College football’s top 15 most accomplished current coaches from past decade

Which programs have had the best and most accomplished current college football head coaches from this past decade? 

After inspecting and analyzing the accomplishments of the most proficient and accomplished college football head coaches over the past decade, there are a select group of coaches who have impressive resumes with division and conference championships as well as bowl victories and playoff appearances.

Current and soon to be Hall of Fame coaches are still going strong, while a few less experienced guys have emerged as up-and-coming potential Hall of Fame members. But where do they stack up against one another?

When commentators, sports writers and people on social media compile sports lists, it most likely includes personal biases and is highly subjective in some cases. Very similar to the rankings of the best and most accomplished college basketball coaches, this list of rankings of coaches follow a comparable format.

Even though this list may have flaws and is not perfect and the point system is not flawless, it gives some analytical and math based analysis to eliminate the subjective factors that many lists are made and comprised of.

There are many factors and criteria that were taken under consideration:

• The previous condition of the program good or bad, prior to becoming a head coach.
• The perception and reputation of being or not being a great Xs and Os coach or being a pure defensive or offensive-minded coach.
• The amount of time that a head coach has been coaching in the FBS or in a Power Five conference.
• Ability to recruit highly-rated players as part of an incoming class of student-athletes.
• Factoring in a coach being at a traditional powerhouse program or a lower level Power Five program.
• The ability or inability to handle off the field issues such as having their program being put on NCAA probation or sanctions.
• Not critiquing how the coach influences the ADs handling of the schedules in terms of it being difficult or easy when scheduling non-conferences games each season.
• How well the coach is perceived to make in-game decisions and play calls during games.
• The ability to hire assistant coaches who recruit well and help advance the program overall.

Second, the list of coaches had to meet only two specific requirements:

• Current FBS head coach
• Won at least one national title and or conference title in a Power Five conference, AAC, Mountain West or was in the College Football Playoff in the past decade.

Third, below is the criteria and scoring breakdown to determine the ranking of the top coaches in the FBS over the past decade:

• 40 points for a national championships
• 30 points for College Football Playoff appearances
• 20 points for regular season conference titles
• 15 points for division titles
• 10 points for bowl game victories (includes playoff games)
• 5 points for bowl appearances (Includes playoff games)
• 5 points for every season with 10 or more wins

The coach had to be a head coach at an FBS school from the period covering the seasons from 2009-18. Had to win at least one national championship and/or a conference championship while a coach in a Power Five conference or upper echelon Group of 5 conference during the span of the last 10 seasons. Coach has to be currently coaching an FBS team.

It’s nearing the end of the regular season for 2019 so statistics from this season are not included on this list.

Let’s now take a look at the top 15 college coaches.