Where does Brian Kelly rank among college football coaches entering 2022

You’d be hard-pressed to find more than a handful of active coaches more accomplished than Brian Kelly entering the 2022 season.

The longtime Notre Dame and new LSU head man is the third-winningest active coach in FBS at 263, just two shy of North Carolina’s Mack Brown and six behind Alabama’s Nick Saban. He’s been named the national coach of the year twice and is one of just seven coaches with multiple appearances in the College Football Playoff, though he’s still searching for his first national title at the Division I level — he won two at Division II Grand Valley State.

Sporting News’ Bill Bender, who listed his top 10 coaches in college football on The Paul Finebaum Show, ranked Kelly at No. 6 entering the 2022 season. That puts him behind Saban, Clemson’s Dabo Swinney, Georgia’s Kirby Smart, Ohio State’s Ryan Day and Cincinnati’s Luke Fickell.

Three of those five have titles, and the remaining two — Day and Fickell — have had very impressive tenures at their respective schools and tout three combined CFP appearances. Interestingly, Kelly ranks just above Lincoln Riley, who left Oklahoma for USC after a flirtation with LSU and was seen a the first choice for Tigers athletic director Scott Woodward.

Woodward ended up making an aggressive move after all in bringing one of the most touted coaches in the country to the bayou. Now it’s time to see if that “go big or go home” strategy will pay off for LSU as Kelly looks to become the fourth consecutive Tigers coach to win a national title.

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LSU's Brian Kelly ranks among the 10 best coaches

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