College football coaching grades for LSU, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, and more

From James Franklin’s shocking mid-season firing to the entire Lane Kiffin saga, this has been one of the most chaotic college football coaching carousels we’ve ever seen and it’s finally reaching its crescendo.

With the regular season complete, the top vacancies in the country are starting to be filled and we’re getting an idea of what the sport’s landscape will look like in 2026 and beyond. So, let’s give out some grades for these hires and see who nailed their choice and who will be right back in this position a few years from now. Let’s go.

LSU Tigers coaching grade for Lane Kiffin hire

LSU got its man. It successfully infiltrated one of its historic rivals and poached their head coach in a multi-week drama that saw Lane Kiffin leave a College Football Playoff-bound team to come to Baton Rouge. In his introductory press conference, he immediately expressed how the LSU job is “different” and even called it the best job in football. Now we’ll see if he can deliver on those national championship expectations.

Kiffin checks off several boxes LSU was looking for in the aftermath of Brian Kelly’s firing, namely being a successful head coach with experience running an SEC program at a high level. He has a .688 career winning percentage and is far and away the best head coach in the post-integration era of Ole Miss football, achieving 10+ wins four times through his six seasons in Oxford. He did an excellent job in the talent acquisition department with the Rebels and he will reportedly have an NIL war chest of $25-$30 million annually with the Tigers. This combined with an elite coaching staff and the program’s natural location in the talent-rich state of Louisiana should make LSU a strong CFP contender in the years to come.

But did LSU really have to do all of this for this guy? The school decided to eat Kelly’s $54 million buyout and then turned around to give a seven-year, $91 million deal to a coach that’s never even sniffed the SEC Championship Game. The Tigers are expecting total dominance with what they’re investing into this operation and while Kiffin has had success, he’s typically struggled against the Alabama’s and the Georgia’s of the world. That’s not even mentioning how the his flirtation with Auburn led to the Rebels collapsing in 2022 and losses to subpar Kentucky and Florida teams cost them a shot at the playoffs last season. And also, it’s Lane Kiffin. They know what they’re getting with his antics and personality and they’re most likely going to have to set even more money on fire when this inevitably goes south. We’ll see if they can at least collect a few trophies along the way.

Grade: A-

Florida Gators coaching grade for Jon Sumrall hire

Florida was originally the presumed destination for Kiffin before LSU entered the scene and it bowed out of the race once it started to become clear that he would not be heading to Gainesville. So the Gator brass shifted gears and landed on Tulane’s Jon Sumrall, who is an American title game victory from earning a spot in the CFP. The response from Gator fans has been…harsh. Some of it is anger over not getting Kiffin. Some of it is fury over hiring another Group of Five coach right after Billy Napier’s failed tenure. And some of it may just be general frustration over their place in the college football world after 15 years of middling results with multiple head coaches.

Putting all of that aside, Sumrall at least appears to be a pretty solid choice for UF. He has SEC coaching bonafides with assistant coaching stops at both his alma mater Kentucky and Ole Miss. He’s led both Troy and Tulane to their respective conference title games in all four of his years as a head coach and his 2022 Trojans team notably finished 7th in defensive SP+ that season. Offensive firepower is embedded in the DNA of Florida’s program and during his introductory press conference, the defensive-minded Sumrall made sure to assure fans that they will be stretching the field. With former Jacksonville Jaguars general manager Dave Caldwell becoming the new GM of the program, we’ll see if Sumrall can lift the Gators back up into national relevance.

Grade: B

Auburn Tigers grade for Alex Golesh hire

Auburn was seemingly closing in on the Huntsville-native Sumrall before Florida swooped in and prior to the Iron Bowl, it appeared the school was going to simply promote interim head coach/defensive coordinator D.J. Durkin to the permanent job. Within just 12 hours after their seven-point loss to Alabama, however, the Tigers managed to pull USF’s Alex Golesh. The former Tennessee offensive coordinator successfully rebuilt a broken Bulls program that had just one FBS win in the three years prior, culminating in a 9-3 mark this year where they knocked off Florida and fell just short of making the American Championship Game.

Similar to his former boss Josh Heupel at Tennessee, Golesh runs an extremely aggressive, fast-tempo offense and this year’s Bulls team managed to put up 48+ points seven different times. The offense is suited for elite wide receivers like Auburn’s Cam Coleman to put up video game numbers, as well as quarterbacks like USF’s Byrum Brown, who achieved a rare 3,000/1,000 campaign this year. Time will tell if Auburn has the same amount of success running this system as Tennessee, but it should at least be pleased with a relatively normal hire after the Bryan Harsin/Hugh Freeze debacles.

Grade: B

Ole Miss Rebels coaching grade for Pete Golding hire

Kiffin’s decision about his future dragged on for weeks and it cost Ole Miss an opportunity to take a full swing at candidates like Sumrall or Golesh. Kiffin’s antics on his end has drawn criticism and scorn, but one could argue that the top brass in Oxford aren’t without blame either, as they let the head coach blow right past their deadlines to make a decision. Needing to maintain stability and avoid the the LSU-bound coach poaching the entire staff to Baton Rouge, the Rebels simply promoted DC Pete Golding to the permanent head coaching job and he’ll be the one leading the program into the playoffs.

Golding arrived to Ole Miss in 2023 after a multi-year stint as Alabama’s DC, where he took heavy criticism from Crimson Tide fans for the units not being as dominant as they were in year’s past. He was able to produce some strong units in Oxford, most notably a 2024 defense that limited opponents to just 4.5 yards per play and finished 3rd in defensive SP+ for that season. Golding will keep things stable for the time being but similar to their promotion of Matt Luke in 2017, they’ll most likely be right back in this position in a few years.

Grade: B-

Arkansas Razorbacks grade for Ryan Silverfield hire

Social media is a toxic, cesspool of a place that is aiding the ruination of well, everything. But sometimes it can be a useful tool to gauge how a fan base feels about a particular coach when he leaves. A “sniff test” if you will. If you looked up Ryan Silverfield’s name after he accepted the Arkansas job on Sunday, you would find Memphis fans basically doing cartwheels over him hauling off to Fayetteville and Arkansas fans showing up to the athletic facility with signs and paper bags over their heads.

On the surface, this seems ridiculous considering that he posted a 50-25 record through six full seasons as the head coach of the Tigers. But then consider that his Memphis teams never finished above third in the American despite mostly out-recruiting the rest of the league under his watch and being showered in Fed-Ex money. The team completely folded down the stretch with three straight losses to end this season and that doesn’t necessarily inspire excitement if you’re a Razorback fan that has been waiting two months to find out who the next coach would be. Arkansas is a program in the SEC that always needs to figure out how to do more with less and they hired a coach who just did less with more. Good luck Hogs.

Grade: C-

Virginia Tech Hokies grade for James Franklin hire

Virginia Tech: “Ok, we’re in a bit of an existential crisis after firing Brent Pry. What can we do to elevate our standing in a rapidly changing landscape, especially in an ACC that’s on shaky ground? Ok, first let’s add $229 million to our athletic budget to show we’re serious about spending money. Ok, sweet. Now we need a new head coach. Someone that’s going to instantly inject life into the program. Hey, James Franklin is now available. He’ll probably get better offers, but let’s just call his agent up and give it a shot. Wait, he’s actually interested?! Wait, he’s going to accept the job?!“

Tech hit a home run by landing Franklin, a guy who just had Penn State on the doorstep of a national championship game appearance less than 12 months ago. For all of the criticisms of his performances in big moments in Happy Valley, this is still a coach who has won 68% of his career games and has been one of the best recruiters in the entire sport over the past 15 years. Heck, he has been on a recruiting tear as we speak and is notably flipping prospects that he previously had committed at Penn State. In an ACC that has been defined by chaos in 2025, Franklin shoot the Hokies right to the top of the conference quickly.

Grade: A+

Kentucky Wildcats grade for Will Stein hire

Things really soured for Mark Stoops and Kentucky after his near departure to Texas A&M in 2023 got blown up at the zero hour. The veteran coach emphatically refused to step down after they were blasted 41-0 by Louisville last week and practically dared the Wildcat brass to fire him. So they did. Enter Will Stein. The former Louisville quarterback has rapidly risen up the ranks as one of the new, up-and-coming faces of the sport, getting his first big break at UTSA’s offensive coordinator in 2022.

His success with quarterback Frank Harris in San Antonio shot him up to the Oregon OC job in 2023, where he has guided QB’s like Dillon Gabriel and Dante Moore since. At 36, Stein now returns as to his home state as the youngest head coach in the SEC and has a chance to be Kentucky’s version of Dan Lanning and Kenny Dillingham by injecting life into a program that dipped in the final years of Stoops.

Grade: B+

Michigan State Spartans grade for Pat Fitzgerald hire

Ok, look Sparty. I get it. The Jonathan Smith thing wasn’t working out and you were probably going to get rid him eventually. But you couldn’t just wait a year for someone on their way up like Sean Lewis or Jason Eck? You had to set $33.5 million on fire to go hire Pat Fitzgerald? We’d be here all day if we got into the specifics of the Northwestern hazing scandal that got him fired and subsequent lawsuit, but are you choosing to also ignore that he went a combined 4-20 in his final two years with that program? That he once called RPO’s the “purest form of communism” with a straight face…in 2018? That guy? Alright, you do you I guess. Good luck.

Grade: D

Oklahoma State Cowboys grade for Eric Morris hire

Eric Morris has North Texas on the verge of a CFP berth and that was good enough to land him the Oklahoma State job, where he will replace Mike Gundy after his two-decade run in Stillwater. The OSU-bound coach has the traits of what you’d expect for a Big 12 coach: strong ties to the state of Texas and a PhD in the Air Raid. But his work with quarterbacks is what sets him apart.

You may have heard of some dudes named Patrick Mahomes, Baker Mayfield, and Cam Ward, all of whom were under the tutelage of Morris at some point throughout their collegiate careers. This year is arguably his best work yet as he’s turned Drew Mestemaker, a redshirt freshman walk-on who didn’t even start in high school, into the American Conference Offensive Player of the Year. Chances are Mestemaker will follow Morris to Stillwater to light it up for OSU. And if it doesn’t, other QB’s will be lining up to learn from the QB whisperer. We don’t know if OSU will rise back to the top of the Big 12 but dangit, it’ll at least be fun.

Grade: B

UCLA Bruins grade for Bob Chesney hire

UCLA’s in a pretty weird spot right now. It’s athletic department has racked up massive debt in recent years. It’s in a dispute with the city of Pasadena over the possible move from the Rose Bowl to SoFi Stadium. Oh, and it’s football team hasn’t been competitive through two years in the Big Ten. Who’s going to take this job?

Oh, Bob Chesney stepped up to the plate! It’s kind of an odd fit on paper considering that he has spent his entire coaching career on the East Coast, moving up from DIII to DII to FCS to his current role at James Madison, where he has the Dukes on the verge of a possible playoff bid. The guy just flat out wins, simple as that. He owns a 131-51 career record and a victory in the Sun Belt Championship Game would mark his seventh career conference title. Indiana was on to something when hiring his predecessor Curt Cignetti and maybe Chesney is the guy that can revitalize the Bruins.

Grade: A-

Kansas State Wildcats grade for Collin Klein hire

Chris Klieman decided to step down after a disappointing 6-6 season for Kansas State, opening the door for program legend Collin Klein to return home as head coach. This has been a prophecy since the 2012 Heisman finalist graduated from the school and the 36-year-old returns to his alma mater as one of the rising offensive minds in the coaching ranks.

Originally an OC at the school before accepting the same gig at Texas A&M, his last three offenses all finished the year ranked 26th, 7th, and 29th respectively, with this year’s CFP-bound unit currently 8th. The combination of his offensive prowess and strong connection to the program made this move a no-brainer for the Wildcats, and that could have a homegrown coach that could be there for a really long time.

Grade: A+

Cal Golden Bears grade for Tosh Lupoi hire

The Justin Wilcox-era in Berkeley finally fizzled out after nine seasons and Oregon DC Tosh Lupoi will return home to his alma mater to run Cal’s football program. This is another move that has been seemingly written in the stars for years now as the Bay Area native has worked his way around through stints at Washington, Alabama, and the NFL before leading an Oregon defense that is about to make a second straight trip to the playoffs.

Is this a splashy hire? Not necessarily. But Cal will be stable with a familiar face leading the program and with this weird setup it has in the ACC at the moment, stability is good. Solid move.

Grade: B

Stanford Cardinal grade for Tavita Pritchard hire

Pritchard is another coach returning to his alma mater and it’s a bit underwhelming. I mean, Pritchard did lead the program to its legendary 2007 upset of USC and was a longtime assistant before jumping to the Commanders in 2023. But for a job that that opened way back in March…this was the final result?

This job is more about the actual head honcho in general manager and Cardinal king Andrew Luck, who actually replaced Pritchard as Stanford’s starting QB in 2009. This will be one of the first tests of how the GM-era of college football will work with Luck handling all of the personnel aspects and Pritchard taking care of the coaching. We’ll find out in a few years just how valuable Pritchard is to this operation.

Grade: C