Coach rankings always force the same uncomfortable choice: are you rewarding the coach with the deepest body of work, or the one who has done the most lately? Right now, that question sits squarely on Kirby Smart and Curt Cignetti.
Smart has spent the last decade turning Georgia into the sport’s standard. Cignetti just took Indiana, one of college football’s toughest jobs on paper, to a national championship. Both have a real argument for No. 1, and both arguments are built on very different kinds of proof.
Smart still owns the stronger long-term resume. Georgia’s 2021 and 2022 national titles snapped a 41-year drought and changed the Bulldogs from a contender into the program everyone else has to chase.
He is 117-21 at Georgia, the Bulldogs have won at least 11 games in five straight seasons, and they picked up back-to-back SEC championships in 2024 and 2025. That kind of consistency is hard enough in any era, and Smart has done it in one where roster turnover never stops.
He has also kept Georgia from acting like a team that has to rebuild every winter. Smart calls it a "retention team," a program designed to recruit players, develop them and keep as many as possible. That matters in a sport shaped by the transfer portal, NIL and constant churn.
But Georgia has not been perfect. The Bulldogs lost their opening CFP game in each of the past two seasons, including a 39-34 quarterfinal loss to Ole Miss after winning the 2025 SEC title. Smart addressed that directly at SEC Media Days.
"We've got to find a way to, whether we win the SEC or not, to get into that playoff and play better and play bigger in bigger moments," Smart said.
That only sharpens the case for him. He is not pretending the recent results don’t matter. He knows the bar in Athens is higher than simply winning the SEC or getting into the playoff.
Still, if the question is who has done the most right now, Cignetti has the louder answer. Indiana went 27-2 in his first two seasons, won the 2025 Big Ten championship and then finished 16-0 with the program’s first national title.
That is not just a turnaround. It is one of the most startling transformations in modern college football.
And this was not some sleeping giant waiting to be awakened. Indiana was the losingest program in FBS history. Cignetti walked into a roster in transition, brought in his own players and staff, and turned the Hoosiers into a team that beat Ohio State in the Big Ten title game and powered through the playoff.
Before the title game, Cignetti explained his formula this way: "There's no magic wand. It's the fundamentals, and you've got to have the right people, number one. If you don't have the right people, it doesn't matter, on your staff or in the locker room."
Indiana’s season gave that line real weight. Cignetti has shown he can use the portal as more than a name-collection exercise, finding experienced fits and getting them to play disciplined football fast.
The Hoosiers did not get by on luck. They won because the roster, the staff and the game management held up against the best teams in the sport.
ESPN’s recent panel had Cignetti at No. 1, with five of 10 first-place votes to Smart’s four. That wasn’t a slight to Georgia. It was a nod to the fact that Cignetti just delivered the biggest result in the sport.
Indiana’s own record says the same thing: no FBS coach has won more games in his first two seasons at one school.
Smart had already been the clear No. 1 in the wake of Nick Saban’s retirement, when Georgia went 29-1, won back-to-back national championships and made everyone else look like they were playing a different game. But college football moves fast. The sport rewards the latest trophy, not the last great stretch.
That’s why Cignetti holds the top spot now. Georgia can change the conversation again with a title in 2026, and Smart’s case would snap right back to the front.
But today, the coach standing on the sport’s highest ground is the one who just finished last season with the trophy in hand. Until someone knocks off the Hoosiers, the crown runs through Cignetti and Bloomington.
In Other News...
Indiana Still Looms Over Oregon As Dante Moore Revisits That Loss
Dante Moore is back preparing for the 2026 season at Oregon after choosing to return instead of jumping to the NFL Draft, and a familiar name from Indiana still sits in the background of that reset. The Ducks quarterback has spent part of his offseason studying film of former Hoosiers quarterback Fernando Mendoza, who helped lead Indiana to a national championship, as Moore looks for ways to sharpen his own game and move forward from the postseason disappointment that ended Oregons run.
Moore has also been revisiting that CFP semifinal loss to Indiana, the kind of game that lingers because it exposed just how thin the margin can be on the biggest stage. He said he is excited about what comes next, but the film study and the memory of that defeat make clear that Indiana has not faded into the rearview mirror for Oregon yet, at least not for the quarterback trying to turn the page. [Read more 🡒]
Indiana Defense Is Earning National Respect All Over Again
Indiana football is starting to draw the kind of defensive buzz that usually comes with programs farther up the national pecking order. CBS Sports has projected the Hoosiers to field one of the top defensive fronts in the country for the 2026 season, slotting them No. 8 overall and No. 2 in the Big Ten, a sign that last years momentum on that side of the ball has not gone unnoticed.
Much of that respect comes from the pieces Indiana already has in place, with Mario Landino, Tyrique Tucker, Rolijah Hardy and Isaiah Jones all back in the mix. The Hoosiers also went into the portal to add help from Kansas State and Notre Dame, and the group now carries a mix of preseason honors and breakout potential that suggests Indianas defensive reputation is growing beyond Bloomington. [Read more 🡒]
Indiana Fans Have A New Reason To Rally Around Curt Cignetti
Indiana has spent plenty of recent seasons looking up at the rest of the Big Ten, but the first preseason coaches poll offered a different kind of headline. USA Today slotted the Hoosiers at No. 6, making them the third-highest-ranked conference team behind only Ohio State and Oregon. For a program that has been building momentum under Curt Cignetti, it is another sign that the outside view of Indiana has changed in a hurry.
The ranking also gives Hoosier fans a fresh reason to circle the calendar as the new season approaches. Indiana opens against North Texas, and the early buzz around the program will only grow if the Hoosiers can turn preseason respect into a fast start. Cignetti has already helped shift the conversation around Indiana, and now the challenge is proving the ranking was more than just offseason optimism. [Read more 🡒]