The SEC is considered one of the two best conferences in college football.
The last two years, the Big Ten has taken the top spot after winning back-to-back National Titles with Michigan and Ohio State. The SEC is still extremely talented and should have a legit chance to have a team win it all this year. They still have some of the top coaches in CFB and pay them well.
With Nick Saban retiring from Alabama, it has created a power vacuum in the conference, but there are still many talented head coaches left. Below are the top 5 coaches in the SEC entering the 2025 season.
1) Kirby Smart (Georgia)
Kirby Smart is the best football coach in the SEC and the country. In 10 years, he is a remarkable 105-19. He has won 2 National Titles and 3 SEC Titles.
He constantly has his teams as one of the best teams in College Football. Outside of his 1st year when he won 8 games, and the shortened Covid season when he won 8 games, he has won at least 11 games every single year. He has changed the dynamic around the program by constantly recruiting and developing top talent in the country.
This past weekend in the 2025 NFL Draft, Georgia had 13 players drafted, including 3 in the 1st round. Kirby Smart is the best coach in America and continues to have Georgia as one of the best programs.
2) Steve Sarkisian (Texas)
Texas was a lost program struggling to sustain relevancy and Steve Sarkisian came in and turned around the program. In his last two years, he has won a total of 25 games and made the College Football playoffs both years.
He gave eventual National Champion Ohio State everything they could handle until they pulled away late from a turnover by quarterback Quinn Ewers cemented the Buckeye win. He has constantly recruited at a high level, where Texas is landing in the top 10 classes. He has done a great job using the Transfer portal to find players to fill gaps. Next year might be his best team with Arch Manning starting at quarterback for the Longhorns. They are one of a handful of teams that could compete and win a National Title.
3) Lane Kiffin (Ole Miss)
Lane Kiffin will always go down as someone who has a great sense of humor, and he loves to troll people on Twitter, but he also should be known as one of the better coaches in the SEC.
Ole Miss is not known as a hotbed of successful football, and he has won 11 games and 10 games in the last two years. This is a great accomplishment considering that Ole Miss does not have the history of success, and the resources are behind the rest of the SEC programs. Kiffin has done a good job recruiting but also has hit the transfer portal at a high rate.
Finally, he has done a nice job of developing quarterbacks most notably with last year’s quarterback Jaxson Dart being a 1st round pick last year pick to the New York Giants in the NFL Draft. Kiffin has consistently done a good job of making Ole Miss a relevant program.
4) Josh Heupel (Tennessee)
Like Sarkisian at Texas, Heupel has done a good job turning around a program that had struggled for years before he arrived. He has won a total of 30 games in the last 3 years, including winning 10 games last year and making the College Football playoff, where they lost to Ohio State.
Still a successful year for Heupel. Heupel has done a good job recruiting, and they have constantly landed many top players. The Nico Iamaleava situation blew up on him when he requested more money to stay at Tennessee he then eventually transferred to UCLA. Even in that situation, he handled it like a seasoned coach, and the Tennessee fan base has rallied around him.
5) Brain Kelly (LSU)
Brian Kelly is one of the most accomplished coaches on this list, but he has not gotten over the hump and won an SEC Title or made the College Football playoff yet.
He hasn't been bad as they have won 10, 10, and 9 games in his 1st 3 years, but the LSU fan base standard is winning SEC and National Titles. The last 3 head coaches at LSU have won National Titles, so that is the expectation for Kelly. The good thing is this could be the best team he has at LSU, with quarterback Garrett Nussmeier coming back after a strong season. Kelly also went heavy in the transfer portal and filled many holes on his defense. I expect they will have a chance to make an SEC Title run.