2020 College Football Coach of the Year Race
5. Dabo Swinney, Clemson
How about giving the guy whose team is making it all look so easy a little bit of credit? Alabama has struggled a bit on defense – to be nice – and Notre Dame certainly doesn’t look like the No. 3 team in college football.
LSU tapped out, Georgia got trucked by the Tide, and Oklahoma never showed up for the 2020 campaign. Don’t dismiss how sharp the Tigers have been so far.
4. Hugh Freeze, Liberty
5-0 is 5-0. With all the weird things going on at the school, and all of the other issues overall in the 2020 season, Freeze has put together an unbeaten team that went to Syracuse and won by 18, rolled by WKU and FIU programs that went bowling last year, and has his team unbeaten and almost a lock to find a bowl game somewhere as an independent.
3. Kalani Sitake, BYU
The line after the 55-3 pounding over Navy to start the season was that the Midshipmen didn’t tackle much during the offseason, wasn’t quite ready, and … BYU was certainly prepared. It hasn’t all been easy, and the schedule hasn’t been loaded with killers, but the Cougars are 5-0, well ranked, and they’re a national big thing to start the season.
2. Jamey Chadwell, Coastal Carolina
In his third year at the helm, the guy has your 2020 Coastal Carolina Chanticleers ranked in the top 25 in both polls. They’re ahead of LSU, they’re ahead of Oklahoma, they’re ahead of South Carolina, they’re ahead of Appalachian State, Louisiana and Arkansas State, too. His team is the star of of the Sun Belt so far.
1. Sam Pittman, Arkansas
The Coach of the Year race is sort of over now, right?
Arkansas should be 3-1 after getting hosed by a bad call against Auburn, but whatever. The program that was predicted – ahem, hand raised on this – to go winless and be double-digit underdogs against everyone already has two wins over SEC teams.
Arkansas won two games in each of the last two years and hasn’t won two SEC games since 2016. Helped by a great year so far from new defensive coordinator Barry Odom, Pittman has the team playing hard, it’s competitive, and now there’s hope for a program that’s been so, so miserable over the last few seasons.
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