Top 10 CFB Coaches: Whittingham in Top 10? Big Ten Dominates Top 4

If you somehow didn’t know by now, coaches are pretty important in football — just look at their vastly increasing salaries. Yet, FOX Sports lead college football analyst Joel Klatt has never ranked the best coaches in the sport … until now. In the most recent episode of the “Joel Klatt Show,” Klatt ranked the top 10 coaches in college football for the first time. A big reason why he’s finally doing a top-10 head coach ranking has to do with the fact that we now have more clarity as to how which coaches have adapted the best to the introduction of name, image and likeness (NIL) and the transfer portal. “The eras of college football are now substantially different and we’re in a very new era,” Klatt said of how he determined his list. “With the NIL, transfer portal era, I think the coaches on this list have excelled in the modern era. “You have to have excelled post-COVID and more specifically in the last two, three, four years.” So, let’s not wait any further and take a look at Klatt’s top 10. Honorable mentions: Kalen DeBoer, Alabama; Rhett Lashlee, SMU; Joey McGuire, Texas Tech; Mike Elko, Texas A&M; Dabo Swinney, Clemson 10. Lane Kiffin, LSU While Kiffin received a lot of scrutiny for how he handled his departure from Ole Miss, Klatt said that the new LSU head coach’s résumé is too strong to leave off the list. “Listen, whatever you want to think of all of that, the guy can coach college football. This list would not be complete without him on it. I know the exit was messy from Ole Miss, but think about what he built at Ole Miss. I know he’s had growing pains throughout his career as a head football coach,” Klatt said. “But what he built at Ole Miss was really special. That was part of the reason why I argued that he should’ve stayed there. They had a great chance at a national championship this past year if he would’ve just stayed.” Klatt added that he feels Kiffin’s ability to coach an offense is incredibly strong, saying his teams are guaranteed to have a top-10 offense in the nation. Kiffin’s coaching ability on that side of the ball helped develop Jaxson Dart into becoming a first-round pick and Trindidad Chambliss into one of the nation’s top quarterbacks despite his lack of FBS experience. In turn, that helped Ole Miss become an SEC contender during Kiffin’s time there. “He took Ole Miss to a sustained level of excellence that they really had never seen before,” Klatt said. “We had seen some jumps, but they had four 10-win seasons over the last five years. Only Kirby, Ryan Day and Kalen DeBoer had more wins over the last five years than Lane. That’s very incredible.” 9. Mario Cristobal, Miami (Fla.) Klatt admitted that the College Football Playoff catapulted Cristobal into the top 10. However, he thinks Miami’s run to the national championship helped disprove a pair of the biggest doubts about Cristobal. “He knocked off two giant stigmas this year that had been plaguing him throughout his career as a head coach,” Klatt said. ” The first was he doesn’t win big games. Well, he won big games this year and it started all the way back in Week 1, when they toppled Notre Dame. That was a huge win and it started this trajectory of things that we haven’t seen him be able to do that this year he was able to do. “The second thing was winning big matchups down the stretch. We knew his record in November wasn’t what we wanted it to be.” Now, Klatt believes Miami is in a good spot to compete on an annual basis moving forward. “I gotta tip my cap to what Mario Cristobal’s built at Miami,” Klatt said. “If the [Darian] Mensah transfer works for them, they’ll be back in this capacity. Maybe not all the way to the championship game, but they’re going to be a very good football team because that’s what he builds.” 8. Kalani Sitake, BYU Klatt knows that this one might “surprise some people,” but he wants you to consider this: only two head coaches have more wins than Sitake since 2020. “I’m a huge fan of Kalani Sitake,” Klatt said. “Penn State wanted Kalani Sitake and almost got him earlier in this offseason because they see what I see: a phenomenal football coach and a guy that builds a team in his own image. The team takes on the character of their coach in so many ways — outplay, work, out-physical teams. You can see that at BYU. Would it surprise you to find out that only two head coaches have more wins than Sitake since 2020? Those two are Kirby Smart and Ryan Day. Sitake has 57 wins since 2020. “Sitake is a phenomenal coach and every single year, he builds the same caliber of team, particularly at the line of scrimmage.” 7. Kyle Whittingham, Michigan Klatt admitted that this might be another addition on the list that could surprise some. However, he also wants everyone to understand what he did at Utah in his 21 seasons as its head coach. “You have to understand where he brought Utah from,” Klatt said. “That was a very good job after Urban Meyer and they were on the national stage, but he’s the one that took them from the Group of 5 into the Pac-12 and Big 12. He did a lot of things at Utah and made them a perennial top-15, top-10 team in the country and he did so without the best talent in the country. His teams play exceptionally hard, they’re physical, they’re sound and they’re well-coached.” Utah went 177-88 during Whittingham’s tenure, logging five 10-plus-win seasons after the Utes made the jump from the Mountain West to the Pac-12. 6. Steve Sarkisian, Texas Klatt shared that he contemplated placing Sarkisian higher and lower, wanting to reward him for bringing stability back to Texas while recognizing that the Longhorns underwhelmed this past season. “I thought this was a good middle ground,” Klatt said. “As much as I think we, and certainly the Texas fanbase, believe that you can roll the helmets out there and Texas is just going to win 10 games, that’s just not the case. We saw that for at least a decade.” Prior to Texas’ underwhelming 2025 campaign, Sarkisian led the Longhorns to two straight semifinal appearances in the College Football Playoff. So, Klatt thinks that’s too big to ignore, but also thinks that Sarkisian might need to make a sacrifice in order to help Texas get over the hump. “Steve has solidified Texas,” Klatt said. “I think he’s one of the great game planners of college football. I think he’s one of the great playcallers in college football. You could make the argument that he might need to give up playcalling duties at some point if he wants to achieve what he ultimately wants, which is a national championship. That’s really hard for a guy at that level. Ryan Day gave up playcalling duties and won a national championship.” 5. Marcus Freeman, Notre Dame When Brian Kelly left Notre Dame for LSU at the end of the 2021 season, some thought that the Fighting Irish could no longer attain the talent needed to compete for a national championship. But after Notre Dame made it to the title game in the 2024 season, Klatt believes that’s not the case. Klatt pointed to Freeman as the big reason why Notre Dame seems to be a perennial national title contender. “He’s elevated the talent in South Bend,” Klatt said. “There’s a reason the NFL’s been sniffing around on this guy. There were talks that the Giants wanted Marcus Freeman at one point. Notre Dame was smart to redo his deal back in December. He’s just 40. The guy, to me, is class, integrity, toughness and his teams are physical. I think he’s learned along the way.” 4. Dan Lanning, Oregon Lanning is the highest-ranked coach on this list who has yet to win a national championship, but Klatt believes that he’ll break that glass ceiling soon. “I’ve said for a long time that if I had to buy stock in a coach, it would be Dan Lanning. I still feel that way,” Klatt said. “Oregon is a perennial national championship contender under Lanning. He’s elevated them above what they were before he got there. He’s a phenomenal coach. “Here’s the deal: He’s 48-8 at Oregon, and six of his eight losses are against teams that reached the title game. Four of those losses were to the eventual national champ. He’s lost five games in the last three seasons and every single one was against a team that reached the national championship game. You do not beat Oregon unless you’re one of the best teams in college football. And he’s gaining on those teams.” 3. Kirby Smart, Georgia You can probably guess which coaches are in the top three by this point. While Smart is one of two active college football coaches to have won multiple national championships, Klatt admitted that he put a greater significance on the recency of the national championships won by the coaches ranked in the top two. “It hasn’t been as good in the last two years, but that’s obvious with those back-to-back national championships. It seems like a dip, but that’s because their standards are high,” Klatt said. “They’ve won the SEC the last two years and three of the last four. The only year in the last nine seasons that Georgia wasn’t in the SEC Championship Game was the 2020 COVID season. That’s ridiculous consistency in a really tough conference. Georgia’s the standard in the SEC.” 2. Ryan Day, Ohio State At this point, Day’s record is pretty self-explanatory. He’s gone 82-12 in seven seasons as Ohio State’s head coach, leading Klatt to say that Day has Ohio State at its zenith, which is saying something for a program that’s won nine national championships. “Day has the Buckeyes at the top every single year,” Klatt said. “He’s reached the top two in the AP Poll at some point in every single season that he’s been a head coach. He’s never lost more than two games in a season. He got his national championship in 2024. He had the No. 1 team in college football for most of the season this last year, until they ran into Indiana. Ohio State is the most consistent program in college football, and we’re seeing one of the great eras of Ohio State.” 1. Curt Cignetti, Indiana After Cignetti turned the losingest program in college football history into a national champion in two years, he doesn’t want to hear any argument for another head coach to be placed in this spot. “You can’t put anybody else there. He’s earned this spot,” Klatt said. “When you take the losingest program in the history of the sport and in two years, you win the national championship with that team, it’s not up for debate. He’s No. 1, and it has to be him. “You can make arguments that guys should be higher or lower and maybe there should be guys incorporated on this list. You might be right. But the one that you can’t argue with is Curt Cignetti. He’s proven to be the best talent evaluator in this era of college football.”