It took eight years for Georgia’s Kirby Smart to ascend to No. 1 on my annual coach rankings. It took Ohio State’s Ryan Day six years to rise to No. 2.

Both got supplanted this year by a head coach who did not even crack my top 25 for the first time until 2025.

This current crop seems thin at the top. I struggled to find enough names I felt comfortable including in the top 10. But I also had well more than 25 men I would have liked to include in the top 25.

A quick reminder: These rankings are not a career achievement award. They are a snapshot of the coaching landscape today. While I don’t throw out a coach’s earlier accomplishments, I’m more concerned with their trajectory over the past three to five seasons.

Read Bruce Feldman’s top 25 power rankings here. 

1. Curt Cignetti, Indiana (2025 ranking: No. 11)

No coach in the modern history of college football has achieved a more remarkable turnaround than Cignetti did in turning a program that went 9-27 from 2021-23 into a 16-0 national champion in two years. He has embraced name, image and likeness and the portal to go 46-6 in four seasons in the FBS (the first two at James Madison).

2. Kirby Smart, Georgia (2025: No. 1)

It’s a testament to Smart’s dominance that the past two seasons felt like mild disappointments, despite the Bulldogs going 23-5 and winning consecutive SEC championships. That’s only because he went 42-2 and won two national titles in the three seasons before that. Georgia remains the crown jewel of the SEC.

3. Ryan Day, Ohio State (2025: No. 2)

Day followed up Ohio State’s 2024 national title run with more regular-season wins — most importantly, including Michigan — but an early College Football Playoff exit. His surprising hire of Matt Patricia as defensive coordinator paid off by producing the most dominant defense (4.0 yards per play allowed) of his seven-year tenure. He is 55-5 in Big Ten play.

4. Dan Lanning, Oregon (2025: No. 5)

Some may focus on the Ducks’ back-to-back CFP blowout exits, but that would be selling Lanning short for his team’s bigger-picture performances. Oregon is 38-5 over the past three seasons, including a 17-1 mark in Big Ten play since joining the conference in 2024. It’s a testament to Lanning’s ability to mesh a solid recruiting base with high-impact transfers.

5. Kalen DeBoer, Alabama (2025: No. 4)

This may seem high for a guy about whom Alabama fans have mixed feelings, but DeBoer reached 11 wins last year for the third time in four seasons as a Power 4 head coach (the first two at Washington). He’s 54-14 (.794) since the 2021 season at Fresno State. And last year he led the Tide to the SEC title game and a first-round CFP win.

6. Steve Sarkisian, Texas (2025: No. 3)

I may have had Sark a couple spots too high last year, when he was coming off back-to-back CFP semifinals. Texas slipped to 10-3 in 2025. But Texas had one 10-win season in the decade before he got there and now has three straight. I can’t justify keeping him above Lanning or DeBoer, but no one else I considered for No. 6 had two CFP trips.

7. Marcus Freeman, Notre Dame (2025: No. 10)

The selection committee deprived Freeman of a second CFP trip, but he’s still gone 24-4 with a national championship appearance over the past two seasons. Though Freeman is a defensive coach by training, the Irish have developed an explosive offense and a consistent assembly line of quarterbacks under his watch.

8. Lane Kiffin, LSU (2025: No. 13)

Technically, Kiffin has made zero CFP appearances, though he led Ole Miss to an 11-1 regular season last year. It capped the winningest run (.743) of any Rebels coach since Johnny Vaught (.745) — who retired in 1970. He holds a sterling reputation as an offensive coach. Note: This ranking does not account for number of bridges burned.

9. Kyle Whittingham, Michigan (2025: No. 14)

After enduring a rare slump of two straight down seasons, Utah’s head coach of 21 seasons shook up his offense and led the Utes to a 10-2 regular season before leaving for Michigan. From 2014-25 (excluding 2020), Utah went to 10 bowls in 11 years, averaged nine wins per season and had seven AP Top 25 finishes.

10. Mario Cristobal, Miami (2025: NR)

I was surprised to realize Cristobal was not on my list at all last year. In fairness, he’s had a lot of skeptics going back to his Oregon days. Cross me off that list after watching him lead the long-dormant Canes to a 10-win season in 2024, then a surprise run to the national title game in ’25. He’s 70-32 in eight seasons as a Power 4 head coach.

11. Matt Campbell, Penn State (2025: No. 9)

Campbell’s seemingly modest .567 winning percentage at Iowa State was, in fact, the highest of any coach there in more than a century. He led the Cyclones to their first two Big 12 title games (2020 and ’24), their first New Year’s bowl (Fiesta) and first double-digit-win season (11-3 in 2024). But he did have a disappointing 8-4 finale.

12. James Franklin, Virginia Tech (2025: No. 8)

Ranking Franklin had already been a years-long challenge; he won lots of games at Penn State but lost nearly all the big ones. It got even harder this year after he got fired six games into last season. I dropped him, but not dramatically, given he had his team in a CFP semifinal only a year earlier. I’m sure many commenters will disagree with me.

13. Kalani Sitake, BYU (2025: No. 21)

It took just one ramp-up year for Sitake’s program to start competing for Big 12 titles, as BYU is 15-3 in conference play and 23-4 overall the past two seasons. And his Cougars have now notched double-digit wins in four of the past six seasons. Penn State AD Pat Kraft, for one, took notice and tried to hire away BYU’s head coach of 10 years.

14. Kirk Ferentz, Iowa (2025: No. 16)

It’s now been 27 seasons at the helm, and Ferentz keeps churning out solid seasons. In 2025, the Hawkeyes reached nine wins for the fifth time in seven seasons (not including 2020) and finished in the Top 25 for the sixth time in eight years. And Ferentz always does it with the same formula: outstanding defense and special teams.

15. Clark Lea, Vanderbilt (2025: NR)

It seems hard to believe now that Lea did not even make my “Just Missed” section last year; however, he did go 9-27 his first three seasons in Nashville prior to a 7-6 showing in 2024. That seems like ancient history now after leading the Commodores to the first 10-win season in program history and their first top-15 poll finish since 1948.

Lea makes his debut in both Mandel and Feldman’s power rankings. (Johnnie Izquierdo / Getty Images)

16. Willie Fritz, Houston (2025: No. 23)

A college head coach since 1993, Fritz continues to fly under the radar, even after Houston improved from 4-8 to 10-3 in his second season. This after going 23-4 in his last two seasons at Tulane, including a Cotton Bowl upset of Caleb Williams-led USC in 2022. The 65-year-old just has a knack for turning programs around.

17. Josh Heupel, Tennessee (2025: No. 15)

Heupel slipped less because of the Vols’ 8-5 season (about what was expected of them once Nico Iamaleava bailed) but rather the rise of guys behind him like Cignetti and Sitake. Heupel took Tennessee to the Playoff just a year earlier in 2024 and went 11-2 in 2022. Before that, the program had gone 14 years without hitting double-digit wins.

18. Mike Elko, Texas A&M (2025: NR)

In just his second season in College Station, Elko led the Aggies to their first Playoff appearance and first 11-win season since Johnny Manziel’s Heisman season. This is after he elevated Duke during two seasons there. Behind the longtime defensive coordinator, A&M led the country in third-down defense and was No. 2 in sacks per game.

19. Dabo Swinney, Clemson (2025: No. 6)

Dabo presented my biggest conundrum this year following the Tigers’ 7-6 implosion. I could have kept him relatively high, given Clemson has won two ACC titles in the past four years and reached the CFP in 2024. I also could have dropped him out entirely, given his program’s continued downward trajectory. This spot was my compromise.

20. Lance Leipold, Kansas (2025: No. 7)

Back-to-back 5-7 seasons forced me to drop Leipold considerably from his No. 2 ranking only two years ago. At that time, he’d just led Kansas to a 9-4 season and back-to-back bowls at a program that went 3-9 or worse for 11 straight years prior to his arrival. That remarkable 2022-23 run still weighs heavily in this ranking.

21. Jon Sumrall, Florida (2025: No. 25)

In two seasons apiece at Troy and Tulane, Sumrall soared to the top of the Group of 6 ladder with a 43-12 record (.782), three 11-plus-win seasons and a trip to last year’s CFP with the Green Wave. His teams reached their conference title game every year, winning all but one of them. All of which helped land him a plum SEC job.

22. Jeff Brohm, Louisville (2025: No. 19)

The Cardinals won 10 games and reached the ACC championship in Brohm’s first year back but have slipped to 9-7 in conference play over the past two 9-4 seasons. His teams are still usually good for one major upset, like last year’s win at No. 2 Miami, but they’ve also suffered some bad losses, prompting me to drop him a tad.

23. Jeff Monken, Army (2025: No. 20)

Army went 7-6 last season but is just a year removed from a school-record 12 wins and American Conference championship. Monken’s teams have reached at least six wins in nine of the past 10 seasons, and his .586 win percentage over 12 seasons is the highest of any Army coach since 1961. The only downer: Army has now lost two straight to Navy.

24. Rhett Lashlee, SMU (2025: No. 22)

The Mustangs didn’t return to the CFP in 2025, but they still finished a respectable 9-4, giving Lashlee a four-year record of 38-16 (.704). That’s the highest of any SMU coach since the program’s infamous Death Penalty sanctions nearly four decades ago. He’s made it look easy leading a program’s move up from the American to the ACC.

25. Bret Bielema, Illinois (2025: NR)

It was extremely difficult to decide which of several deserving candidates would get the last spot. But Bielema took over an Illinois program that had been floundering for 20 years and has led the Illini to at least eight wins in three of the past four seasons. He’s won 19 games over the past two seasons, capping them with bowl wins over SEC foes.

Dropped out: Brian Kelly (No. 12, fired by LSU), Liberty’s Jamey Chadwell (No. 17), Chris Klieman (No. 18, retired from Kansas State), Jonathan Smith (No. 24, fired by Michigan State).

Just missed: UCLA’s Bob Chesney, Arizona State’s Kenny Dillingham, Navy’s Brian Newberry, Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz, TCU’s Sonny Dykes