When SEC spring meetings convened in May, it marked the conference’s first in-person gathering for the annual summit since 2019. Of the 14 coaches assembled for the meetings, only four had been in that room three years previously. It served as a visual reminder of the rough-and-tumble nature of the nation’s most rugged conference.
And it doesn’t take long to go from the penthouse to the outhouse, either. Just ask Ed Orgeron.
Two new coaches, LSU’s Brian Kelly and Florida’s Billy Napier, joined the conference ahead of this season. They’ll enter a league that is stouter than ever, and top-end coaches Nick Saban and Kirby Smart show no signs of relenting.
Meanwhile, coaches like Lane Kiffin, Sam Pittman, Josh Heupel and Shane Beamer are an upgrade over their predecessors.
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WHO’S THE BEST: Ranking the 10 best football players in the SEC
This looks to be the SEC’s best assemblage of coaching talent since the conference expanded to 14 teams before the 2012 season.
Here’s my ranking of SEC coaches.
1. Nick Saban
Alabama
The greatest coach of all time endured a rough stretch these past several months. He lost to a former understudy, Jimbo Fisher, last October, then fell to another, Smart, in the national championship. And Texas A&M bested Alabama for the No. 1-ranked recruiting class. Saban’s frustration bubbled over at a speaking engagement this spring. Some saw it as a sign that Alabama’s dynasty is teetering. That’s absurd. Saban continues to recruit well. Now, he’s adding top-shelf transfers to fill holes, and he’s developing quarterbacks at a Heisman Trophy level. Alabama was reloading last season after a swath of departures followed the 2020 team’s national championship. This year’s team is loaded.
2. Kirby Smart
Georgia
Smart knows recruiting. Smart knows defense. And he proved last season that still can be a winning combination, even in this quarterback-driven era. Despite Stetson Bennett IV’s improvement, Smart has not delivered an elite quarterback. And he still must prove he can avoid any major program drop-off after the loss of 15 players to the NFL Draft. Saban has separated himself from others by the way he keeps the machine rolling with no significant backsliding. The way Smart recruits, he’s positioned his program to do the same.
3. Jimbo Fisher
Texas A&M
Fisher has shown in the past year he can beat Saban on the field and on the recruiting trail. That’s a start. The Aggies…