We’re now living in a world in which there are SEC coordinators making north of $2 million annually.

At the start of the Playoff era, it was a big deal to be in the $1 million club. Now, there are 34 coordinators making 7 figures, including 16 from the SEC (via USA Today).

It pays to be an assistant. But it’s also an extremely critical job, especially on the defensive side. In 2020, none of the 10 highest-paid FBS defensive assistants got head coaching gigs at season’s end. Three actually got fired, and that’s not including Todd Grantham, who should’ve made that 4 out of 10 who got canned. Coordinators have become household names in ways that they weren’t a decade ago, and the money is a big part of that.

The money sets the bar for expectations. Grades are all relative. We can’t grade Vandy’s coordinators on the same curve that we grade Alabama’s. That wouldn’t really make much sense. If you were a first-time coordinator who inherited a historically bad unit, yeah, that’s part of the year-in-review evaluation.

Did you elevate your unit? Did you handle injuries and midseason adjustments well? Did you make your fanbase believers or doubters?

Let’s answer those questions with some 2021 SEC coordinator grades. First, let’s start with the offensive coordinators:

Alabama

OC Bill O’Brien — B+

Some Alabama fans were ready to give O’Brien the boot if he dialed up a dud against Georgia. Instead, he called the game of his life for 34 offensive points against a defense who hadn’t allowed more than 17 all year. Yes, the run game issues have been well-documented, but O’Brien was in the ear of Bryce Young’s Heisman Trophy season. The Tide went into the Playoff with the No. 4 offense in FBS, despite the fact it had 5 offensive players picked in Round 1 of the 2021 NFL Draft.

Arkansas

OC Kendal Briles — A-

Briles’ evaluation was always going to be connected to KJ Jefferson. If he could take a Chad Morris era recruit and fit it into his system, it was going to be a major win for Briles. Well, mission accomplished. Jefferson turned into one of the league’s top signal-callers and improved as the season progressed. He was efficient, accurate and more times than not, he was effective. Briles led an offense that finished the regular season in the top 1/3 of FBS, which absolutely exceeded expectations.

Auburn

OC Mike Bobo — D+

Woof. I went from praising Bryan Harsin’s assistant hires in October to wondering if both would be fired at season’s end. Bobo did get the boot because in Auburn’s final 5 games, it failed to score a touchdown in the 3rd or 4th quarter. That’s right. And it also blew 3 double-digit leads to end the year. We saw inexplicable situational decisions to deviate from Tank Bigsby in key spots in the South Carolina loss and once TJ Finley took over for an injured Bo Nix in November, the offense totally spiraled.

Georgia

OC Todd Monken — A

Think about this for Monken. His offense went into the SEC Championship ranked No. 3 in FBS in yards per play despite the fact that his starting quarterback was Stetson Bennett IV, his leading receiver (Kearis Jackson) was limited for most of the year with an injury and his most explosive weapon (George Pickens) missed nearly all of the regular season with a knee injury. Oh, and Arik Gilbert never played. Monken’s offense absolutely worked. Could it have worked better against Alabama? Sure, but for the most part, the Dawgs kept defenses on their heels.

Kentucky

OC Liam Coen — A-

Coen had never been a play-caller at the FBS level, and he was brought in to add balance an offense who had the worst passing attack among Power 5 programs last year. Those Sean McVay concepts worked wonders in Year 1. Even with those turnover issues, Kentucky had the No. 30 scoring offense in FBS. That was after finishing No. 107 in 2020. Will Levis enrolled in the summer and scored more touchdowns (23 passing, 9 rushing) than any Kentucky quarterback since Andre Woodson in 2007. Coen worked closely to develop Nebraska transfer Wan’Dale Robinson into a full-time receiver, and he became a star. Coen played a major part in getting Kentucky its second winning season in SEC play since the Jimmy Carter administration.

LSU

Jake Peetz — D

The Peetz thing was weird from the jump. Ed Orgeron wanted a Joe Brady disciple, but then when LSU struggled so much to get plays in before the snap, he told Peetz to simplify things. That actually contradicted LSU’s 2019 style. Anyway, it wasn’t a fit. It didn’t help that Peetz didn’t have Kayshon Boutte in the latter half of the season, but it still took the ground game far too long to get rolling. Max Johnson also didn’t have that All-SEC season that some (myself included) thought he was capable of.

Ole Miss

Jeff Lebby — A

Lebby became a household name in the SEC because it was his play-calling that allowed Ole Miss to have another elite offense. Matt Corral was a legitimate Heisman Trophy candidate and despite the fact that Ole Miss dealt with a lot of injuries at receiver in the first year of the post-Elijah Moore era, that group still fueled the program’s best regular season win total in school history. That’s why Lebby got the chance to be in total control of Oklahoma’s new offense.

South Carolina

Marcus Satterfield — C-

Satterfield sort of followed the same script as Mizzou defensive coordinator Steve Wilks. That is, look like you’re totally overmatched in September and October, but then figure things out down the stretch (except for Clemson). Satterfield was dealt a brutal hand at quarterback with the Luke Doty injury, and he deserves credit for adjusting with grad assistant Zeb Noland and FBS transfer Jason Brown. But the ground game that was supposed to be one of the better groups in the country really struggled for most of the season. That wasn’t entirely on Kevin Harris’ preseason back injury, either. The bar was low for Satterfield, and he didn’t exactly exceed it by failing to crack the top 100 in scoring.

Tennessee

Alex Golesh — B+

No, Golesh doesn’t have play-calling responsibilities like most of the SEC offensive coordinators on this list. That credit is going to go to Josh Heupel as long as he’s in Knoxville. He does, however, get credit for being one of the key pieces behind Tennessee’s offensive revolution. It was indeed a revolution. You’re not supposed to flip a dreadful offense in Year 1. Not in the SEC. Golesh, who has the offensive coordinator/tight ends coach title, is really a jack-of-all-trades guy on Heupel’s staff, who will be coveted to run his own offense if Tennessee has another top-10 offense next year.

Texas A&M

Darrell Dickey — C-

I know, I know. Dickey doesn’t call plays. That’s Jimbo Fisher. It’s not Dickey’s fault when Fisher inexplicably abandons the run game when he’s got one of the top 1-2 punches in the country. It’s also not Dickey’s fault that Haynes King got hurt and for the most part, Zach Calzada’s non-Alabama performances left something to be desired. But Dickey is partially responsible for not simplifying things for Calzada during the week and for struggling to make some of those key adjustments. There’s no way that A&M, with 4 legitimate All-SEC offensive skill players, should’ve only had the No. 60 offense in FBS. That group only averaged 25 points per game against Power 5 competition. Even though the offensive line didn’t get rolling until the latter half of the season, the Dickey and Co. were a disappointment offensively.

Vanderbilt

David Raih — D+

Perspective, folks. It’s important. Raih gets knocked because he relinquished play-calling duties after the first game of the season. That’s never a good sign. That’s also what happens when you can’t score a touchdown at home and you lose by 20 points to East Tennessee State. Clark Lea said he made that decision a week into fall camp, but it was bizarre nonetheless. Raih kept the OC title, which is why he’s here. But he almost deserves an “incomplete” grade. If I were just evaluating his development of receivers, he’d get a C+ because as dreadful as the offense was for most of the year, Chris Pierce and Will Sheppard had some nice moments down the stretch. That counts for something.