
Ranking the top 10 coaches in college football for 2024
More Videos
Published
1 year agoon
By
adminWhen we asked our college football reporters to rank the sport’s top 10 coaches, we figured there wouldn’t be much debate about who is No. 1 — and there wasn’t. Georgia’s Kirby Smart, whose Bulldogs are 42-2 over the past three seasons, was the unanimous pick among our 10 voters.
But after that, there was very little consensus.
The only other coach to appear on all 10 ballots was new Alabama head man Kalen DeBoer, but his rankings ranged from second to 10th.
Two coaches appeared on nine ballots: Utah’s Kyle Whittingham, whose rankings ranged from three second-place votes to two ninth places, and Florida State’s Mike Norvell, whose votes included two second places and two 10ths.
Then there’s Clemson’s Dabo Swinney, who received four second-place votes and was left off four ballots altogether.
With points assigned based on our reporters’ votes (10 points for first place, nine for second place and down to one point for 10th place), here are the complete rankings.
Also see: Surprises and snubs — top 10 coaches reaction
Other top 10s: Receivers | RBs | QBs | Pass-rushers | DBs
1. Kirby Smart, Georgia
2023 record: 13-1 (.929)
Career record: 94-16 (.855)
Points: 100 (all 10 first-place votes)
With Nick Saban retired, Smart is unquestionably the preeminent coach in college football. He took his alma mater, Georgia, to back-to-back national championships in 2021 and 2022 and played for a third national title in 2017. The Bulldogs won an SEC-record 29 straight games before losing to Alabama last season in the SEC championship game. In eight seasons at Georgia, Smart has built a juggernaut in terms of evaluating, recruiting and developing great players. He has produced 55 NFL draft picks, including 15 first-rounders, and could have as many as 10 more players selected in the upcoming draft.
Smart is unbeaten against all active coaches over the past five seasons — his only losses in that span are to Saban (3), Dan Mullen at Florida, Ed Orgeron at LSU and Will Muschamp at South Carolina. His consistency sets him apart. The Bulldogs finished 8-5 in his first season (2016), but since then, Georgia is the only team in the country to finish in the top 7 in the final AP poll every year. Smart’s Bulldogs have played for and/or won an SEC title or national title in six of those seven seasons. — Chris Low
2. Kalen DeBoer, Alabama
2023 record: 14-1 (.933)
Career record: 37-9 (.804)
Points: 62
After starting his career as an assistant at tiny Sioux Falls, his alma mater, DeBoer guided the NAIA Cougars to a 67-3 record with three national titles over a five-year stretch. From there, DeBoer embarked on a climb up the assistant-coaching ranks, during which each school he arrived at experienced near-unprecedented success, before being named the head coach at Fresno State. His modest two-year run there (12-6) led to the gig at Washington, where he transformed a team that won four games in 2021 to one that went 25-3 over the next two seasons, earning an appearance in the national title game this past season.
All DeBoer does is win. And now he takes over for the legendary Nick Saban, who set an unrealistic bar for what can be accomplished. — Kyle Bonagura
3. Kyle Whittingham, Utah
2023 record: 8-5 (.615)
Career record: 162-79 (.672)
Points: 56
Utah is the only home Whittingham has known since arriving at the school as the defensive line coach in 1994. He was elevated to defensive coordinator the next year and to head coach upon the departure of Urban Meyer just before the end of the 2004 season.
Since then, Whittingham has been a hallmark of consistency, finishing with just two losing seasons in 19 years (right after Utah made the jump from the Mountain West to the Pac-12). He guided the Utes to an undefeated season in 2008, two Pac-12 titles and eight top-25 finishes in the AP poll, including six in the past 10 years. All at a school without the resources of the other coaches’ programs on this list. — Bonagura
4. Dabo Swinney, Clemson
2023 record: 9-4 (.692)
Career record: 170-43 (.798)
Points: 50
Swinney brought longtime underachiever Clemson back to the national stage and became the first coach who truly challenged Nick Saban’s stranglehold on the sport. He guided Clemson to national titles in 2016 and 2018 — the program’s first since 1981 — while beating Saban’s Alabama squad both times. His teams made four CFP national championship game appearances in five seasons. Clemson won the ACC every year from 2015 to 2020 and never finished lower than No. 3 in the final AP poll.
A little-known wide receivers coach who became Clemson’s interim head coach midway through the 2008 season, Swinney is 170-43 as the Tigers’ head coach with eight league titles and 10 division titles. He won the Bryant Award as national coach of the year in 2015, 2016 and 2018.
Under Swinney, Clemson has had stretches when it was the nation’s premier program at positions such as wide receiver, defensive line and quarterback. Although the transfer portal/NIL era has brought more challenges, Swinney has won nine or more games in all but one full season as Clemson’s coach. — Adam Rittenberg
2023 record: 13-1 (.929)
Career record: 69-33 (.676)
Points: 49
How best to quantify Norvell’s greatness as a coach? Perhaps it’s his use of the transfer portal. While so many other coaches around the country have moaned and complained about the portal in recent years, Norvell has found the perfect formula for using it, landing standouts such as Trey Benson, Jermaine Johnson, Keon Coleman and Jared Verse, among a host of others. Or perhaps it’s the way he motivates his players, building a strong internal culture despite the extensive use of the portal.
But if you need one number to truly appreciate Norvell’s impact, here it is: 23. Twenty-three wins in the past two years at Florida State, a program that had won just 26 games total in the previous five seasons. The turnaround — in terms of wins, talent and culture — is genuinely remarkable. — David Hale
6. Dan Lanning, Oregon
2023 record: 12-2 (.857)
Career record: 22-5 (.815)
Points: 37
While only two seasons of work might make Lanning’s lofty ranking seem a bit premature, it’s hard to argue with what he has done in his first two seasons as a head coach. After helping Smart win a national championship in 2021 as Georgia’s defensive coordinator, Lanning has guided the Ducks to a 22-5 record.
Like Ryan Day at Ohio State, Lanning couldn’t get past what proved to be an insurmountable roadblock in the Pac-12: the Washington Huskies. Each of Oregon’s three losses to Washington the past two seasons were by three points, and the last one, a 34-31 defeat in the final Pac-12 championship game, was the most painful because it might have kept the Ducks out of the CFP.
Lanning has proven to be a great recruiter, helping Oregon land the No. 4 class in the FBS in 2024. The Ducks landed the top class in the Pac-12 in 2023. Lanning and his staff have also been adept at working the transfer portal, adding former Auburn quarterback Bo Nix, the starter the past two seasons, then Oklahoma passer Dillon Gabriel this year. There have been some questionable in-game decisions from Lanning, but one would expect he’ll get better with experience. Time will tell if Lanning follows in Smart’s footsteps as a former defensive coordinator who became one of the sport’s premier head coaches, but he’s well on his way to doing it. — Schlabach
7. Steve Sarkisian, Texas
2023 record: 12-2 (.857)
Career record: 71-49 (.592)
Points: 35
It was only a matter of time until Sarkisian put all the pieces together. After all, the guy has studied under three of the greatest coaches in modern college football history in LaVell Edwards, Pete Carroll and Nick Saban. Be it throwing for nearly 7,500 yards in two seasons with Edwards at BYU, serving as quarterbacks coach for Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart and Mark Sanchez under Carroll at USC, turning Jake Locker into a first-round pick (and then coaxing a pair of brilliant seasons out of Keith Price) while flipping Washington from 0-12 to 9-4, or averaging 47.2 and 48.5 points per game, respectively, in two seasons of calling plays for Saban at Alabama, Sarkisian has been heavily influential in offensive brilliance for most of the past 30 years.
His breakthrough as a head coach came in 2023. After going just 13-12 in his first two years leading a perpetually underachieving Texas program, Sark’s Longhorns won 12 games, took their first Big 12 title in 14 seasons and made their first College Football Playoff appearance. Now they head to the SEC with legitimate top-5 bona fides and a coach capable of not only leading them back among the country’s elite but keeping them there. — Bill Connelly
2023 record: 11-2 (.846)
Career record: 96-49 (.662)
Points: 29
At 48, Kiffin is already in his fifth head-coaching stop. He was hired as the Oakland Raiders’ coach in 2007, when he was only 31, and although there were some growing pains along the way, he has developed into one of the more creative and interesting coaches in college football. Entering his fifth season at Ole Miss, Kiffin has accomplished things in Oxford that hadn’t been done before. The Rebels have won 10 regular-season games in two of the past three seasons; prior to Kiffin’s arrival, they had never won 10 regular-season games. Kiffin is renowned as one of the top offensive minds in the game, and his offenses are both balanced and unpredictable. Ole Miss and Alabama are the only two teams in the SEC to average 33 or more points each of the past four seasons.
Kiffin is quick to troll anybody and everybody on social media and is polarizing among rival fan bases. He’s still a bit of a lightning rod, but said his time working under Saban helped him become a more efficient manager of an entire program. Kiffin has also worked the evolving nature of college football to his advantage and scored big in the transfer portal. — Low
9. Lance Leipold, Kansas
2023 record: 9-4 (.692)
Career record: 54-54 (.500)
Points: 28
In the six seasons before Lance Leipold arrived at Kansas, the Jayhawks went 9-60. In 2023, they went 9-4. You can almost rest your case right there. Hired after spring practice had already concluded in 2021, Leipold inherited a team that had gone 0-9 in 2020 and won two, then six, then nine games. While it’s unfair to compare anyone to Bill Snyder, he has done one hell of a Snyder impression over his first three seasons in Lawrence, and with his track record, there’s reason to believe he could keep it up.
This is, after all, a guy with six national titles on his résumé. Once a Division III dynasty builder at Wisconsin-Whitewater, Leipold has since taken his masterful culture building to Buffalo and KU, and damned if it’s not working wherever he goes. He’ll face a new challenge in 2024, coaching without ace offensive coordinator and right-hand man Andy Kotelnicki for the first time since 2012. (Kotelnicki moved on to the Penn State OC job.) But if anyone in college football gets the benefit of the doubt, it’s Leipold.
Kansas won nine games last year! Kansas! It boggles the mind. — Connelly
2023 record: 11-2 (.846)
Career record: 56-8 (.875)
Points: 27
Day’s teams are 39-3 in Big Ten play the past five-plus seasons, 56-8 overall and played in a New Year’s Six bowl game or the CFP in each of his full seasons. The Buckeyes won back-to-back Big Ten titles in his first two seasons (2019 and 2020) and are 18-8 against AP top-25 opponents under Day.
Unfortunately, those Big Ten losses came against that “Team Up North,” Michigan, in each of the past three seasons, leaving some Ohio State fans to wonder if Day should be on the hot seat. Whether he can reverse the Buckeyes’ losing streak to the Wolverines, especially now that former Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh is in the NFL, will go a long way in determining his future.
Day’s offenses have been ranked in the top three in the FBS in scoring three times and in total offense four times. Yet the Buckeyes are only 2-4 in bowl games and haven’t won a Big Ten title since 2020. Turning over the offensive playcalling to former UCLA head coach Chip Kelly might be the recipe to getting OSU back on top in the expanded Big Ten. — Schlabach
Also receiving votes: Brian Kelly, LSU (23); Lincoln Riley, USC (20); Kirk Ferentz, Iowa (7); Luke Fickell, Wisconsin (7); Eliah Drinkwitz, Missouri (6); Mack Brown, North Carolina (3); Mike Gundy, Oklahoma State (3); Jonathan Smith, Michigan State (3); Deion Sanders, Colorado (2); Curt Cignetti, Indiana (1); Chris Klieman, Kansas State (1); Jon Sumrall, Tulane (1)
You may like
Sports
College football Luck Index 2025: Who needs luck on their side next season?
Published
50 mins agoon
May 3, 2025By
admin
-
Bill ConnellyMay 2, 2025, 08:00 AM ET
Close- Bill Connelly is a writer for ESPN. He covers college football, soccer and tennis. He has been at ESPN since 2019.
Almost no word in the English language makes a college football fan more defensive than the L-word: luck.
We weren’t lucky to have a great turnover margin — our coaches are just really good at emphasizing ball security! We’re tougher than everyone else — that’s why we recovered all those fumbles!
We weren’t lucky to win all those close games — we’re clutch! Our coaches know how to press all the right buttons! Our quarterback is a cool customer!
We weren’t lucky to have fewer injuries than everyone else — our strength-and-conditioning coach is the best in America! And again: We’re just tougher!
As loath as we may be to admit it, a large percentage of a given college football season — with its small overall sample of games — is determined by the bounce of a pointy ball, the bend of a ligament and the whims of fate. Certain teams will end up with an unsustainably good turnover margin that turns on them the next year. Certain teams (often the same ones) will enjoy a great run of close-game fortune based on some combination of great coaching, sturdy quarterback play, timely special teams contributions … and massive amounts of unsustainable randomness. Certain teams will keep their starting lineups mostly intact for 12 or more games while another is watching its depth chart change dramatically on a week-to-week basis.
As we prepare for the 2025 college football season, it’s worth stepping back and looking at who did, and didn’t, get the bounces in 2024. Just because Lady Luck was (or wasn’t) on your side one year, doesn’t automatically mean your fortunes will flip the next, but that’s often how these things go. Be it turnovers, close-game fortune or injuries, let’s talk about the teams that were dealt the best and worst hands last fall.
Jump to a section:
Turnover luck | Close games luck
Injuries and general shuffling | Turnaround candidates
Turnover luck
In last year’s ACC championship game, Clemson bolted to a 24-7 halftime lead, then white-knuckled it to the finish. SMU came back to tie the score at 31 with only 16 seconds left, but Nolan Hauser‘s 56-yard field goal at the buzzer gave the Tigers a 34-31 victory and a spot in 2024’s College Football Playoff at Alabama’s expense.
In the first series of the game, Clemson’s T.J. Parker pulled a perfect sack-and-strip of SMU QB Kevin Jennings, forcing and falling on a loose ball at the SMU 33-yard line. Clemson scored two plays later to take a 7-0 lead. Late in the first quarter, Khalil Barnes picked off a Jennings pass near midfield, ending what could have become a scoring threat with one more first down. A few minutes later, Clemson’s Cade Klubnik fumbled at the end of a 14-yard gain, but tight end Jake Briningstool recovered it at midfield, preventing another potential scoring threat from developing. (Klubnik fumbled seven times in the 2024 season but lost only one of them.)
Early in the third quarter, after SMU cut Clemson’s lead to 24-14, David Eziomume fumbled the ensuing kickoff at the Clemson 6, but teammate Keith Adams Jr. recovered it right before two SMU players pounced.
Over 60 minutes, both teams fumbled twice, and Clemson defended (intercepted or broke up) eight passes to SMU’s seven. On average, 50% of fumbles are lost and about 21% of passes defended become INTs, so Clemson’s expected turnover margin in this game was plus-0.2 (because of the extra pass defended). The Tigers’ actual turnover margin was plus-2, a difference of 1.8 turnovers in a game they barely won.
Clemson was obviously a solid team in 2024, but the Tigers probably wouldn’t have reached the CFP without turnovers luck. For the season, they fumbled 16 times but lost only three, and comparing their expected (based on the averages above) and actual turnover margins, almost no one benefited more from the randomness of a bouncing ball.
It probably isn’t a surprise to see that, of last year’s 12 playoff teams, eight benefited from positive turnovers luck, and six were at plus-3.3 or higher. You’ve got to be lucky and good to win, right?
You aren’t often lucky for two straight years, though. It might be noteworthy to point out that, of the teams in Mark Schlabach’s Way-Too-Early 2025 rankings, five were in the top 20 in terms of turnovers luck: No. 5 Georgia, No. 7 Clemson, No. 9 BYU, No. 11 Iowa State and No. 17 Indiana (plus two others from his Teams Also Considered list: Army and Baylor).
It’s also noteworthy to point out that three teams on Schlabach’s list — No. 6 Oregon, No. 8 LSU and No. 15 SMU — ranked in the triple-digits in terms of turnovers luck. Oregon started the season 13-0 without the benefit of bounces. For that matter, Auburn, a team on the Also Considered list, ranked 125th in turnovers luck in a season that saw the Tigers go just 1-3 in one-score finishes. There might not have been a more what-could-have-been team in the country than Hugh Freeze’s Tigers.
Close games
One of my favorite tools in my statistical toolbox is what I call postgame win expectancy. The idea is to take all of a game’s key, predictive stats — all the things that end up feeding into my SP+ rankings — and basically toss them into the air and say, “With these stats, you could have expected to win this game X% of the time.”
Alabama‘s 40-35 loss to Vanderbilt on Oct. 5 was one of the most impactful results of the CFP race. It was also one of the least likely results of the season in terms of postgame win expectancy. Bama averaged 8.8 yards per play to Vandy’s 5.6, generated a 56% success rate* to Vandy’s 43% and scored touchdowns on all four of its trips into the red zone. It’s really hard to lose when you do all of that — in fact, the Crimson Tide’s postgame win expectancy was a whopping 98.5%. (You can see all postgame win expectancy data here)
(* Success rate: how frequently an offense is gaining at least 50% of necessary yardage on first down, 70% on second and 100% on third and fourth. It is one of the more reliable and predictive stats you’ll find, and it’s a big part of SP+.)
Vandy managed to overcome these stats in part because of two of the most perfect bounces you’ll ever see. In the first, Jalen Milroe had a pass batted at the line, and it deflected high into the air and, eventually, into the arms of Randon Fontenette, who caught it on the run and raced 29 yards for a touchdown and an early 13-0 lead.
In the second half, with Bama driving to potentially take the lead, Miles Capers sacked Milroe and forced a fumble; the ball sat on the ground for what felt like an eternity before Yilanan Ouattara outwrestled a Bama lineman for it. Instead of trailing, Vandy took over near midfield and scored seven plays later. It took turnovers luck and unlikely key-play execution — despite a 43% success rate, Diego Pavia and the Commodores went 12-for-18 on third down and 1-for-1 on fourth — for Vandy to turn a 1.5% postgame win expectancy into a victory. It also wasn’t Alabama’s only incredibly unlikely loss: The Tide were at 87.8% to beat Michigan in the ReliaQuest Bowl but fell 19-13.
(Ole Miss can feel the Tide’s pain: The Rebels were at 76.0% postgame win expectancy against Kentucky and 73.7% against Florida. There was only a 6% chance that they would lose both games, and even going 1-1 would have likely landed them a CFP bid. They lost both.)
Adding up each game’s postgame win expectancy is a nice way of seeing how many games a team should have won on average. I call this a team’s second-order win total. Alabama was at 10.7 second-order wins but went 9-4. That was one of the biggest differences of the season. Somehow, however, Iron Bowl rival Auburn was even more unfortunate.
Based solely on stats, Arkansas State should have won about four games, and Auburn should have won about eight. Instead, the Red Wolves went 8-5 and the Tigers went 5-7.
Comparing win totals to these second-order wins is one of the surest ways of identifying potential turnaround stories for the following season. In 2023, 15 teams had second-order win totals at least one game higher than their actual win totals — meaning they suffered from poor close-game fortune. Ten of those 15 teams saw their win totals increase by at least two games in 2024, including East Carolina (from 2-10 to 8-5), TCU (5-7 to 9-4), Pitt (3-9 to 7-6), Boise State (8-6 to 12-2) and Louisiana (6-7 to 10-4). On average, these 15 teams improved by 1.9 wins.
On the flip side, 19 teams overachieved their second-order win totals by at least 1.0 wins in 2023. This list includes both of 2023’s national title game participants, Washington and Michigan. The Huskies and Wolverines sank from a combined 29-1 in 2023 to 14-12 in 2024, and it could have been even worse. Michigan overachieved again, going 8-5 despite a second-order win total of 6.0. Other 2023 overachievers weren’t so lucky. Oklahoma State (from 10-4 to 3-9), Wyoming (from 9-4 to 3-9), Northwestern (from 8-5 to 4-8) and NC State (from 9-4 to 6-7) all won more games than the stats expected in 2023, and all of them crumpled to some degree in 2024. On average, the 19 overachieving teams regressed by 1.9 wins last fall.
It’s worth keeping in mind that several teams in Schlabach’s Way-Too-Early Top 25 — including No. 6 Oregon, No. 8 LSU, No. 11 Iowa State, No. 13 Illinois and, yes, No. 21 Michigan — all exceeded statistical expectations in wins last season, as did Also Considered teams like Army, Duke, Missouri and Texas Tech. The fact that Oregon and LSU overachieved while suffering from poor turnovers luck is (admittedly) rather unlikely and paints a conflicting picture.
Meanwhile, one should note that three Way-Too-Early teams — No. 12 Alabama, No. 23 Miami and No. 25 Ole Miss (plus Washington and, of course, Auburn from the Also Considered list) — all lost more games than expected last season. With just a little bit of good fortune, they could prove to be awfully underrated.
Injuries and general shuffling
Injuries are hard to define in college football — coaches are frequently canny in the information they do and do not provide, and with so many teams in FBS, it’s impossible to derive accurate data regarding how many games were missed due to injury.
We can glean quite a bit from starting lineups, however. Teams with lineups that barely changed throughout the season were probably pretty happy with their overall results, while teams with ever-changing lineups likely succumbed to lots of losses. Below, I’ve ranked teams using a simple ratio: I compared (a) the number of players who either started every game or started all but one for a given team to (b) the number of players who started only one or two games, likely as a stopgap. If you had far more of the former, your team likely avoided major injury issues and, with a couple of major exceptions, thrived. If you had more of the latter, the negative effects were probably pretty obvious.
Despite the presence of 1-11 Purdue and 2-10 Kennesaw State near the top of the list — Purdue fielded one of the worst power conference teams in recent memory and barely could blame injury for its issues — you can still see a decent correlation between a positive ratio and positive results. The six teams with a ratio of at least 2.8 or above went a combined 62-22 in 2024, while the teams with a 0.5 ratio or worse went 31-56.
Seven of nine conference champions had a ratio of at least 1.3, and 11 of the 12 CFP teams were at 1.44 or higher (five were at 2.6 or higher). Indiana, the most shocking of CFP teams, was second on the list above; epic disappointments like Oklahoma and, especially, Florida State were near the bottom. (The fact that Georgia won the SEC and reached the CFP despite a pretty terrible injury ratio speaks volumes about the depth Kirby Smart has built in Athens. Of course, the Dawgs also enjoyed solid turnovers luck.)
Major turnaround candidates
It’s fair to use this information as a reason for skepticism about teams like Indiana (turnovers luck and injuries luck), Clemson (turnovers luck), Iowa State (close-games luck), Penn State (injuries luck) or Sam Houston (all of the above, plus a coaching change), but let’s end on an optimistic note instead. Here are five teams that could pretty easily enjoy a big turnaround if Lady Luck is a little kinder.
Auburn Tigers: Auburn enjoyed a better success rate than its opponents (44.7% to 38.5%) and made more big plays as well (8.9% of plays gained 20-plus yards versus 5.7% for opponents). That makes it awfully hard to lose! But the Tigers made exactly the mistake they couldn’t make and managed to lose games with 94%, 76% and 61% postgame win expectancy. There’s nothing saying this was all bad luck, but even with a modest turnaround in fortune, the Tigers will have a very high ceiling in 2025.
Florida Gators: The Gators improved from 41st to 20th in SP+ and from 5-7 to 8-5 overall despite starting three quarterbacks and 12 different DBs and ranking 132nd on the list above. That says pretty spectacular things about their overall upside, especially considering their improved experience levels on the O-line, in the secondary and the general optimism about sophomore quarterback DJ Lagway.
Florida Atlantic Owls: Only one team ranked 111th or worse in all three of the tables above — turnovers luck (111th), second-order win difference (121st) and injury ratio (131st). You could use this information to make the case that the Owls shouldn’t have fired head coach Tom Herman, or you could simply say that new head coach Zach Kittley is pretty well-positioned to get some bounces and hit the ground running.
Florida State Seminoles: There was evidently plenty of poor fortune to go around in the Sunshine State last season, and while Mike Norvell’s Seminoles suffered an epic hangover on the field, they also didn’t get a single bounce: They were 129th in turnovers luck, 99th in second-order win difference and 110th in injury ratio. Norvell has brought in new coordinators and plenty of new players, and the Noles are almost guaranteed to jump up from 2-10. With a little luck, that jump could be a pretty big one.
Utah Utes: Along with UCF, Utah was one of only two teams to start four different quarterbacks in 2024. The Utes were also among only four teams to start at least 11 different receivers or tight ends and among five teams to start at least nine defensive linemen. If you’re looking for an easy explanation for how they fell from 65th to 96th in offensive SP+ and from 8-5 to 5-7 overall, that’s pretty succinct and telling.
Sports
Good Cheer rallies in slop to win Kentucky Oaks
Published
50 mins agoon
May 3, 2025By
admin
-
Associated Press
May 2, 2025, 07:25 PM ET
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Unbeaten filly Good Cheer rallied on the outside through the slop to overtake Tenma by the final furlong and win the 151st Kentucky Oaks on Friday at Churchill Downs.
Louisville-born trainer Brad Cox watched the heavy 6-5 favorite cover 1 1/8 miles in 1:50.15 with Luis Saez aboard. Good Cheer paid $4.78, $3.62 and $3.02 for her seventh dominant victory.
The bay daughter of Megdalia d’Oro and Wedding Toast by Street entered the Oaks with a combined victory margin of more than 42 lengths, and on Friday, she added more distance to her resume with a stunning surge over a mushy track.
Cox, who grew up blocks from Churchill Downs, earned his third Oaks win and Saez his second.
Drexel Hill paid $21.02 and $11.76 for second while Bless the Broken was third and returned $4.78.
A thunderstorm that roared through about two hours before the scheduled post left the track soggy and sent many of the 100,910 fans seeking shelter at the track’s urging. The $1.5 million showcase for 3-year-old fillies was delayed by 10 minutes, and the conditions proved to be a minor nuisance for Good Cheer.
She was off the pace after starting from the No. 11 post but well within range of the leaders before charging forward through the final turns. Good Cheer was fourth entering the stretch and closed inside and into the lead, pulling away for her fourth win at Churchill Downs and second in the mud.
Sports
Wetzel: Never mind the girlfriend kerfuffle. Belichick will always be fine.
Published
7 hours agoon
May 2, 2025By
admin
-
Dan WetzelMay 2, 2025, 07:30 AM ET
Close
Dan Wetzel is a senior writer focused on investigative reporting, news analysis and feature storytelling.
It once seemed improbable that the most compelling figure of the college football offseason would be Bill Belichick’s 24-year-old girlfriend, but somehow, here we are.
Jordon Hudson’s spot in Belichick’s life has always been a public talking point. After all, they started dating two years ago, when Belichick was 71. Of late, though, she’s become an obsession.
Belichick is arguably the greatest coach in the history of the sport, winner of six Super Bowls leading the New England Patriots. His jump to the college ranks and the University of North Carolina is, for purely football reasons, of great intrigue.
Would this work? Could this work?
Currently though, the focus is on Hudson, who takes an active role in managing Belichick’s affairs, including running point on publicity for his new book, “The Art of Winning: Lessons from My Life in Football.”
That includes a viral clip from a “CBS Sunday Morning” interview when Hudson shut down a question about how the two met and was deemed a “constant presence.” That led to all sorts of attention on the relationship, not to mention Belichick’s acuity and Hudson’s recent real estate holdings. Former Patriots great Ted Johnson even told WEEI radio in Boston that “the Tar Heels should consider firing Bill Belichick.”
A few days into this modern controversy, where a social media clip redefines someone with decades in the public eye, can we all settle down for a moment?
As with any relationship, only Belichick and Hudson are privy to what is transpiring between them. But as sensationalistic as all the TikTok comments and website stories currently are, when it comes to actually coaching a football team, let’s settle back on one undeniable truth.
This is Bill Belichick.
Sure, the current attention can be fairly labeled as the kind of “distraction” that might personally crush and professionally derail most people. Belichick is not most people.
“Never been too worried about what everyone else thinks,” Belichick told CBS.
If you allow his history — a lesson from his life in football, if you will — to inform, then you would know that there has rarely, if ever, been any personal feud, situation, tabloid headline or bit of accusational strife that has derailed the man’s single-minded focus on winning.
Belichick doesn’t just thrive in the briar patch of controversy — he seems to prefer it. The more external noise, the better.
A former player standing trial for murder? Win the Super Bowl.
Accused of illegally videotaping opponents? Post a 16-0 season.
A star quarterback alleged to have cheated to win the AFC Championship Game by deflating footballs? Name-drop “My Cousin Vinny” in a news conference, then win the Super Bowl.
Have the team get fined and stripped of a first-round draft pick and the quarterback suspended for the start of the season? Win another Super Bowl.
Maybe this isn’t what he was expecting from the book release, but let’s be clear, he was expecting to create a major media stir.
Belichick is famously passive-aggressive. When he never once mentioned Patriots owner Robert Kraft in his memoir — not even in the acknowledgments — he did so expecting a commotion. This was likely to make it clear that Belichick believed the Patriots’ success during their 24 years together was more based on the coaches and players than the very front-facing owner who, depending whose version you believe, fired Belichick in January 2024.
This was throwing red meat to the sports media machine. It just turned out that the Hudson situation represented even more red meat to the far larger American pop culture/social media machine.
Belichick might not have seen this coming, but this is how he has always operated. He welcomes speculation and even being painted as the villain. Even his closest confidants, from Bill Parcells to Tom Brady, often wind up in prolonged, public ice-outs. There are the endless scraps with the media, the league office, officials or other coaches.
The public questioning his actions and motivation? Please.
Consider that back nearly two decades ago, the NFL made a deal with Reebok for its coaches to wear approved clothes. Belichick bristled at being told what to wear. In an act of fashion defiance, both Patriots and Belichick sources say, he took a plain gray sweatshirt and cut off the sleeves to make it ugly. (It inadvertently became a huge seller, labeled the “BB Hoodie” in the Patriots Pro Shop.)
Or when, in an effort to protest the NFL making teams categorize player injuries — doubtful, questionable, etc. — Belichick began listing Brady as “probable” on the report with a shoulder injury week after week for years despite there being no known injury. Brady would just laugh when asked about it.
Or when he thought the NFL was getting too commercialized, so he refused to have his name used by EA Sports in the Madden video game — “NE Coach” was all that was listed — even though he would make money for literally doing nothing.
Or maybe consider in 2000, when he reversed course on accepting the head coaching job with the New York Jets. Rather than get all apologetic, he handwrote a note that read: “I resign as HC of the NYJ.”
He loves this stuff. Like many highly competitive people, finding an enemy, or some doubt, or some negative opinion about him seemingly feeds him. It certainly doesn’t cause him to wilt.
The current kerfuffle isn’t much different from past ones. He’s been through divorce, and his dating life was even fodder for the New York tabloids. It didn’t matter. He just kept winning.
All of that makes it unlikely that Hudson is somehow bossing Belichick around — or that she would even want to. This is just BB.
Whatever happens with the couple — we wish them the best — is one thing, but anyone who thinks Belichick is somehow incapable of weathering some gossip or jokes, or won’t be laser-focused on coaching, teaching and preparing his players, hasn’t been paying attention.
Here’s guessing Belichick will be fine. He always has been.
Trending
-
Sports3 years ago
‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year ago
Story injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years ago
Game 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years ago
MLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years ago
Japan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years ago
Game-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years ago
Bank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway