There’s a old saying that coaches are hired to be fired. That is certainly true in the SEC, where coaches have come and gone with stunning frequency in the years since Nick Saban took the Alabama job and turned the entire league (and the nation) on its head.

Different SEC football programs have different expectations, which is why a record that looks smashing at Kentucky will get a coach fired at Auburn. Keep that in mind as we rank the coaching hires after 2007.

Saban has won four national championships at Alabama. Perhaps even more impressive, at a school with five coaches who own a winning percentage of .800 or better with the program, Saban’s .870 tops them all.

This list only counts the hires made after Saban, so no Les Miles, Mark Richt or Urban Meyer here. We are also not including Matt Luke at Ole Miss, who has yet to have a full season on the job, and several others who were interim head coaches for part of a season.

Couldn’t get it going

24. Derek Dooley, Tennessee, 2010-12 (15-21): It’s hard to envision what Tennessee saw in Dooley. He was just OK in three years as head coach at Louisiana Tech (17-20, with one winning season, and that was 8-5) before he arrived in Knoxville. The result? Back-to-back losing seasons for the first time in a century at Tennessee.

23. Mike Sherman, Texas A&M, 2008-11 (25-25): The Aggies have developed a reputation for fading late in the season under Kevin Sumlin, and deservedly so. They didn’t have a high perch to fall of of under Sherman. He started with a 4-8 mark in 2008 (when A&M was still in the Big 12) and achieved little after that.

22. John L. Smith, Arkansas, 2012 (4-8): He only got one year but on the heels of Bobby Petrino, the Razorbacks went downhill fast.

21. Barry Odom, Missouri, 2016-present (7-13): Gary Pinkel took Mizzou to four conference championship games in two leagues, the Big 12 and the SEC, from 2007-14. The Tigers hired former assistant Odom, and boy, were his players excited. Suffice to say, the excitement level has dipped a bit in Columbia since then.

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20. Lane Kiffin, Tennessee, 2009 (7-6): He inherited a program that had gone through a couple of down seasons, relatively speaking, but everything a coach needs to win was in place. Except Knoxville was not the place for Kiffin, who bolted after one season to go back to the West Coast for the USC job. This hiring failure set the stage for the decade of flailing around that this program has done since.

19. Robbie Caldwell, Vanderbilt, 2010 (2-10): He was in a tough spot, taking over when Bobby Johnson left the program in the summer of 2010. The Commodores had the same 2-10 record in 2010 as they did in ’09, but better days were ahead (see below).

18. Bret Bielema, Arkansas, 2013-present (28-31): This should have been a winning hire. Bielema was plenty successful at Wisconsin and was inheriting a mess at Arkansas, which means he would get enough time to get his people to do things his way and replicate his previous success. Except it has not happened and does not seem likely to happen. Arkansas continues to go backward.

17. Will Muschamp, Florida, 2011-14 (28-21): Replacing Urban Meyer was always going to be tough in Gainesville. Muschamp, once the coach in waiting at Texas, got the gig and simply did not win enough to satisfy Gator Nation. He might have learned some lessons because he seems to have things going in the right direction now at South Carolina.

16. Joker Phillips, Kentucky, 2010-12 (13-24): Some folks are really good assistant coaches who, when they get a shot as a head coach, prove to be nothing more than really good assistant coaches. Phillips got his one shot as a head coach in Lexington and the program went nowhere. He has since gone back to being what he was always meant to be: A solid assistant coach.

15. Butch Jones, Tennessee, 2013-present (33-26): It’s a reflection of the job the honchos have done at Tennessee that, of the three coaches the Vols have hired since dumping national champion coach Phil Fulmer, Jones was the best hire. And he’s about to be run out of town.

14. Jim McElwain, Florida, 2015-17 (22-12): What is a coach worth after he takes your team to the SEC title game in his first two seasons in town? At Florida, the answer is: Not a lot. McElwain’s tenure was, well, weird, as Connor O’Gara of SDS detailed this week.

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Stuck in the middle with them

13. Houston Nutt, Ole Miss, 2008-11 (24-26): The Rebels hit the AP Top 10 in both of his first two seasons but crashed in his final two seasons, bottoming out at 2-10 in 2011. That was the first 10-loss season in school history and the worst winning percentage (.167) since the 1907 team went 0-6.

T11. Ed Orgeron, LSU, 2016-present (12-4): See Muschamp below.

T11. Will Muschamp, South Carolina, 2016-present (12-9): Both he and Orgeron have had less than two full seasons (Orgeron barely more than a year) so it’s a tad early. That doesn’t stop talk about Orgeron’s job security in Baton Rouge, of course. But both deserve more time to see how things play out once they get more of their own players in place.

10. Mark Stoops, Kentucky, 2013-present (25-32): It has taken a while for Stoops to gain some traction, but it all seems to be coming together in 2017. This squad has a fair shot at finishing second, or tied for it, in the SEC East and that’s a sold feat considering how much depressing football history there is to overcome in Lexington.

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9. Kevin Sumlin, Texas A&M, 2012-present (49-24): I joked Tuesday in a CFP analysis piece that if the season ended at the start of November, there would be an investigation. At A&M it might spark a parade. From August to October, Sumlin would be about third or fourth on this list. In November he’s about 20th. Average it out and here he is, with a winning program but still on the hot seat.

8. Gus Malzahn, Auburn, 2013-present (41-20): How different would War Eagle Nation’s perception of Malzahn be if Auburn had held on for those final 13 seconds to defeat Florida State in the 2013 national championship game? Hard to say, because that would not have changed his team’s propensity for faltering late both in games and in seasons since that night.

7. Derek Mason, Vanderbilt, 2014-present (16-29): Again, this is all rated on a curve. Vanderbilt rarely gets blown out — unless it talks smack about Alabama the week before playing the Tide — which speaks to the team’s preparation level under Mason.

6. Bobby Petrino, Arkansas, 2008-11 (34-17): The way he wheeled out of town (so to speak) tends to obscure the fact that the Razorbacks had two 10-win seasons under Petrino. Since then? Yoiks.

5. Gene Chizik, Auburn, 2009-12 (33-19): How does a coach that won a national championship only sit fifth on this list? Ask any Tigers fan if they think of 2010 as Gene Chizik’s title or Cam Newton’s title. There’s the answer.

4. Hugh Freeze, Ole Miss, 2012-16 (39-25): Yes, his departure was a mess, to say the least, and it might take the Rebels years to dig out of the hole he left behind. But Ole Miss hit the Top 3 in the AP poll in successive seasons (2014-15) and defeated the Crimson Tide in both seasons (darn near made it three in a row last year, too). Freeze’s recruiting haul was pretty memorable.

Totally worth it

3. Kirby Smart, Georgia, 2016-present (16-5): We could use the “it’s still a little early” line here like with Orgeron and Muschamp 2.0, but why? Just this week Georgia achieved its best AP Poll ranking since hitting No. 1 in 2008. More crucially, the Bulldogs are No. 1 in the College Football Playoff rankings, which are more important nowadays. In Year 2, he’s already the standard in the SEC East.

2. James Franklin, Vanderbilt, 2011-13 (24-15): Vanderbilt has four bowl victories in its history. Franklin won two. Since 1959 Vanderbilt has been ranked in the AP poll for a total of six weeks. Two appearances came under Franklin. Since World War II the Commodores have had four seasons with a winning percentage better than .667. Franklin was there for two. Any wonder Penn State came calling?

1. Dan Mullen, Mississippi State, 2009-present (67-44): Of course Mullen will be remembered decades from now as the coach who took the Bulldogs to No. 1. MSU has five weeks at No. 1 in the AP Poll and eight weeks in the Top 5 in history; the 2014 team is responsible for all of them. Mullen has maintained a strong program in the most brutal division in college football.

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The Bulldogs already have qualified for their eighth consecutive bowl under Mullen, extending the longest streak in program history. He’s responsible for five of MSU’s 12 bowl wins, too. Jackie Sherrill is their only other coach who won two.

Any wonder other teams continue to keep calling?