As the 2025 college football season approaches, Greg McElroy broke down the game’s best head coaches.
On his Always Football podcast, McElroy ranked the top 25 head coaches for the 2025 season. After going up to 11 earlier this week, the former Alabama quarterback highlighted his top 10 on Thursday’s episode.
McElroy ultimately gave the No. 1 slot to Kirby Smart. Georgia’s head coach placed ahead of Ryan Day, Steve Sarkisian, Marcus Freeman, and Dan Lanning.
The ESPN analyst noted Smart’s 105-19 record, two national titles, and 9-3 mark in bowl games.
“If you look back, he’s just been steady, consistent,” McElroy said. “Sometimes it feels like Georgia’s never going to lose a game.”
The Bulldogs went 8-5 in Smart’s first season as head coach, but McElroy said the program has been “off-the-charts good” since 2017.
“They’ve been recruiting at a ridiculous clip,” McElroy added. “They’re producing first-round talent like there’s no tomorrow, and they’ve had at least one first-round pick in every single draft dating back to the 2018 NFL Draft.”
McElroy also likes that Smart’s teams play with an “edge.”
“They are not a team that teams want to play against,” he said. “They’re violent. They’re physical.”
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While McElory doesn’t think the 2024 Bulldogs rank any better than fifth or sixth among Smart’s nine teams, they still won the SEC championship. Georgia defeated Texas for the conference title despite Carson Beck getting hurt before halftime.
“So the fact that he had way less than his best stuff and yet his team still found a way to win on a week-to-week basis en route to a championship in the conference that is the most difficult to win, tells you all you need to know about the health and status of the Georgia Bulldogs,” McElroy claimed.
McElroy doesn’t know if Smart will bring Georgia back to 2021-2023 levels of domination over the next few years. However, he expects the Bulldogs to remain a prominent title contender.
“Knowing that Kirby Smart is consistently landing top recruiting classes and has continued to develop a culture of toughness and physicality, I don’t think they’re going anywhere,” McElroy predicted. “I think they’ll be back in the mix for a national championship this year and probably every year for the foreseeable future.”
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