Recently the Athletic’s Stewart Mandel and Bruce Feldman (subscription required) released their top 25 coaches in college football.
It should come as a surprise to absolutely no one that Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban took home the top spot. Despite Kirby Smart winning back-to-back national championships, it wasn’t enough to unseat one of the greatest head coaches of all time. Saban has won seven national championships since 2000.
On Tuesday, they released their top Group of 5 head coach rankings. Gilmer high school coaching legend Jeff Traylor made the list as the top head coach heading into 2023.
What The Athletic Says…
Few coaching hires anywhere have been as successful as Traylor, who in three years has produced the three best seasons in UTSA’s short history. The Roadrunners have won two consecutive Conference USA championships, with a 23-5 overall record and a 17-1 record against C-USA teams over the last two years. He also just signed the No. 1 G5 high school recruiting class in the 2023 cycle. Traylor passed on interest from Texas Tech a year ago, but the former legendary Texas high school coach is making his mark at the college level.
Traylor joined the Texas Longhorns following the 2014 season with Gilmer, he served as the special teams coordinator and tight ends coach in 2015 and 2016. He was named associate head coach at SMU and also coached running backs for one season prior to joining the Arkansas staff. UT-San Antonio would make Traylor their next head coach for the 2022 campaign. He was named Conference USA Coach of the Year in each of the last two seasons. This year he will look for his first bowl victory.
Another former Longhorn coach made the list as he returns to the collegiate landscape with Tom Herman checking in at No. 7.
What The Athletic Says…
The former Houston and Texas coach is back in college football after two seasons spent in the NFL and in the media. Herman’s resume is still quite impressive: Four Top 25 finishes in six years as a head coach (including two top 10s), two New Year’s Six bowl wins, zero seasons with a losing overall or conference record. He takes over an FAU team moving from Conference USA to the American Athletic Conference. Herman is only this low because it’s been a few years since he was last in college football.
Herman finished his run at Texas with four-straight winning seasons and becoming the only Longhorns head coach to win a bowl game in each of his first four seasons. He never suffered a losing season but athletic director Chris Del Conte opted to go in a different direction, ultimately hiring Steve Sarkisian away from Alabama.
After being away from the college game for two years, we shall see what Herman has in store with FAU as he returns to the AAC where he coached Houston from 2015 to 2016.
These two head coaches will go head to head on Oct. 21 in Boca Raton. This conference matchup’s game time is still to be determined.
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