If you went and asked any college football personality “which conference is the best” well over half of them will answer with the “SEC.” In the past decade, six of the national champions have come from the SEC and a big part of that is coaching.
The Southeast is and always will be a hotbed for top high school talent and the vast majority of those talented players choose to stay close to home. The SEC has had the most players selected in the NFL draft over the past several years.
However with all the talent going in and out as of late, the SEC has become a very top heavy conference, and coaching has led to that issue. Here’s my coaching pyramid of the best, worst, most underrated, and most overrated coaches in the SEC.
The Best: Nick Saban (Alabama)
What can you say about Nick Saban except the obvious? The man is the greatest college football coach of all-time.
Not only has he won five national championships, he has also dominated the college football landscape for over a decade. ‘Bama is the premier program in the country. Athletes want to play there and coaches want to coach there. Look at Nick Saban’s coaching tree. It’s easily the largest in the NCAA with the likes of Lane Kiffin, Kirby Smart, and Jimbo Fisher.
Saban has and will be the Mack-Daddy of the NCAA.
The Worst: Derek Mason (Vanderbilt)
In Mason’s defense, Vanderbilt is one of the most difficult head coaching jobs in the NCAA. Not only is “Vandy” a rigorous private school, but they have to play in the SEC year in and year out. However, with that being said if James Franklin could lead the Commodores to back to back nine-win seasons then it’s certainly possible to do well.
In Mason’s six seasons at the helm, Vanderbilt has failed to have a single winning season. Vanderbilt also hasn’t won a bowl game while under Mason. Even though Vanderbilt has always been a struggling football program, the head coach has one significant goal: Win football games. And Derek Mason does not do that.
Underrated: Dan Mullen (Florida)
Dan Mullen has only ever been a head coach in the SEC and has only had two losing seasons in those ten years. Many coaches surpass that number in under five years.
His coaching career saw him at Mississippi St. for nine years where he went 69-44 and won five bowl games. To put that into perspective Miss St. as a program is below .500 and only had eight bowl wins before Mullen took over.
Mullen turned that poor standing program into a conference contender. It got him rewarded with the head coaching job at Florida and he didn’t disappoint.
In his first year at Florida, he flipped the 3-9 team he inherited into a 10-win team. They also won the Peach Bowl over “rival” Michigan. Florida is seen by many as one of the hardest places to coach. Every year the fans have SEC title expectations. If you lose, you’re gone. I don’t see Dan Mullen losing anytime soon.
Overrated: Gus Malzahn (Auburn)
Let me make this perfectly clear. Malzahn has had a successful tenure at Auburn. He’s led them to two SEC title appearances and a national championship berth. With that being said, he is not worth the $7 million a year Auburn pays him.
In his six seasons at Auburn he has only won two bowl games and has not shown any consistency. After both of his SEC West titles, Auburn has followed them up with 8-5 and middle of the standings seasons. Only once has Auburn had less than four losses in a season and that was the 2013 season that had miracles in their wins over UGA and Bama.
Not only have they had four-plus losses in five out of his six season, but they’ve done it all while having top-15 recruiting classes. Gus has found a way to have some of the best rosters in the NCAA and still have a mediocre team at best.