Kirby Smart disrespected in Joel Klatt's head coach rankings
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Fox Sports analyst Joel Klatt released his top 10 head coaches in college football, and a lot of Georgia Bulldogs fans are up in arms over his rankings. That’s because he ranked Georgia head coach Kirby Smart as the No. 3 head coach in the nation, behind Ohio State’s Ryan Day and Indiana‘s Curt Cignetti.
It appears that there’s a ton of recency bias in the rankings. Cignetti and Day just won national championships, and both of them have arguably had a more difficult path to get there, with the newly revamped College Football Playoff. Ohio State was the No. 8 seed in the CFP, losing two games on the year, so the Buckeyes had to defeat No. 9 Tennessee, No. 1 Oregon, No. 5 Texas, and No. 7 Notre Dame.
Cignetti didn’t have a loss the entire 2025 season, which is why he is the top coach in Klatt’s rankings. Indiana went 16-0, although they had close calls in the Big Ten championship against Ohio State and the national championship against Miami.
Still, Smart should be at least the No. 2 head coach in the nation, if not the No. 1 coach. The Bulldogs have the most wins since the start of the NIL era, with 65 wins. They’ve only had six losses during that span, despite some disappointing playoff appearances in 2024 and 2025. Georgia has also won back-to-back SEC championships.
Klatt’s top 10 head coaches of College Football
- Curt Cignetti (Indiana)
- Ryan Day (Ohio State)
- Kirby Smart (Georgia)
- Dan Lanning (Oregon)
- Marcus Freeman (Notre Dame)
- Steve Sarkisian (Texas)
- Kyle Whittingham (Michigan)
- Kalani Sitake (BYU)
- Mario Cristobal (Miami)
- Lane Kiffin (LSU)
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This article originally appeared on UGA Wire: Kirby Smart disrespected in Joel Klatt’s top-10 head coach rankings
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