SEC Football: Who do Fans Want as their Coach? (Final Round)

Before the 2015 college football season kicked off, we held a competition of SEC Football Head Coaches, along with a few from other conferences. We placed rival coaches head to head and let fans vote for who they would rather have for the next four years. After a week of polling, the winning coaches would advance to round two. The results of round one are as follows:

Round 1

Butch Jones (97%) defeated Derek Mason

Jimbo Fisher (52%) defeated Jim McElwain

Gary Pinkel (93%) defeated David Beaty

Kevin Sumlin (76%) defeated Charlie Strong

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Dabo Swinney (59%) defeated Steve Spurrier

Paul Johnson (94%) defeated Mark Richt

Les Miles (61%) defeated Bret Bielema

Hugh Freeze (69%) defeated Dan Mullen

Nick Saban (65%) defeated Guz Malzahn

Round 2

After these polls had run their course, we moved to round two. The matchups were also based on rivalries, at least where available. Unfortunately, however, not all the winners lended themselves to a rivalry matchup. Many of these competitions were even closer than in round one. The results follow here:

Jimbo Fisher (56%) defeated Paul Johnson

Nick Saban (57%) defeated Les Miles

Gary Pinkel (53%) defeated Kevin Sumlin

Butch Jones (69%) defeated Mark Stoops

Hugh Freeze (73%) defeated Dabo Swinney (by far the least rivalry-centered matchup)

Best of the Rest

The polls were designed to give fans at least one second chance to vote for their favorite coach. In order to make this a reality, we created a best of the rest poll. Dan Mullen was the favorite in the poll, as he had thousands of votes more than his nearest losing competitor in round one. The Mississippi State faithful failed to rally around him in round 2, however, and Mark Richt won with 45% of the total vote without even reaching 1,000.

Round 3

Mark Richt joined Jimbo Fisher, Nick Saban, Gary Pinkel, Butch Jones and Hugh Freeze for round three of the Southbound and Down Coach’s tournament. Again, we did our best to create the most intriguing matchups available for this round. And at last, we were able to eliminate that pesky ACC coach from this tournament.

Nick Saban (69%) defeated Jimbo Fisher

Mark Richt (58%) defeated Gary Pinkel

Hugh Freeze (51%) defeated Butch Jones

Championship Round

We now have our final 3 coaches. While these men may not have finishes 1-2-3 if all 14 coaches were allowed in the same poll, the tournament style brackets have allowed for excitement and upsets we may not have otherwise seen. For the final round, we will only have one poll with all 3 coaches. Unfortunately for Richt and Freeze, this poll is being released a week after embarrassing losses. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Saban benefits greatly of the timing of this poll. Instead of coming after his second straight loss to Ole Miss, it comes immediately after dominating a previous College Football Playoff contender (Georgia).

Next: Best and Worst SEC Performances from Week 5

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