Who are the top 10 coaches in college football entering the 2025 season, according to this ESPN analyst?
On an episode of his Always College Football show, ESPN’s Greg McElroy ranked the 10 best coaches based on things such as longevity, program trajectory and year over year improvement.
Clemson’s Dabo Swinney landed at No. 7 on McElroy’s list.
McElroy lauded Swinney’s impressive resume.
“He is by far the best coach in the history of Clemson football,” McElroy said. “He’s been there for 17 years. Very few in the sport have a better track record than Dabo Swinney. Currently coaching, I’m not sure there is a better track record.
“He’s 180-47 in his 17 years. He’s got two national championships. We know the other coach that has two national championships, and he’s finished ranked in the AP Top 25 14 straight years. 13 of the last 14 years, he has won 10-plus games. … He’s also 12-9 in bowl games, and he made the College Football Playoff seven times.”
Of course, Swinney has taken more than his share of criticism over the years for his approach to the transfer portal, with the narrative having been that he refused to use it.
However, Swinney made multiple moves in the portal after the disappointing loss to Texas in the opening round of last season’s College Football Playoff, and McElroy touched on that while talking about the “big question” surrounding Swinney.
“The big question about Dabo Swinney, though, in the modern day, is how adaptable has he been and will he be in the future in the NIL/transfer portal era,” McElroy said. “I think Dabo Swinney might be doing it a bit differently than some of the other guys that will be ranked at the top of the list. But it doesn’t mean the way he’s doing it is wrong. He’s just looking at it more holistically. He’s putting a greater emphasis on culture and a greater emphasis on retaining his top players as opposed to going out and stealing other teams’ top players.
“Now, they went and got in the portal a little bit this year. They added a receiver. They added a defensive end. They’ve added a few, but they’re not going to ever be a team that majors in the portal. They might just minor in it, and it depends on what their team needs may be, and those portal additions might serve more from a depth standpoint and to allow some position flexibility that they didn’t have prior to the arrival of some of those portal additions.”
McElroy doesn’t think Swinney has fallen behind the times, despite what some may say, and McElroy believes this could be the year that Swinney leads the Tigers to another national title.
“So I look at Dabo Swinney, and people will say, ‘Not today, not anymore. He’s lost a step.’ I respectfully disagree,” McElroy said. “I just think Dabo Swinney believes what he believes, and for good reason, because he averages over 10 wins a season and has in his 17-year career as the head coach of the Clemson Tigers. So, I’m super bullish on Clemson this year. If things go sideways, if things go off the rails and they don’t have the success I anticipate this season, then I could see Dabo Swinney’s ranking dropping significantly. But I think this is the year they’ve had circled.
“This is the one they’ve been building towards, and this is the one where they very well could win the national championship for the first time in quite some time.”
You can see McElroy’s list of the top 10 college football coaches in 2025 below and hear his commentary on each of those coaches in the following video.
No. 10: Penn State’s James Franklin
No. 9: LSU’s Brian Kelly
No. 8: Louisville’s Jeff Brohm
No. 7: Clemson’s Dabo Swinney
No. 6: Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer
No. 5: Oregon’s Dan Lanning
No. 4: Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman
No. 3: Texas’ Steve Sarkisian
No. 2: Ohio State’s Ryan Day
No. 1: Georgia’s Kirby Smart