Let’s be honest. When you think of “Coach of the Year,” you think of “Coach who rose highest above expectations.” Depending on where you look, that’s what the award is.

In the SEC, that’s not what “Coach of the Year” means. It can be that, but it’s by no means the default. At least not recently.

To win SEC Coach of the Year, one must remember what the award isn’t. It isn’t an “overachiever” award.

Look at the past 7 winners:

  • 2016 — Nick Saban
  • 2017 — Kirby Smart
  • 2018 — Mark Stoops
  • 2019 — Ed Orgeron
  • 2020 — Nick Saban
  • 2021 — Kirby Smart
  • 2022 — Kirby Smart

That’s 6 out of 7 SEC Coach of the Year winners who won the SEC Championship and were en route to a national title berth. Stoops was the lone exception in that stretch.

Last year showed exactly why that’s become the trend. Josh Heupel led Tennessee to its best season in 19 years and Brian Kelly beat Alabama en route to an SEC West title in Year 1. Still, though, it was too difficult for the AP voters to ignore Smart going 13-0 after winning a title and losing 15 players to the NFL Draft.

The SEC rewards greatness. When 16 of your past 17 champs have played in the national championship, that’s the standard. Coach of the Year isn’t exclusively for overachieving anymore.

Keep that in mind as Eli Drinkwitz tries to beat out Nick Saban and Kirby Smart.

That’s what the race has come down to. With all due respect to fellow 2-loss coach Lane Kiffin, it’s hard to imagine him getting that kind of love after the lopsided loss in Athens. Drinkwitz’s case isn’t just “we had a chance to take the lead in Athens in the final 5 minutes.” It’s “I just led Mizzou to its best season in a decade.”

Is that a solid argument? Sure. Is it a slam dunk to beat the winner of Saban vs. Smart Part VI? Probably not.

It wouldn’t be a knock against Drinkwitz if he came up short of being the first Mizzou coach since 2014 (Gary Pinkel) to win the award. What he’s done this year has been fantastic, and his stock has never been higher. It’s what’ll probably earn him another raise at some point in the near future.

If the voting happened now, yes, I believe Drinkwitz would win the award after the Saturday he had. After an emotional loss on the road at Georgia to end Playoff hopes, Mizzou could’ve turned around and gotten smacked by a Tennessee team that dominated the matchup each of the past 2 years. Instead, Mizzou did the smacking. Never mind the fact that Luther Burden III was clearly still limited by an ankle injury. The Tigers dominated.

They dominated because Drinkwitz’s third defensive coordinator hire, Blake Baker, was a step ahead of Josh Heupel’s staff all day. They dominated because Drinkwitz’s first offensive play-caller, Kirby Moore, kept a battle-tested Tennessee defense on its heels all day and racked up 530 yards of offense. And of course, they dominated because Drinkwitz’s former walk-on Division II transfer tailback Cody Schrader got 40 scrimmage touches for 326 yards.

Drinkwitz went from a borderline hot-seat guy heading into Year 4 to leading one of the most complete teams in America. SEC Coach of the Year or not, he deserves immense credit for that. Unlike the 2013 and 2014 teams, Mizzou won’t represent the East in Atlanta because 2013-14 Georgia is not 2023 Georgia. At best, Mizzou’s regular season will close with the same 10-2 record but without the trip to the SEC Championship. “Best season in a decade” might not be enough because with Heupel, “best season in nearly 2 decades” wasn’t enough.

Stoops leading Kentucky to its best season in nearly 4 decades was enough. It also probably helped that season that Saban’s 13-0 team was the preseason No. 1 and up until the SEC Championship, they won every game by at least 24 points. That didn’t fit the “reward greatness” narrative.

This year, Saban and Smart can both make the case that they overcame in-season obstacles to clinch division titles.

Saban’s squad had zero margin for error post-Texas loss, and it had zero reason to believe it was a Playoff contender post-USF win (that felt more like a loss). Smart’s team entered the year in hopes of becoming the first team to 3-peat in 87 years, and while his squad’s rock bottom wasn’t as low as Alabama’s USF debacle, it had to overcome slow starts in the first half of the season. The Brock Bowers injury didn’t slow down Georgia, either (it also somehow didn’t slow Bowers down).

You could make a real case for either coach, and it wouldn’t be lazy. Lazy is assuming that they’ve never won the award. Smart earned that title each year that his team was en route to the national championship. Saban won the award 4 times during his 17 seasons at Alabama, which on the surface feels low, but when else should he have won it?

(Remember, voting isn’t after the national championship. It’s after the SEC Championship.)

Maybe 2015 would’ve been fair to give it to Saban, but it went to Year 1 Jim McElwain, who led Florida to an East title after failing to record a winning conference record the previous 2 seasons. The 2014 season was aforementioned Pinkel at Mizzou, Gus Malzahn had the kick-6 in Year 1 to prevent the Tide 3-peat and Kevin Sumlin led A&M to an unprecedented season in 2012, which included a Heisman Trophy winner and a win in Tuscaloosa.

SEC Coach of the Year isn’t just some slap in the face to Saban. It’s not a slap in the face to Smart, either. The guy is trying for a 3-peat there, too.

Including Drinkwitz, 2 of those 3 coaches will feel disrespected when that award comes out. It’ll be just like last year with Kelly and Heupel. Is that a bad thing? It shouldn’t be.

It should instead be a reminder that nothing comes easy in the SEC.