CBS Sports releases SEC head coach rankings ahead of 2023 college football season

Next month, there will be live college football for folks to consume. But until then, we have to waste away time by performing exercises such as ranking coaches or guessing which players will compete for the Heisman. In that line of content, CBS Sports recently produced their yearly list of the top coaches in the country and broke it down by conference.

Of course, the most highly-anticipated list comes regarding the SEC, college football’s undoubted premier league at the moment. The conference is responsible for the last four national championships and is littered up and down with tremendous head coaches.

With two guys who have national title rings and not one truly bad head coach among the group, somebody had to be first and last. Find out who those were plus the entire CBS Sports’ ranking of SEC head football coaches as we near another year of chaos on the gridiron.

1. Nick Saban | Alabama

Here comes the controversy right off the bat. After two straight national championships with Georgia, you’d think Kirby Smart would claim the top spot. But no, CBS Sports is siding with history and pedigree by keeping Nick Saban atop the list.

Is he the greatest college football coach ever? It’s very possible. So, to a point, his selection as the No. 1 coach in the SEC makes sense. However, is he the best coach right now in the current college football landscape? It’s hard to argue that’s still true when his Padawan is the two-time reigning national champ.

2. Kirby Smart | Georgia

It was always going to be Saban vs. Smart at 1-2. For Kirby Smart and Georgia, they haven’t finished with anything except a one beside their name in nearly three years… except when it comes to this list of best SEC coaches from CBS Sports.

Enjoy it, Dawg fans. It will be tough sledding to find much negative press or controversial opinions about UGA this year. But here goes CBS Sports giving Coach Smart that bulletin board material we all know he loves. Back-to-back national championships and yet Kirby is still viewed as the No. 2 coach in his own conference. Sheesh, that’s tough to swallow.

3. Brian Kelly | LSU

Kelly has been nothing but incredibly successful for the last decade. After spending a dozen seasons in South Bend, he found immediate fortune with a move to the bayou and turned around a sub-.500 2021 LSU team into an SEC West champion in 2022.

If you’re looking at a list of the top college football coaches in the country over the last 15 years, it’s hard to ignore the consistent success Kelly seems to produce annually. Now that he’s at a national championship machine in the LSU athletic department and football program, it seems likely he joins the ranks of Smart and Saban as SEC coaches with a title under their belt at some point soon.

4. Lane Kiffin | Ole Miss

With 10-3 and 8-5 seasons in the last two, Ole Miss cemented themselves as a top-half team in the always-competitive SEC West. Since Lane Kiffin took over, the Rebels are fun and successful, though not quite SEC title challengers yet.

The most impressive coaching job came this past season, when Kiffin maintained success despite losing an NFL quarterback and having to completely reshape his offense around the run game. The result: Ole Miss turned in a strong 8-4 regular season finish and made a superstar out of true freshman running back Quinshon Judkins.

5. Josh Heupel | Tennessee

No coach made a greater leap in these rankings from one year to the next than Tennessee’s Josh Heupel, and for obvious reasons. Heupel and the Vols charged into the national spotlight last season and were a College Football Playoff contender up until the bitter end.

Many of the stars of that offense have gone on — most notably the deadly QB-WR combo of Hendon Hooker and Jalin Hyatt. So this coming season, with new playmakers in place, Heupel will get a chance to prove whether he’s an elite coach that’s here to stay… or just had one special run with some serious star power under center and out wide.

For the rest of the CBS Sports, you can look below:

CBS Sports SEC coach rankings 6-14

6. Mark Stoops | Kentucky
7. Jimbo Fisher | Texas A&M
8. Hugh Freeze | Auburn
9. Shane Beamer | South Carolina
10. Sam Pittman | Arkansas
11. Billy Napier | Florida
12. Eli Drinkwitz | Missouri
13. Clark Lea | Vanderbilt
14. Zach Arnett | Mississippi State

Recap

Overall, it’s a pretty reasonable list — although Georgia fans may disagree. It’s always tough to name a last place, but CBS went pretty safe here by picking the only guy who has never been an SEC head coach in MSU’s Arnett. Even Clark Lea at Vanderbilt showed some promise last season and Drinkwitz led Mizzou to a decent season last fall too.

Surely, this list will look ridiculous by Week 4 of the season, but it’s a good snapshot of the perception of the top coaches heading into the 2023 year.