Ranking all 16 SEC football coaches entering 2025 season

By Chris Marler

From established juggernauts like Kirby Smart to first-year experiments like Jeff Lebby, here’s how all 16 SEC head coaches rank going into this season, based on what they’ve done, what they haven’t, and what’s coming next.

16. Jeff Lebby, Mississippi State
15. Clark Lea, Vanderbilt
14. Brent Venables, Oklahoma
13. Sam Pittman, Arkansas
12. Hugh Freeze, Auburn
11. Billy Napier, Florida

10. Mark Stoops, Kentucky

Stoops has overachieved during the entirety of his time in Lexington. However, few coaches have gotten more of a free pass for average seasons and an absolutely atrocious record against anyone with a pulse.

Stoops is 28-62 vs the SEC since he became head coach at UK. If a .311 winning percentage against his own conference wasn’t bad enough, his teams are also just 3-32 against SEC teams that finish with a winning record. 

9. Mike Elko, Texas A&M

Not a ton on the resumé for Elko yet, and the way the Aggies finished last season was not great. Still, Elko inherited a Duke team that went 5-18 with just one ACC win over the previous two seasons. In his first year, he led them to nine wins and a winning record in conference play.

Texas A&M was in the same boat before Elko took over, and all he did was start 7-1 and match Jimbo Fisher’s total wins against top-25 teams from the previous three seasons, all in his first year.

8. Shane Beamer, South Carolina 

Beamer gets more unnecessary criticism than he should. Granted, throwing a tantrum during the bowl game after getting pushed around by Bret Bielema, plus the cringe-worthy TikToks didn’t exactly help his case.

Beamer has done a great job in Columbia at exceeding expectations, though. He’s also quietly become one of the best at assessing and developing overlooked players from the transfer portal and turning them into SEC starters and now NFL draft picks. Beamer has been tremendous closing out the year, especially against ranked teams. USC is 6-0 in their last six games against ranked teams in November.

7. Eli Drinkwitz, Missouri 

He’s goofy as can be, and absolutely looks like he swims with a shirt on and possibly floaties in the deep end. Still, give Drinkwitz his flowers because he’s been great the last two seasons at Mizzou.

Drink is 21-5 over the last two seasons and has been to four straight bowl games. He’s also owned South Carolina and Shane Beamer going 4-1 against him.

6. Lane Kiffin, Ole Miss

Kiffin has been great in Oxford. Ole Miss didn’t finish above .500 for four consecutive years before Kiffin was hired. They have finished .500 or better in all five seasons under him, including three of the last four seasons ending with double digit wins for the first time in 65+ years.

Ole Miss has been ranked in the top ten at some point of the season for four straight years. Now, Kiffin needs to figure out how to finish and not find ways to lose inexcusably. As good as he was last year with a huge win over Kirby Smart, a home loss to 4-8 Kentucky, a road loss to Florida as a -13 point favorite, and a blown lead in the final three minutes at LSU cost them a shot at the Playoff.

5. Josh Heupel, Tennessee

There’s a very valid case for Heupel to be ahead of Kiffin. He’s done several things that Kiffin hasn’t during his first four years in Knoxville. He’s held a No. 1 ranking, won in Death Valley, beaten Nick Saban and Alabama, and made it to the College Football Playoff.

He’s struggled mightily with Kirby Smart and UGA, and the Vols still can’t get out of The Swamp with a win to save their lives. But Heupel is one of only three SEC coaches with a winning record against Top 25 SEC opponents, joining Kirby Smart and Kalen DeBoer, who’s coached just one season in the league.

4. Brian Kelly, LSU

Brian Kelly seems to always be criminally under ranked in most of these head coaching rankings and lists. People forget that before he was at Cincy, he created a juggernaut at Grand Valley State. He’s been a head coach for 35 years and has amassed 292 total wins across all levels. However, he’s often judged solely by one standard: how he’s performed against elite SEC teams during his time at Notre Dame and now at LSU.

That’s the nature of the job. That being said, Kelly has finished with 10+ wins in 12 of the last 18 seasons. He’s struggled against elite teams, but he also hasn’t lost to a lot of teams he shouldn’t. Eight of his 11 total losses in Baton Rouge were to Top 25 teams. In three years, he’s beaten Bama, had a player win a Heisman trophy, and is now going into the season with his most talented roster in years.

3. Kalen Deboer, Alabama 

This is going to get some eye rolls and irrationally angry outbursts in the comment sections, but look at the facts, stats, and numbers before you come for my head.

Deboer did lose to Vandy and Oklahoma last year, which was inexcusable. But his full body of work is arguably good enough to be 2nd on this list. He’s 15-3 all time against ranked opponents, which is the highest winning percentage (.833) of any Power 4 head coach. He’s also a combined 4-0 against the other three coaches in the top four here. He’s 6-1 against Top 10 teams in the last three seasons with the lone loss coming in the national championship game.

Oh, and for good measure, he’s also 3-0 against everyone’s new favorite wonderkid Dan Lanning.

2. Steve Sarkisian, Texas 

Sark’s resumé should probably put him behind Deboer. Still, Sark deserves some credit for avoiding slip-ups against teams like Vanderbilt or Oklahoma and leading his team to back-to-back College Football Playoff appearances.

Texas is back and isn’t going anywhere. He’s recruiting better than almost everyone and he’s also done something better than any other Texas HC has done in the last 20 years: put kids in the league.

Sark has put 23 players in the NFL Draft in the last two seasons. That’s two more than they had in the previous seven years combined and includes five first rounders. Sark is also 10-2 against ranked teams not named UGA and Ohio State over the last two seasons. Now, it’s time to figure out how to get over that hump.

1. Kirby Smart, Georgia  

Smart is the best coach in all of college football, and it’s not particularly close.

Kirby Smart has a .847 winning percentage in nine seasons as a head coach. He’s 105-19, and has only three losses to unranked teams. From 2019-2023 UGA lost six total games and four of them were to either Nick Saban or 2019 LSU. He’s 58-7 in the regular season versus the SEC since 2017. He’s also already one of the best coaches at developing NFL talent in college football history, and we are still less than a decade in to his tenure.

In the last eight drafts UGA has put 75 players in the NFL Draft including 55 in the last five years, 20 first round picks, and an all-time draft record 15 players in 2022 alone.