The Blue Board

Sporting News has ranked the 124 FBS head coaches by conference. Now it’s time to see how they rate overall.

First, some notes about our list:

— The Big 12 coaches have by far the best average ranking: 27.2, which crushes the second-best SEC’s average ranking of 43.3. Next in line: the Pac-12 (43.8), ACC (45.6) and Big Ten (46.8).

— Of course, the Big 12 has only 10 teams. Compared with the top 10 rankings by conference, it falls slightly below the SEC’s average of 26.6. The Pac-12 still ranks third at 34.5, followed by the Big Ten (35.9) and the ACC (37.0).

— The SEC is the only league other than the Big 12 whose lowest-ranked coach isn’t in the 100s. Tennessee’s Derek Dooley, the No. 14 SEC coach on our list, ranks 99th overall.

— In our top 25 are five coaches apiece from the SEC and Big 12, four apiece from the Big Ten and Pac-12, and two apiece from the ACC and Mountain West. College football’s Independents outrank any other conference, with BYU’s Bronco Mendenhall and Notre Dame’s Brian Kelly (in that order) also making the top 25.

— The six BCS leagues don’t have the best six collections of coaches, according to our rankings. Were you wondering when we were going to mention the Big East? Its coaches are ranked, on average, 71.3—in seventh place, behind the Mountain West at 70.8. (The highest-ranked Big East coach: Cincinnati’s Butch Jones at No. 28.) Leagues 8-11: the WAC (85.1), Sun Belt (86.7), Conference USA (90.7) and the MAC (97.2).

— Eight coaches in the 124 have won BCS titles. Five—Alabama’s Nick Saban, Ohio State’s Urban Meyer, LSU’s Les Miles, Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops and South Carolina’s Steve Spurrier—are ranked in the top eight. The others: Texas’ Mack Brown (16), Auburn’s Gene Chizik (36) and UTSA’s Larry Coker (78).

— Every coach in our top 10 has at least one BCS game win (1998-present). Only four others in the top 25 (Georgia’s Mark Richt, Texas’ Brown, Utah’s Kyle Whittingham and Michigan’s Brady Hoke) and 11 others in all have such a marquee victory.

Read more: http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-football/story/2012-05-09/college-football-coach-rankings-nick-saban-chris-petersen-urban-meyer-les-miles#ixzz1uUH7CbLc