With the NCAA Tournament now behind us, we’re diving deeper into offseason mode.
It’s a great time to evaluate SEC head coaches for both of the biggest revenue sports — football and men’s basketball. The SEC had a historically busy coaching carousel on the football side of things this year, but only 1 change in men’s basketball (barring any additional surprises). There’s plenty of data on most of these coaches to build out an educated ranking of football and basketball coaches as we exit the 2025-26 season.
Ranking SEC football and men’s basketball coaches
Let’s talk about my process for this before we dive in. To start, I ranked all 16 head coaches in both sports individually based on a variety of criteria. I considered accolades at their previous schools as well as what they accomplished at prior stops.
When melding the rankings together to make this list, I weighed football and basketball rankings equally. In instances where there was a tie in average ranking, I gave the nod to the school with the higher-ranked football coach (football Just Means More, after all).
Today’s edition has the bottom-8 programs in our rankings, with the top-8 to come next week.
16. Auburn
Football coach: Alex Golesh
Men’s basketball coach: Steven Pearl
It may be a surprise to see Auburn coming in at dead last in this ranking, but frankly it’s not even close. I think Alex Golesh did a great job at South Florida and could be a great coach on the Plains, but he’s not proven to the degree that most of his counterparts are. He has 3 years of head coaching experience and is 14-10 in conference play at one of the better jobs in the AAC (South Florida).
As for the basketball program, Steven Pearl was underwhelming in his first season at the helm. Auburn missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time in a non-Covid-impacted campaign since 2017. The Tigers were dead last in defensive efficiency during SEC play. Time will tell if promoting Pearl was a good move or not, but the early returns are underwhelming.Â
15. South Carolina
Football coach: Shane Beamer
Men’s basketball coach: Lamont Paris
Shane Beamer has spent 5 seasons with South Carolina and has gone above .500 in SEC play just once. Unlike many other coaches on this list, Beamer doesn’t have any prior head coaching experience or play-calling prowess he can hang his hat on to boost his résumé. The results are what they are — a 16-24 record in SEC play and, most recently, a massively disappointing 2025 campaign that saw a team with CFP aspirations go just 1-7 in league play.Â
Lamont Paris has delivered 1 good year out of 4 so far since he took over for Frank Martin. The Gamecocks were a 6-seed in 2024 but lost in the first round. In the other 3 seasons, South Carolina has won a total of 10 SEC games. I’ve got Paris ranked 15th among SEC basketball coaches coming out of the 2025-26 season. I could see a world where both Beamer and Paris are on the hot seat midway through their respective 2026-27 seasons.
14. Kentucky
Football coach: Will Stein
Men’s basketball coach: Mark Pope
I’m actually quite optimistic about the Will Stein era in Lexington, but I had no real choice other than to rank him 16th among SEC football coaches for this exercise. He’s the only SEC head coach without any prior experience (truth be told, I’d bet he has more staying power than guys like Jeff Lebby and Ryan Silverfield). He’s a talented offensive play-caller who landed a borderline top-10 transfer portal class in his first cycle.
Mark Pope has a middling SEC résumé. He never made the NCAA Tournament at Utah Valley. He got to the Big Dance twice at BYU, but the Cougars were knocked out in the first round both times. At Kentucky, the Wildcats are 20-16 in SEC play and have gone just 3-2 in the NCAA Tournament. Pope also hasn’t prioritized high school recruiting, which was such a big driver behind Kentucky’s success under John Calipari. Perhaps more damning is the fact that his transfer classes have been underwhelming. Otega Oweh and Denzel Aberdeen were not difference-makers at their previous stops. Jayden Quaintance was a known injury risk. Pope needs to get a lot better at evaluation and development — quickly.
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13. Mississippi State
Football coach: Jeff Lebby
Men’s basketball coach: Chris Jans
I don’t have much faith in Jeff Lebby at this point. I’ve got him ranked 15th, ahead of only rookie head coach Will Stein. The Bulldogs are 1-15 in SEC play, which is only a little bit better than you, reader, would do if you had Lebby’s job. That may be harsh given Mississippi State’s place in the SEC funding hierarchy. But plenty of other coaches would love to have more resources in this league and almost all of them have at least 1 great season or résumé point to hang their hat on. Lebby is still searching for his signature season.
Chris Jans has made NCAA Tournament 3 times at New Mexico State and at Mississippi State. How many college coaches would be able to replicate that level of success at programs like that? I’m guessing not many. Jans did miss the Big Dance this year, but the Bulldogs were due for a downturn after 3 straight 21-win campaigns. He doesn’t have the high-level success that the top coaches in the SEC have, but he’s a proven winner at this level.
12. Ole Miss
Football coach: Pete Golding
Men’s basketball coach: Chris Beard
Earlier I wrote that Will Stein is the only rookie head coach in the SEC this year. That’s only barely true. Pete Golding is gearing up for his first full campaign, but he did have the trial-by-fire that was 3 College Football Playoff games in the wake of Lane Kiffin’s departure. It’s impossible to know how much weight to put on those 3 games given the chaos that this program was in during those few weeks. But I’m inclined to give Golding quite a bit of credit (enough to boost him to the top 10 of the football-only rankings). He’s long been lauded as a great defensive coach and now we’ll see his head coaching chops for a full season. I’m cautiously optimistic.
Chris Beard is an unusual evaluation. Off-the-court issues aside, Beard’s on-court results have fallen significantly since he almost led Texas Tech to a national championship in the pre-NIL era. Beard is 21-33 in conference play in 3 SEC seasons at Ole Miss. Despite his previous success in Lubbock, that’s concerning enough to slide him into the bottom 4 of my basketball-only rankings.Â
11. Oklahoma
Football coach: Brent Venables
Men’s basketball coach: Porter Moser
A year ago, Brent Venables would have been a bottom-5 coach in the football-only rankings. But then he rattled off an excellent 2025 campaign, leading the Sooners to the College Football Playoff despite facing one of the nation’s most difficult schedules. Oklahoma‘s defense is genuinely elite and Venables is the biggest reason why. Even as the sport has fundamentally changed at every level over the last couple of decades, Venables delivering consistently great results on defense is a strong constant.
You won’t find an unluckier coaching tenure in college basketball than Porter Moser at Oklahoma. Moser has made the NCAA Tournament once in 5 years in Norman, but the Sooners have been among the first teams out 3 times during that span. The 2024 campaign was particularly unlucky as OU barely missed the 68-team field due to a record number of bid-stealers. Moser is currently on track to be the first OU coach in more than 50 years to not record a Sweet 16 appearance.
10. Arkansas
Football coach: Ryan Silverfield
Men’s basketball coach: John Calipari
Ryan Silverfield arrives at Arkansas after a good-but-not-great tenure at Memphis. The Memphis program is extremely well-funded by AAC standards and yet Silverfield only delivered 2 seasons of 10+ wins. The Tigers lost at least 2 conference games in every Silverfield campaign. To me, that’s a worrying sign as Silverfield takes over an Arkansas program that’s decidedly at the bottom of the SEC food chain.
John Calipari was my most difficult evaluation on the basketball side. I ended up having him 4th behind Todd Golden, Rick Barnes and Nate Oats. While Calipari is more accomplished than all of them, the recent results haven’t quite been there. Back-to-back Sweet 16s at Arkansas is impressive, but Calipari hasn’t reached the Elite Eight since 2019. He hasn’t been to the Final Four since 2015. To the extent that this list is forward-looking and not a pure résumé ranking, I think having Calipari at No. 4 is fair.
9. Vanderbilt
Football coach: Clark Lea
Men’s basketball coach: Mark Byington
Oh, what to do with Clark Lea. On one hand, he just won 10 games at Vanderbilt. That carries a lot of weight. On the other hand, he’s 5-27 in SEC play outside of a 2025 campaign that was led by 23-year-old Diego Pavia. I think it’s fair to question whether or not Vanderbilt can repeatedly sustain relative success, although that would be true of any coach. I think Lea is pretty good but it’s difficult to justify having him any higher than 9th.
Mark Byington was linked to the North Carolina job vacancy but it seems as though he’ll be back in Nashville for another season. That’s great news for Vandy fans as Byington looks like one of the better evaluators in the SEC. Not many would have expected a back court featuring Tyler Tanner and Duke Miles to be among the best in the SEC, but that’s exactly what happened this season. Miles will need to be replaced, but it’s possible Tanner will be back at Vandy next season, too. Regardless, Byington has won at every level. He’s clearly in the top half of SEC basketball coaches after just 2 years at Vandy.
That’s all for now. Next week, we’ll conclude this list with the top 8 SEC football and men’s basketball coach combo rankings.Â
Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
