Alabama Football: Power ranking all the SEC Football Head Coaches

No. 4 – Ed Orgeron – LSU (previous, USC and Ole Miss)

Career Record, 56-36, 60.9 percent

How good is Coach O as a head coach? Many believe the answer will come in 2020 when LSU has to replace more key players than almost any team in the nation. Until then, Orgeron deserves some credit. His reputation can’t be forever shackled to his Ole Miss failure. Over the last two seasons, his LSU teams have gone 25-3. He is a member of a very small club of living, National Championship, winning coaches.

No. 3 – Jimbo Fisher – Texas A&M (previous, Florida State)

Career Record, 100-32, 75.8 percent

Jimbo Fisher has every resource any college football coach needs – and more, in College Station, TX. He has the National Championship Head Coach pedigree. 2020 may be the season he gets the Aggies over the SEC-hump they have been fighting since joining the league in 2012. But the Aggies have lost less than five games in a season only once since 2013. That was in Jimbo’s first TAMU season, 2018. He has had top six recruiting classes in the last two cycles. Jimbo needs to make a strong statement of progress in 2020. Otherwise, even the oil-rich Aggies will begin to wonder about their $75M dollar investment.

No. 2 – Dan Mullen – Florida (previous, Mississippi State)

Career Record, 90-51, 63.8 percent

Going with Dan Mullen as second, only to Nick Saban, no doubt prompts debate. The shouts from Baton Rouge and Athens can be heard across the digital divide. “Dan Mullen never wins the big game” some will say. A proof will be claimed because Mullen’s Mississippi State teams never beat Nick Saban and Alabama.

Other than the dubious distinction of beating Michigan in the 2018 Peach Bowl, it will be asked, what big game has Mullen won? His first Gators beat LSU in 2018 and last season the Gators beat a then No. 7, Auburn team. Like every Mississippi State head coach, Mullen’s Bulldogs’ teams lost more big games than they won. But in 2014, they beat No. 8, LSU, No. 6, TAMU and No. 2, Auburn in a four-week period. They also beat No. 7, TAMU in 2016.

The other slam against Dan Mullen is he can’t recruit. Recruiting elite, future SEC football stars to Starkville is not a fair measurement of his ability to recruit to Gainesville. Last cycle, the Gators had the No. 8 class and No. 9, the year before. In the early running for the 2021 class, Florida is No. 2.

Dan Mullen deserves the No. 2 slot because he has proven himself in two places – both times doing more with less than other SEC head coaches.

No. 1 – Nick Saban – Alabama (previous, LSU, Michigan State and Toledo)

Career Record, 246-65-1, 79.1 percent

Of course, not just at the top of SEC football, but all of college football is Nick Saban. No explanation or elaboration is necessary.

Let us know your thoughts on ranking the SEC football coaches. Other than Saban at No. 1, an argument can be made for every other coach to be ranked differently than our list.