2023 ACC head coach rankings: Who should be ranked No. 2 behind Clemson's Dabo Swinney?
It’s that time of the year again. Offseason coaching rankings!
Over the next six weeks, I’ll release rankings for each Power 5 conference and the Top 10 Group of 5 coaches before a final Top 25 coaches in all of football.
I kickstarted the series with the 2023 SEC football head coach rankings. Then we released the 2023 Big Ten head coach rankings and 2023 Pac-12 head coach rankings.
Plenty of debates ensued.
Remember, this is a fun exercise and even if your favorite coach is ranked near the bottom of his conference’s list: A) He’s still considered a damn good football coach to have said job and B) That doesn’t mean I hate your team!
With that, this list is totally subjective. It’s my rankings. Some might weigh the overall body of work for a head coach. I take that into account, but college football has become the ultimate what-have-you-done-for-me-lately-business with the carousel constantly spinning.
The job of a head coach has changed in recent years, too. So for my rankings, I take into account recent performance, recruiting chops, hiring quality assistants, sending players to the NFL, working the transfer portal, etc.
The ACC features a blend of old and new head coaches, with entrenched veterans like Dabo Swinney, Dave Clawson, Dave Doeren and Pat Narduzzi and fresh faces like Mario Cristobal, Mike Elko and Jeff Brohm, among others.
Swinney was the obvious top choice in the rankings, but the rest of the list was much more difficult to put together.
1. Dabo Swinney, Clemson
Dabo Swinney is no longer the only active coach not named Nick Saban to win multiple national titles, but Clemson’s longtime head coach remains a Top 5 coach in the country with 12 straight double-digit win seasons.
Swinney won his eighth ACC Championship in 2022, and the Tigers are the favorites to win the league again this fall. Swinney also made the splashiest hire of the offseason by poaching TCU offensive coordinator Garrett Riley.
2. Dave Clawson, Wake Forest
Dave Clawson is one of the most underrated coaches in the country, consistently producing winning teams as a place historically difficult to rack up victories.
The Demon Deacons have made seven straight bowl games under Clawson, with four seasons of at least eight wins — something that’s happened just five other total times in school history since 1944. Wake Forest went 11-3 in 2021 — the program’s best finish ever. It’s impossible to recruit to Wake, but Clawson has built a developmental program that has produced multiple NFL quarterbacks in John Wolford and (in 2024) Sam Hartman.
3. Mike Norvell, Florida State
The ACC’s biggest riser in the 2023 rankings, Mike Norvell went from a coach facing mounting pressure to a guy leading a program eying a conference title this fall.
The Seminoles went 10-3 in 2022 and finished No. 10 nationally. While recruiting still needs to improve if FSU wants to become a national championship contender again (No. 20 class nationally in 2023), Norvell (and his staff) has become one of the best evaluators of the transfer portal the last two years.
He inherited a rough roster situation but has methodically navigated FSU back to national relevancy. He secured marquee wins over LSU, Miami and Florida last season, and if he can beat Clemson in Death Valley this fall, Florida State, which returns the most experienced roster in the nation next season, has an open path to its first ACC title since 2014.
4. Mario Cristobal, Miami
Mario Cristobal was the single most difficult coach in the ACC to rank. He’s well-regarded enough to net a near $100 million contract and is one of the sport’s best individual recruiters (the Canes signed the nation’s No. 6 recruiting class in 2023 and brought in several potential impact transfers, too), and yet he also has five losing seasons as a head coach — including last season’s debacle 5-7 debut at his alma mater.
I’m not going to hang any struggles at FIU on Cristobal, though. He walked into a super hard situation there and still produced a couple of winning seasons. His Oregon resume of 35-13 is difficult to gauge, though, as some Ducks fans believed he underachieved requisite to the team’s talent, while others point to two Pac-12 titles.
Overall, 2023 is a big year for Cristobal. He’s completely overhauled his Year 1 staff, and after not hiring the right assistants last offseason, he better have avoided the same mistake twice.
5. Pat Narduzzi, Pitt
It’s hard to believe, but Pat Narduzzi wrapped up his eighth year as the head coach at Pitt — with six winning seasons. The Panthers have won the second-most games in the ACC the last two years (20), winning the conference title in 2021 (11-3) and following that up with a 9-4 year in 2022.
Last season, Narduzzi and his staff navigated a rash of injuries and inconsistent QB play from transfer Kedon Slovis to win five straight to end the year, including wins against Duke and UCLA in the Sun Bowl.
6. Mack Brown, North Carolina
Mack Brown is one of just five active head coaches with a national championship, and the 71-year-old has 18 seasons with at least nine wins in his illustrious career. His second stint with the Tar Heels has really yet to take off, though. Brown took UNC to the ACC Championship last season for the first time since 2015, but after starting the season 9-1 the Tar Heels lost four straight to end the year.
Brown and his staff have recruited well at UNC, landing a pair of NFL quarterbacks in Sam Howell and Drake Maye, but poor defenses (worst in the ACC in 2022) have held the program back from being a true contender in the league. Last season, the Tar Heels lost three games to backup quarterbacks, and in 2021, UNC started the year in the Top 10 only to go 6-7 and miss a bowl game.
7. Dave Doeren, NC State
Dave Doeren has won at least seven games in eight seasons with the Wolfpack, including an 8-5 record in 2022 that featured wins by four different starting quarterbacks.
NC State has yet to bust through its glass ceiling and compete for an ACC Championship, but perhaps that changes in the near future now that there are no longer divisions in the conference. Under Doeren, the Wolfpack have become one of the better developmental programs in the ACC, with 16 NFL Draft picks since 2018.
8. Mike Elko, Duke
Mike Elko was the runaway winner for ACC Coach of the Year in his debut season with the Blue Devils, going 9-4 in his first year as a head coach.
Elko inherited a program that was 5-18 (1-17 in ACC play) the last two years and was picked to finish near the bottom of the league in 2022. And yet, the former Texas A&M and Notre Dame defensive coordinator dramatically improved Duke’s defense (last in scoring defense in 2021 to No. 5 in 2022) and empowered offensive coordinator Kevin Johns, resulting in five ACC wins — as many as first-year coaches in the league Cristobal, Pry and Elliott had combined.
Duke’s nine wins were its most since 2014, and just the seventh time in the program’s 134-year history.
9. Jeff Brohm, Louisville
Jeff Brohm was 36-34 at Purdue, winning the Big Ten West in his final season with the Boilermakers before answering mama’s call and coming home to Louisville.
Although his near .500 record doesn’t seem overly impressive on the surface, Purdue had won just nine games total the previous four seasons before Brohm’s arrival in West Lafayette. He has three Top 5 upsets on his resume and delivered back-to-back winning seasons in 2021 and 2022 for the first time in 25 years at Purdue.
Now in the ACC, Brohm should be able to recruit better players with fewer academic restrictions and a stronger in-state footprint. The Cardinals are set up for a potential leap-year in 2023 (no Clemson, FSU, UNC or Wake Forest on the schedule) and could have their first 10-win season since joining the ACC in 2014.
10. Dino Babers, Syracuse
The Orange went 7-6 in 2022 — just the program’s second winning season in seven years under Dino Babers — yet the veteran head coach enters 2023 facing mounting pressure after Syracuse started the year 6-0 only to lose six of seven down the stretch.
Syracuse ranks in the Top 10 of the most difficult Power 5 jobs in the country, so the fact that Babers has a 10-win season with the Orange (2018) is meaningful. And yet, he’s a hot-seat candidate this fall because the program has mostly been spinning its wheels for the last four years.
Babers’ AD has done him little favors this year this upcoming year as well, as Syracuse has an ACC slate that includes Clemson, FSU and North Carolina, plus out-of-conference games against Purdue and Army.
11. Brent Key, Georgia Tech
After taking over Georgia Tech’s program midseason, Brent Key was the lone interim head coach to earn a promotion after the Yellow Jackets went 4-4.
The team’s four ACC wins were more than former Bees head coach Geoff Collins had in any single year during his four-year run in Atlanta.
Key is a former Ga. Tech offensive lineman who has quickly connected well with high school coaches in the Peach State. He’s assembled a quality staff and by focusing on development and details over branding he has the buy-in from a roster wanting to be coached.
12. Jeff Hafley, Boston College
After a pair of six-win seasons in his first two years at BC, Jeff Hafley saw his program hit a major roadblock in Year 3, going 3-9 after the Golden Eagles suffered a rash of injuries (especially at OL). Boston College’s offense cratered (No. 122 in yards per play), but the defense took a major step back, too, after ranking No. 5 in the ACC in 2021.
Hafley is well-liked by BC’s administration and it’s a tough program to consistently win at, but he hasn’t elevated the team since taking over for Steve Addazio in 2020 (Addazio had seven wins in five of six years), so he needs at least a bowl berth in 2023 if he wants to remain in Chestnut Hill longterm.
13. Tony Elliott, Virginia
Off the field, Tony Elliott’s leadership exemplified why so many folks in the industry believed he was destined to be a future head coach after 11 years as an assistant at Clemson. Following the school’s tragic on-campus shooting that saw three football players killed and cut UVA’s season short by two games, Elliott helped unite a devastated group of players, coaches and families amidst such adversity.
The Cavs did not look like a really well-coached team on the field, though. They went 3-7, as an offense that featured one of the better-returning quarterbacks in the ACC (Brennan Armstrong) and a quality group of wideouts went from a Top 25 unit in 2021 to a group that barely averaged 17.0 points per game.
The Wahoos don’t have any real juice on the recruiting trail (no 2024 commits) and look in store for further growing pains in 2023.
14. Brent Pry, Virginia Tech
Brent Pry faces a long rebuild at Va. Tech, as the Hokies went 3-8 in his first season in Blacksburg and have had losing records in four of the last five years.
Better on continuity and improvement, Pry retained his entire inaugural staff entering Year 2, and he’s attempted to quickly flip the roster. The Hokies signed 33 new players — 27 prospects and six transfers — during the initial transfer window, and more additions are expected in May.
Virginia Tech lost to Old Dominion to open the season, but the team didn’t quit on its new head coach. After several midseason blowout losses, Va. Tech played hard down the stretch — suffering three consecutive one-score defeats, two by a point each. The Hokies ended the season with an upset over Liberty.