertaste following a 9-0 start. Now, they’re seen as a challenger in the conference and a threat to reach the College Football Playoff. 2024 rank: 49 (+23), High: 18, Low: 52