The phrase “one of the best” gets used to describe a lot of college football coaches, but if one had to rank them in order, how would it look?

Matt Brown of Sports on Earth took on the project of ranking the 100 best coaches in college football history, provided they have at least eight seasons of coaching experience at the major college level. On Thursday, he reached the conclusion of his four-part series – the Top 25. Eight of Brown’s Top 25 have coached at current SEC schools. Here’s how they ranked, with their conference connections listed:

  • No. 22: Steve Spurrier – Florida (1990-2001), South Carolina (2005-15)
  • No. 19: Darrell Royal, Mississippi State (1954-55)
  • No. 17: Bob Neyland, Tennessee (1926-34, 1936-40, 1946-52)
  • No. 15: Urban Meyer, Florida (2005-10)
  • No. 14: Pop Warner, Georgia (1895-96)
  • No. 13: Bernie Bierman, Mississippi State (1925-26)
  • No. 3: Nick Saban – LSU (2000-04), Alabama (2007-present)
  • No. 1: Bear Bryant – Kentucky (1946-53), Texas A&M (1954-57), Alabama (1958-82)

Bryant was the obvious call for No. 1, as Brown explains:

If one coach has come to represent college football, to be associated with it more than anyone else, through success on the field and sheer force of personality, it is the man who needs to be known by only one name: Bear. Paul Bryant, legend has it, got the name Bear by literally wrestling a bear as a teenager at a carnival. As an end at Alabama, he once played a game against Tennessee dragging a broken leg. After a stellar career as a player for the Crimson Tide, Bryant assisted at Alabama, then made his mark at various stops as a head coach — a year at Maryland, five top-20 teams at Kentucky, two top-10 teams at Texas A&M — before “Mama called.” Over the next 25 years, Bryant would become the face of college football and one of the biggest personalities in American sports history.

Current Alabama coach Nick Saban is not far behind at No. 3, with the possibility of one day becoming No. 1 in Brown’s analysis:

There will never be anything close to true parity (in college football). But there are scholarship limitations that didn’t exist for most college football history, and the wealth of TV money has given everybody at the power conference level a massive influx of cash. And yet Saban is having one of the most dominant runs in the history of college football. He coached Michigan State to one of its two top-10 seasons between 1967-2012. At LSU, he revived a sleeping giant, winning the BCS national title in his third season before leaving for the Miami Dolphins after his fourth year. And at Alabama, Saban has accomplished the previously unthinkable: He is creating legitimate debates about whether he can surpass Bear Bryant.

What do you think: Will Saban ever pass Bryant as the best coach in college football history?