When we ranked Power Five college football coaches last year, there wasn't much change in the top 25. Whether it was nobody crashing and burning or soaring higher than ever — or none of our voters wanting to take anything that happened during a pandemic season too seriously — things remained largely the same. There were only two new entries in our top 25 at this point 12 months ago.
There are a lot more changes this year.
Three of the coaches in last season's the top 25 lost their jobs following the 2021 season, including a top-10 coach in Dan Mullen and another who won a national title in 2019, Ed Orgeron. That kind of turnover played a role in the shakeups all over our list of 65 coaches, and this year we have six coaches cracking the top 25 for the first time. Of those six, three were ranked 50th or lower last year.
How did they climb so high, so quickly? Well, volatility will always play a role in the process because our group of voters, consisting of writers from both CBS Sports and 247Sports, aren't given a set of guidelines to follow. We just rank coaches from 1-65 using any criteria we choose to follow, and then we see the results. Some value accomplishments on the field above all else, while others may give greater weight to recruiting prowess or the possibility of future success. In the end, nearly everybody is angry. It's a perfect process!
If you haven't yet checked out our ranking of Power Five coaches outside the top 25, you can catch up here.
POWER FIVE COACHES TOP 25
25. NC State
Dave Doeren: It's been a slow, steady climb for Doeren in our rankings. Some might say it's been too slow. He'd built momentum following consecutive nine-win seasons in 2017 and 2018, but a 4-8 record in 2019 was a setback. Now, he's gone 18-7 the last two seasons and turned NC State into one of the more formidable programs in the ACC. His reward is finally cracking the top 25. 2021 rank: 36 (+11)
24. Michigan St.
Mel Tucker: Tucker has rocketed up our rankings faster than his annual salary, but guess what? His 33-spot climb isn't even the biggest jump by a coach this year. Tucker was at 57 last season following a 2-5 debut at Michigan State, but an 11-2 record and Peach Bowl victory catapult him into the top 25. The trick will be to see if he can keep it up because expectations have been raised. As our rankings have shown, we punish coaches for failing to live up to them around here. 2021 rank: 57 (+33)
23. Minnesota
P.J. Fleck: Fleck has been floating in that 20-30 range since coming to Minnesota from Western Michigan. He took the Broncos to a Cotton Bowl before getting the Minnesota gig, and after a 5-7 debut, he improved the team to seven and then 11 wins in consecutive seasons. The 2020 season was a disappointment, but the Gophers were hit particularly hard by COVID-19 and bounced back last season by going 9-4. They enter the 2022 season as a dark horse in the Big Ten West. 2021 rank: 25 (+2)
22. Arkansas
Sam Pittman: Two years ago, before Pittman began his first season at Arkansas, he was ranked at No. 65 in our rankings. He then climbed 15 spots after going 3-7 in 2020, and it's clear that Pittman math is every additional win is worth roughly five spots in the rankings. This season, he climbs another 28 spots after improving from 3-7 to 9-4 and finishing the year ranked No. 21 in the AP Top 25. Maybe it's too big a leap, but it's important to remember Arkansas went 1-23 in the SEC in the three seasons before his arrival. They've gone 7-11 since. 2021 rank: 50 (+28)
21. Northwestern
Pat Fitzgerald: Fitzgerald is always an interesting coach to gauge with our voters. He cracked the top 10 last year, as our voters strongly supported the "doing more with less" aspect of his accomplishments at Northwestern. The Wildcats were fresh off a division title, after all. Unfortunately, they followed it up with a 3-9 mark last year, and while Fitz's teams have had down seasons before, it's their second 3-9 mark in the last three seasons. His ranking is a reflection of the up-and-down nature of his teams lately. 2021 rank: 8 (-13)