Being that it is deep into the offseason of college football, we’re getting a lot of best-of list rankings from the national media, so why not take a look at them all? The latest is a ranking of the top 25 college football coaches in the game today, and CBS Sports’ Tom Fornelli and company have opinions.
Fornelli went through the effort of discerning the best 25, but did it with help from a panel of writers. The site has been doing this for 11 years, and it feels like there were some pretty big swings from what we saw last season, notably one coach moving all the way to No. 1 from outside the top 20 (you can probably guess who).
Advertisement
Being that we are an Ohio State homer site, of course, we’re interested to see where Ryan Day landed, but also curious about all of the Big Ten coaches and more. On that note, CBS Sports has Day as the third-best coach in the country behind Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti at No. 1 and Georgia’s Kirby Smart at No. 2.
Here’s what CBS Sports says about Day:
“Ohio State was unable to follow up its national title with another in 2025. The Buckeyes finished 12-2 overall and went 9-0 in conference play before falling to eventual national champion Indiana in the conference title game. They were also upset in their lone playoff game by the Miami team that would also lose to Indiana. So while Day finally got over that Michigan hump, nobody at Ohio State will ever be happy about finishing the season on a two-game losing streak. Given what he’s accomplished through his entire career, though, nobody on our panel even thought about ranking him lower than third. That said, Day didn’t garner a single first-place vote after picking some up last year.”
You could easily make the argument for Day at No. 1, but you know how these things work; it’s more of a what have you done for me lately and Cignetti’s work to take Indiana to the College Football Playoff national championship and a head-to-head win over Day and Ohio State was enough to push him to the top. It doesn’t matter what the Buckeyes did last year with a national title and a win over Indiana, but it does matter that OSU lost back-to-back games in the postseason last season.
Advertisement
Other Big Ten coaches who made the list include Dan Lanning at Oregon (5), Michigan’s Kyle Whittingham (10), Matt Campbell of Penn State (16), USC’s Lincoln Riley (17), Kirk Ferentz of Iowa (20), and Illinois’ Bret Bielema (25).
These things eventually become more accurate over time, and something tells me Day is going to continue to have his teams compete at an elite level, so don’t be surprised if he eventually makes it to the top.
Contact/Follow us @BuckeyesWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Ohio State news, notes, and opinion. Follow Phil Harrison on X.
This article originally appeared on Buckeyes Wire: Ohio State coach Ryan Day among best college coaches per CBS Sports
