ATHENS —Kirby Smart has arguably never been better as a head coach, and that’s why he’s an easy choice as the top-ranked coach entering into the 2025 season.
Smart does not pat himself on the back often or throw bouquets to his coaching staff, but he allowed himself some satisfaction after Georgia weathered arguably the most difficult league slate in conference history and finished as SEC champions.
“Best coaching job we have done by far 100 percent,” Smart said in a Josh Pate podcast interview. “We were not better than some of the years previous and we had twice the schedule some of the years previous.
“…. I know the roster we did it with and I know the injuries we had.”
Georgia’s injuries caught up with it in the College Football Playoff, as the Bulldogs fell to Notre Dame in the CFP Sugar Bowl Quarterfinal (23-10) after starting quarterback Carson Beck suffered a season-ending injury in the 22-19 SEC title game overtime win over Texas.
None other than former Georgia rival Steve Spurrier went out of his way to applaud Smart’s coaching effort and noted the Bulldogs coach is the only active coach to win an SEC Championship Game.
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“You’ve got some people out there saying Georgia didn’t have a good season,” Spurrier said after UGA’s upset loss to the Irish, “and that’s ridiculous.
“There’s only one coach who can say he had a better year than Kirby last year,” Spurrier said. “That coach is Ryan Day, and he needed a do-over, wouldn’t have even made the playoffs last year when they took four teams.”
Georgia opens the 2025 season riding an SEC-record 32-game home field win streak that dates back to the 2019 season, having gone 11-0 against AP Top 25 teams in Sanford Stadium in that span, and 6-0 against AP Top 10 teams.
The Bulldogs — in the midst of a major reload having to replace their starting quarterback, four of five starting offensive linemen and three-first round NFL draft picks off defense — open the season at home against Marshall on Aug. 30.
Here’s one ranking of the SEC coaches -- based on current staff and recent performance, and taking into consideration school resources -- entering the 2025 season:
1. Kirby Smart, 10th year at Georgia
105-19 at Georgia
• The 49-year-old Smart has won 2 national titles, 3 SEC titles and is the highest paid coach in college football ($13.2 million annually).
2. Steve Sarkisian, 5th year at Texas
37-17 at Texas, 83-52 FBS
• The 51-year-old Sarkisian is the only SEC coach to make the College Football Playoffs the past two seasons, matching the program record with 13 wins last season.
3. Brian Kelly, 4th year at LSU
29-11 at LSU, 175-73 FBS
• The 63-year-old Kelly recently landed the No. 1 transfer portal class; opened Baton Rouge tenure by getting Tigers into SEC title game his first season after leaving Notre Dame as the Irish’s all-time wins leader (113-40).
4. Kalen DeBoer, 2nd year at Alabama
9-4 at Alabama, 46-13 FBS
• The 50-year-old DeBoer replaced Nick Saban after winning Pac-12 Coach of the Year honors at Washington in back-to-back seasons, held serve against SEC power Georgia with 41-34 home win.
5. Lane Kiffin, 6th year at Ole Miss
44-18 at Ole Miss, 105-51 in FBS
• The 50-year-old Kiffin has led the Rebels to five consecutive bowl appearances and the program’s first-ever 11-win campaign.
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6. Shane Beamer, 5th year at South Carolina
29-22 at South Carolina
• The 48-year-old Beamer led the Gamecocks to a school-record four wins over ranked opponents last season, including a second victory over rival Clemson in the past three years.
7. Josh Heupel, 5th year at Tennessee
37-15 at Tennessee, 65-23 in FBS
• The 47-year-old Heupel, a former national championship quarterback at Oklahoma, led the Vols to their first-ever College Football Playoff appearance last season and has led Tennessee to wins over Alabama and Florida in the same season twice in the past three years.
8. Hugh Freeze, 3rd year at Auburn
11-14 at Auburn, 93-57 in FBS
• The 55-year-old Freeze has led the four previous programs he was head coach at (Lambuth, Arkansas State, Ole Miss and Liberty) to at least one 10-win season, and pressure is mounting for him to approach doing the same at Auburn.
9. Eli Drinkwitz, 6th year at Missouri
38-24 at Missouri, 50-25 in FBS
• The 42-year-old Drinkwitz set Missouri’s head coach record for most wins in the first five seasons and led the Tigers to back-to-back 10-plus win seasons (2023-2024), going 10-1 in one-score games in that time frame.
10. Clark Lea, 5th year at Vanderbilt
16-33 at Vanderbilt
• The 43-year-old Lea won 2024 SEC Coach of the Year honors, in a vote of his league coaching peers, after the Commodores beat then-No. 1 Alabama (40-35) and later, Auburn (17-7), marking the first time since 1955 the program beat those two schools in the same season.
11. Mike Elko, 2nd year at Texas A&M
8-5 at Texas A&M, 24-14 in FBS
The 47-year-old Elko had the Aggies in contention for a spot in the SEC Championship Game entering the final week of the season for the first time since the program joined the SEC in 2012 and oversaw an offense that was the highest scoring in SEC games last season (30.4).
12. Mark Stoops, 13th year at Kentucky
77-73 at Kentucky
The 58-year-old Stoops has the most wins of any coach in Wildcats’ football history and the longest tenure among active SEC coaches, but the loss of key assistant Vince Marrow to rival Louisville signals how challenged UK football is to keep up in this NIL age with the school’s basketball program considered a priority.
13. Brent Venables, 4th year at Oklahoma
22-17 at Oklahoma
• The 54-year-old Venables won three national titles as a defensive coordinator, and he’s taking over defensive play-calling duties this season for a Sooners’ team hoping to build on the momentum of a 24-3 home win over Alabama and a stacked incoming transfer portal class.
14. Sam Pittman, 6th year at Arkansas
30-31 at Arkansas
• The 63-year-old Pittman has led the Razorbacks to three-straight bowl victories after taking over a dilapidated program that had won just 8 total games — and one SEC contest — in the three seasons preceding his hiring in December of 2019.
15. Billy Napier, 4th year at Florida
19-19 at Florida, 59-31 FBS
• The 45-year-old Napier pulled off one of the most impressive midseason turnarounds in recent head coaching history by leading the Gators to four consecutive wins to close the season after reports Florida had plans to buy out his contract and fire him.
16. Jeff Lebby, 2nd year at Mississippi State
2-10 at Mississippi State
• The 41-year-old Lebby lost his starting quarterback the fourth game of last season but kept his team playing competitive football despite going winless in the SEC against a difficult schedule that included road games at playoff teams Texas, Georgia and Tennessee.
