CBS Sports coach rankings: Ballot data reveals conference biases and our 2026 Hater of the Year

https://www.cbssports.com/college-f...-college-football-coach-rankings-ballot-2026/

You've read our Power Four college football coach rankings by now. At least, you'd better have. This is the eleventh year we've done them at CBSSports.com, but last year we started a new tradition.

We gave everybody a peek behind the ballots.

There are 10 voters on our panel, and we all think differently. When you combine those different brains with unclear voting criteria, it leads to significant variance in the results. It also exposes some biases in how we vote. We're all a little kinder to coaches in certain leagues than we are to others, usually because, in our line of work, we're more familiar with coaches in certain leagues.

Not just by watching them coach, but through interactions with them.

Which coaches had the widest range of votes? Which voters were the most extreme compared to the results? How did the conferences fare against each other in our rankings, and which of our voters showed their true colors when it comes to biases against certain leagues?

It's all here, all for you to see for yourself. If we rank coaches based on their results, it's only fair that we give everybody a look into the process.

These coaches have range​

We'll start by looking at the coaches with the largest disparity of opinions among our voters. In a subjective ranking such as this, it's only natural that voters will have differing opinions. We all have our reasons for ranking coaches the way we do. Some of us prioritize success, some recruiting, and others value coaches who make the most of meager resources.

Per their ranking, they have Fleck at 33.

33. P.J. Fleck, Minnesota​

P.J. Fleck has always been one of the most polarizing coaches in the country, and that didn't change this season. He was as high as 23rd on our ballots and as low as 45th. I finished on the higher side of the board. Minnesota is not an easy place to win a lot of football games, and while Fleck hasn't matched the stretch of 32 wins from 2019 to 2022, the consistency of what he's done with the Gophers reminds me a lot of what Kirk Ferentz has done at Iowa. 2025 rank: 27 (-6), High: 23, Low: 45

Go Gophers!!

The source of the ranking was a panel of 10 sportswriters. Not fellow coaches or players or ADs. Sportswriter lists of this type usually lean in the direction of "the list of best coaches is pretty much the same as the standings" with little adjustment for degree of difficulty.

The group's rank was no exception, and Fleck came in about where the Gophers have finished in recruiting and overall rank the last few years.

fmlizard said:

The source of the ranking was a panel of 10 sportswriters. Not fellow coaches or players or ADs. Sportswriter lists of this type usually lean in the direction of "the list of best coaches is pretty much the same as the standings" with little adjustment for degree of difficulty.

The group's rank was no exception, and Fleck came in about where the Gophers have finished in recruiting and overall rank the last few years.

Click to expand...

Fellow sportswritters, who cares what they think. I bet a few have never seen a Gopher football game, they just read from social media.