{"id":941760,"date":"2026-07-10T12:18:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T12:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/941760\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T12:18:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T12:18:14","slug":"acc-football-usa-today-ranks-all-17-head-coaches-going-into-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/941760\/","title":{"rendered":"ACC Football: USA Today ranks all 17 head coaches going into 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

As we get ready for the 2206 college football season, USA Today stacked up and ranked all of the ACC head coaches<\/a>. In a loaded conference, all 17 have plenty of good and bad going into the fall.<\/p>\n

The top of the conference features some elite coaches, but don\u2019t overlook the next tier. USA Today\u2019s Austin Curtright went from No. 1 to 17 and we\u2019ll dissect the ranking.<\/p>\n

$19.99 gets you a FULL year of On3 | Rivals national coverage<\/a><\/p>\n

So without further ado, let\u2019s look at the hierarchy of ACC football coaches. We\u2019ll start at the top!<\/p>\n

Cristobal tops the ACC coaching rankings going into the new college football season. After leading the Hurricanes to the national title game, Cristobal re-established himself as one of the best in the country.<\/p>\n

He is 35-19 in four seasons but 23-6 in the last two years. He\u2019s hit his stride and winning the CFP is now the year to year expectation.<\/p>\n

Despite having some down years by Clemson standards this century, Swinney is still one of the best coaches in the ACC. 2024 was a resurgent year, winning the conference and getting to the CFP.<\/p>\n

But 2025 was a disaster by Swinney\u2019s standards, going 7-5 and not finishing ranked for the first time since 2010. Overall, he is 187-53 and has two national titles under his belt. Perhaps 2026 is a prove-it-year for Swinney to show he can still take this team to the dance and beyond.<\/p>\n

Franklin is a really good coach. But, he was criticized for not getting to the top of the mountain at Penn State despite numerous opportunities. Rivals Michigan and Ohio State, and now Indiana, have come out of the Big Ten as national champions during his time in State College.<\/p>\n

But, Franklin is a good program builder and that\u2019s exactly what Virginia Tech needs to compete for the ACC. Franklin is 128-60 as a head coach with Vandy and Penn State and won 104 games in the last 12 seasons.<\/p>\n

Lashlee has been impressive as SMU\u2019s head coach. He\u2019s used to the ACC being from the Miami staff as an OC and the Mustangs have already made the CFP under his watch.<\/p>\n

In four seasons, he is 38-16 and Year 5 could feature SMU competing for the conference crown and a playoff spot once again. It helps that he\u2019s developed QB Kevin Jennings along the way.<\/p>\n

Brohm has always been solid, just go look at his results at Purdue. He got that squad to a Big Ten Championship Game in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In three seasons at his alma mater, the Cardinals have gone 28-12 and made the ACC Championship in 2023. Back to back 9-4 seasons have been good, but now it\u2019s time to move up a step on the ladder.<\/p>\n

Key is another guy who has returned to his alma mater and turned things around. After going 4-4 in 2022 when taking over midseason, Key has produced winning campaigns each of the last three years.<\/p>\n

2025 saw GT in contention for the ACC, but they finished 9-4. Still, they finished No. 24 in the final poll and played in the highly popular and competitive Pop-Tarts Bowl.<\/p>\n

Diaz\u2019s second chance at an ACC head coaching gig has been solid so far. After not living up to expectations at Miami, Diaz led the Blue Devils to a conference crown in 2025. If they had two losses less, perhaps that was a playoff team!<\/p>\n

Still, Diaz is 18-9 in two seasons at Duke after rebuilding himself as a coordinator at Penn State. He has to prove more over more seasons, and try to replace QB Darian Mensah who left for the Hurricanes, but Duke is going to be competitive moving forward.<\/p>\n

Dickert isn\u2019t higher up in the ACC rankings right now due to only being at Wake Forest for one season. It was a good one though as the Demon Deacons went 9-4 and won the Duke\u2019s Mayo Bowl.<\/p>\n

Dickert went 23-20 in four seasons at Washington State after taking over for Nick Rolovich midseason in 2021. Dealing with the lack of a real Pac-12 conference at the time, Dickert did a lot with little with the Cougars, proving he might be able to do the same here.<\/p>\n

The ever-energetic Narduzzi goes into Year 12 at Pitt and has amassed some pretty good seasons. He is 80-61 during his time and he even won the ACC in 2021.<\/p>\n

However, Narduzzi is lower on this list of ACC coaches considering he\u2019s led Pitt to double digit wins only once, that 2021 season. They\u2019re competitive, but on the outside looking in right now when it comes to the CFP and it\u2019s been a recurring theme.<\/p>\n

To round out the top 10 of ACC coaches is Elliott. Coming over from his post as Clemson\u2019s OC in 2022, there was hype around the Cavs.<\/p>\n

But back to back three-win seasons dampened the buzz around Virginia football. In fact, Elliot and UVA went 5-7 in 2024, putting him, likely, on the hot seat. In 2025, Virginia went 11-3, were runner-ups in the ACC and were this close to the CFP. Now there\u2019s hope again!<\/p>\n

11. Dave Doeren<\/a>, NC State<\/a>
12. Fran Brown<\/a>, Syracuse<\/a>
13. Mike Norvell<\/a>, Florida State<\/a>
14. Tosh Lupoi<\/a>, Cal<\/a>
15. Tavita Pritchard<\/a>, Stanford<\/a>
16. Bill O\u2019Brien<\/a>, Boston College<\/a>
17. Bill Belichick<\/a>, North Carolina<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As we get ready for the 2206 college football season, USA Today stacked up and ranked all of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":941761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3851,34154,5981,45108,7,27632,31477,18605,45110,17043,49731,49,48,49732,5991,93474,49733,87133],"class_list":["post-941760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-bill-belichick","tag-brent-key-00-hewitt-trussville","tag-dabo-swinney-90-pelham","tag-dave-doeren-90-bishop-miege","tag-football","tag-fran-brown","tag-jake-dickert","tag-james-franklin-91-neshaminy","tag-jeff-brohm-89-trinity","tag-mario-cristobal-88-columbus","tag-mike-norvell-99-grace-preparatory-academy","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-pat-narduzzi-85-ursuline","tag-rhett-lashlee","tag-tavita-pritchard-05-clover-park","tag-tony-elliott-97-james-island-charter","tag-tosh-lupoi"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116895646281377962","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=941760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/941761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=941760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=941760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}