Ranking each SEC football team by the head coaches’ all-time records

The SEC is going to look very different from the past few seasons.

New teams, new head coaches, and a (possible) new top team.

Texas and Oklahoma are now in the conference. Alabama toppled Georgia’s three-year reign as the top dogs. Texas A&M and Mississippi State have new head coaches. 

With all of these changes, ranking the SEC teams looks a little different as well.

So, based on the career records of each program’s head coach, how does the SEC stack up?

Jeff Lebby was named the newest head coach of the Mississippi State Bulldogs and it will be his first season ever as a head coach of a Division I football program.

As he heads into his first year as a head coach, Lebby is (obviously) 0-0 overall in his career.

Clark Lea has only held a head coaching job with the Commodores during his career andhis three seasons in the role have been less than ideal.

At 9-27 overall, Lea and Vanderbilt have a winning rate of just 25 percent and hold the worst record in the SEC.

After starting his head coaching career at a JUCO, Sam Pittman was named as the head coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks.

Over the past four years, Pittman has gone 23-25 with the Hogs for a 47.92 percent win rate.

Cracking the 50 percent threshold is South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer. He has only ever been the head coach of the Gamecocks and has led the team to 20 wins over five years.

At 20-18, Beamer and South Carolina's winning rate rests at 52.63 percent as they head into the 2024 season.

Mark Stoops got his first head coaching job at Kentucky in 2013 and he has never left.

Over the last decade, Stoops and the Wildcats have gone 73-65 overall for a 52.9 percent win rate. The team has gone 10-3 twice under Stoops' tenure.

One of the new head coaches in the SEC is Texas' Steve Sarkisian. The Longhorns' leader had his first head coaching jobs at Washington and USC, becoming the Texas head coach in 2021.

Throughout his career, Sarkisian has gone 71-49 overall and earned a winning percentage of 59.17 percent.

From Lambuth to Arkansas State to Ole Miss to Liberty to Auburn, Hugh Freeze has been a head coach for nearly 16 years.

Freeze has gone 80-54 over the past decade and a half, earning himself a 59.7 percent success rate.

Oklahoma is joining the SEC, hand-in-hand with the Texas Longhorns, and Brent Venables is entering his third season as the Sooners' head coach.

Throughout his three-year head coaching career, Venables and the Sooners have gone 16-10 overall for a 61.54 percent win rate.

After an impressive start to his head coaching career at Duke, Mike Elko has taken control of the Texas A&M football program.

With the Blue Devils, Elko went 16-9 so he heads into his first season with the Aggies at a 64 percent winning rate.

Eliah Drinkwitz has revived the Missouri Tigers football team. Last season he led the Tigers to a highly impressive 11-2 overall record.

Drinkwitz accepted the Mizzou job after starting his head coaching career at Appalachian State. Over five seasons as a head coach, Drinkwitz has gone 40-22.

Similarly to Missouri, Ole Miss has risen back toward the top of the SEC food chain, led by the one-and-only Lane Kiffin.

Throughout his head coaching career, Kiffin has won an impressive 95 games and lost in just 49 appearances for a winning rate of 65.97 percent.

Despite a rough start to his tenure with the Gators, Billy Napier has an impressive overall head coaching resume.

Over a six-year stretch of being a head coach, Napier has won 66.23 percent of his games, going 51-26 overall.

The must veteran coach in the SEC, Brian Kelly has been the head coach of a team for 388 games.

Kelly has won 283 or nearly 73 percent of those appearances.

With LSU, Kelly has led the Tigers to an impressive 20 wins in just two seasons.

Over a six year head coaching career, including three with the Volunteers and three with the UCF Knights, Josh Heupel has led his teams to a 55-20 overall record.

Heupel has won 76.39 percent of his games as a head coach, including 27 wins and just 12 losses while at Tennessee.

Having three undefeated regular seasons in a row will boost a head coach's winning percentage, there's no denying that.

Kirby Smart earned his first head coach job with the Bulldogs in 2016 and has won 89.45 percent of his games with Georgia since then.

At 94-16, Smart is the second winningest head coach in the SEC.

One of the newcomers to the SEC, Kalen DeBoer is taking over one of the winningest football programs in collegiate history.

After leading the Washington Huskies to the National Championship game last season, DeBoer accepted the head coaching job at Alabama.

From Sioux Falls to Fresno State to Washington, DeBoer has lost just 12 games over nine seasons. He has won 104 of his appearances as a head coach. In other words, DeBoer has won 89.66 percent of his games.

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