Bruce Feldman, Stewart Mandel debate whether Lincoln Riley, Ryan Day or Brian Kelly win a national title first

After Kirby Smart finally won his first title in 2021 and followed up with a second last season, the next coach in line could be Lincoln Riley, Ryan Day or Brian Kelly.

At least, that’s the debate between college football insiders Stewart Mandel and Bruce Feldman. Riley went to the College Football Playoff multiple times with Oklahoma, but never a national championship and the same goes for USC. Day and Kelly both lost national title games at Ohio State and Notre Dame, respectively. Now, Kelly leads LSU.

The two reporters broke down who they thought would win the big one first on The Audible Podcast.

“That is tough, other than to say I will put Lincoln Riley third because he has not yet proven as great of an offensive coach he is, he has not yet proven he can have a national championship defense,” Mandel said. “And his first recruiting class was not as impressive as you would have thought. Okay, so the question is Brian Kelly, we talked last week about what a great opportunity this LSU team has this year coming forward. 

“But Ryan Day, I would think we would say is further along with his program to your point. A 50 yard field goal (missed, but if it’s made, he) probably wins the national championship. I’m gonna say, I don’t think Ryan Day’s national title is inevitable, like I thought Kirby Smart’s was, I think it’s more likely than not  … So I’ll say Ryan Day 45%, Brian Kelly 35%, Lincoln Riley 20%.”

Feldman had more confidence in Riley to win a title rather than Kelly. But he agreed Day had the best shot of three coaches named.

“Lincoln Riley has I think is going to have more time,” Feldman said. “I think he will win a national title somewhere and I imagine it’ll be USC. I think, just that he’s younger, I think there’ll be more buzz. I think he’s always going to get big, big time quarterbacks who are going to want to play for him because they keep winning Heisman trophies … By the way I don’t think they’re done recruiting. I expect them to get some better defensive players. I think they’re going to upgrade their talent considerably between now and training camp. 

“So I guess the reason why Brian Kelly, 25% still a good number, and we’ve talked about that everybody who’s coached at LSU in the last 25 years has won a national title. Nick Saban won,  Ed Orgeron won, Les Miles won. That’s why he’s at 25%. I (just) think it’s harder for him (to get get out of the SEC) than it’s going to be coming out of the Big Ten or coming out of the Pac-12 this year.”

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LSU won the SEC West in 2022 but fell to Georgia while USC fell short in the Pac-12 title game to Utah. Ohio State did not win the Big Ten but got to the semifinals and lost narrowly to Georgia.