Every August, the preseason Coaches Poll gets treated like a talent ranking. It isn’t, really. Look closer and it’s a ranking of coaching staffs — who got retained, who got promoted from inside the building, who got hired away, and what those staffs are actually teaching this fall.
The good news for the rest of us: a lot of those coordinators have put their own install on CoachTube. Same drills, same install, same coaching points they’re using with a five-star roster — coachable with whatever roster you’ve got. Here’s a lesson from every staff currently in the Top 25, in order.
No. 1 — Ohio State
Ryan Day just built the most expensive coaching staff in college football history — and spent one of his two new full-time jobs on a dedicated special teams coordinator, hiring Robby Discher away from Illinois. Special teams analyst Rob Keys put Ohio State’s coverage unit drill work online, and the free preview is the one most staffs need most: teaching a defender to sink his hips and deliver through a block without losing the leverage he covered forty yards to establish. If the richest staff in football just funded a full-time job for that phase, it’s worth asking what it deserves in your building.
Watch it: Coverage Units: Speed to Power — Rob Keys
No. 2 — Oregon
Oregon lost both coordinators this offseason to head coaching jobs — Will Stein to Kentucky, Tosh Lupoi to Cal — and Dan Lanning replaced both from inside the building without changing a word of the system. His simulated pressure clinic is the closest thing to Oregon’s defensive identity in one session: walk defenders up to threaten six, rush four, and drop the other two into the zones the offense just vacated protecting against six. You get a free rusher without ever going light in coverage.
Watch it: Building a Simulated Pressure Plan — Dan Lanning
No. 3 — Georgia
While the rest of the sport rebuilt this offseason, Georgia did almost nothing — Kirby Smart is in year 11, Glenn Schumann is in year 8 as defensive coordinator. Schumann’s whiteboard session on simplifying run fits across multiple fronts is the reason that continuity works: the fit gets taught as a principle first and an alignment second, so a defender’s job doesn’t change when the front does — only where he lines up.
Watch it: Simplifying Run Fits Across Multiple Structures — Glenn Schumann
No. 4 — Texas
Six years of the same offensive line coach is one of the quietest advantages in college football, and Kyle Flood’s teaching progression starts somewhere most staffs skip. Fit first, reach second: he puts the lineman in the finished position of the block — hands inside, hips under, eyes on the target — before he ever takes a step. You can’t correct a kid toward a position he’s never physically been in.
Watch it: Fit & Reach — Kyle Flood
No. 5 — Notre Dame
Notre Dame lost both of its running backs this offseason, and Mike Denbrock’s answer wasn’t to lean harder on the quarterback — it was to change who the defense has to account for. His TE-driven RPOs move the conflict off a linebacker who can play soft and onto a defender who has to honor the run first, because he’s blocking the same man on the RPO that he’d block on the base run.
Watch it: Film Breakdown: TE-Driven RPOs — Mike Denbrock
No. 6 — Indiana
Indiana went 16-0 and won the national title, then lost its Heisman-winning quarterback. Nobody’s talking about the actual reason the Hoosiers went undefeated: Bryant Haines’ defense, and specifically how it turns takeaways into a daily practice structure instead of a hope. Ola Adams drills the strip and the punch separately from tackling, because asking a player to choose between the two under pressure means he chooses wrong every time.
Watch it: Finishing — Ola Adams
No. 7 — Miami
Miami came within a possession of a national title and handed the defense to first-year coordinator Corey Hetherman, a defensive line teacher at heart. His free preview lays out the get-off as a stance problem, an eye problem, and a first-step problem — all three fixable in a week of individual period, with no extra athleticism required. You don’t need better players up front nearly as often as you think. You need the same players a half-count earlier.
Watch it: Set the Tempo Early — Corey Hetherman
No. 8 — Texas A&M
When Texas A&M lost its offensive coordinator, Mike Elko promoted the receivers coach, Holmon Wiggins, instead of running a search. Wiggins’ whole teaching identity runs through releases, not the route tree: the receiver’s first three steps are identical on every route, so the stem never tips the corner which route is actually coming. Fix the release and half your passing-game problems turn out to have been timing problems.
Watch it: Play With an E.D.G.E. — Holmon Wiggins
No. 9 — Oklahoma
Oklahoma gave up 15.5 points a game and made the Playoff, and Wes Goodwin’s game-week clinic explains why the defense is that good on purpose rather than by accident. Pressures get filed by what protection they beat, not by what they’re named — so on Sunday you’re pulling from a list instead of scrolling a whole playbook, and every pressure already has its hot answer built in.
Watch it: Game Week Process and Hot Pressures — Wes Goodwin
No. 10 — Ole Miss
When Lane Kiffin left for LSU, Ole Miss promoted defensive coordinator Pete Golding to head coach — a defensive mind now running an offensive program’s roster. His clinic on game-planning alternative formations is built around empty sets specifically, because nothing exposes a defense faster than a formation it hasn’t repped. Decide what empty means to your call sheet once, in the offseason — not live, on a Friday, with a sophomore linebacker making the call.
Watch it: Game Planning Alternative Formations: No Back in the Backfield — Pete Golding
No. 11 — Alabama
Alabama enters the season with one of the best secondaries in the country and no settled quarterback. Maurice Linguist’s clinic on leadership isn’t about football at all — it’s about what holds a locker room together during an open competition. Publish the standard so the competition is about the criteria, not about politics, and build your leadership before you need it, because the only leaders you have during the battle are the two guys fighting for the job.
Watch it: Leadership and Culture — Maurice Linguist
No. 12 — Texas Tech
Texas Tech won the Big 12 and then lost its starting quarterback to the portal. Mack Leftwich’s backside high-low is the right install for a first-year starter precisely because the read is binary — the defender either sinks or squats, and there’s no third option for a young quarterback to talk himself into. It tags off the backside of your run game, so the same call answers both the run and the pass without a special install.
Watch it: Pass Game: Backside High-Low — Mack Leftwich
No. 13 — LSU
Eight of Lane Kiffin’s eleven staff hires at LSU came with him from Ole Miss, and Charlie Weis Jr.’s RPO system is the part worth stealing regardless of your roster. He files every RPO by which level of the defense it attacks — first level punishes the unblocked box defender, second level punishes the fitting linebacker, third level punishes the rotating safety. Sorted that way, calling them stops being a feel. You watch which level is cheating and take the level above it.
Watch it: Intro to A, B & C Level RPOs — Charlie Weis Jr.
No. 14 — USC
Lincoln Riley has never had trouble scoring — his problem was always stopping people, which is why he went out and hired Gary Patterson. But the most copyable thing he’s put on tape isn’t a play, it’s the week: every situation owns a fixed day, install volume shrinks as the week goes on, and the call sheet is built from the practice plan rather than the other way around. You can’t hire Gary Patterson this fall. You can build your Tuesday the way USC builds it.
Watch it: Gameweek Overview — Lincoln Riley
No. 15 — BYU
BYU rounds out the top half of the poll off back-to-back seasons worth 23 wins, with Kalani Sitake heading into his 11th year in Provo — the Big 12’s preseason pick to win the league behind Texas Tech. We don’t have a clinic from this staff in the library yet, so we’ll just say: keep an eye on the Cougars this fall.
No. 16 — Michigan
Michigan fired its head coach in December and hired Kyle Whittingham away from 21 seasons at Utah. He kept exactly two coaches from the old staff, and one of them was special teams coordinator Garrett Clawson — not an accident, given how many games Whittingham’s Utah teams won in the third phase. Clawson’s free preview isn’t technique, it’s the argument: what a yard of field position is actually worth, and how often one explosive kicking-game play decides the result. Believe the numbers and the specialist work stops feeling optional.
Watch it: Winning Percentage for Field Position — Garrett Clawson
No. 17 — Penn State
Penn State fired James Franklin in-season and hired Matt Campbell, who spent a decade turning Iowa State into a consistent winner without ever out-recruiting anybody. His program-building clinic lays out the framework itself, and the throughline is that “trust the process” only means something once development is defined in specific enough terms that a player can tell you where he stands. A slogan you can’t measure is decoration.
Watch it: Our Main Focus and 10 Steps — Matt Campbell
No. 18 — Tennessee
Josh Heupel fired his defensive coordinator on December 8 and had Jim Knowles hired three days later, paying $6.6 million to fix a defense that had been undoing a very good offense. Knowles’ system gets described as exotic, but it’s really a linebacker system — his fundamentals clinic drills stance and start every single day, because a linebacker’s first step is either downhill or it’s wasted, and most missed fits aren’t bad reads. They’re a false step that cost him the gap.
Watch it: Movement Mechanics — Jim Knowles
No. 19 — Washington
Washington’s offensive coordinator left in February, and Jedd Fisch decided not to replace him — he’s calling plays himself. His clinic on marrying the run and pass game attacks the thing most high school offenses get wrong: the line takes a different first step, the back sets his feet differently, and good linebackers pick up the tip by the second quarter. Every run needs a designated pass off it, installed together and repped back to back, so the formation stops being the play call.
Watch it: Our Philosophy — Jedd Fisch
No. 20 — SMU
Rhett Lashlee’s offense runs on tempo, but tempo isn’t the point — it’s how he gets to the matchup, and the concept is how he cashes it in. His “Choice” concept lets the receiver break in, out, or up based on leverage, reading the same defender the quarterback is reading. It’s one call against every coverage, which matters when you’re snapping the ball in twelve seconds and don’t have time to check.
Watch it: Creating Explosives w/ an Up-Tempo Offense: Choice — Rhett Lashlee
No. 21 — Utah
Kyle Whittingham left Utah for Michigan after 21 seasons, and Morgan Scalley’s first big decision as his successor was hiring quarterback teacher Kevin McGiven. McGiven’s clinic covers the least-coached fundamental at the position: not footwork, not the progression, but where the quarterback’s eyes are on each step of it — which is the thing safeties are actually reading. A quarterback who stares down his first read tells the safety where the ball is going before he throws it.
Watch it: Pass Game Objectives & QB Eye Patterns — Kevin McGiven
No. 22 — Iowa
Kirk Ferentz is in his 28th season at Iowa, and the program has watched the spread, the RPO, and tempo all arrive without chasing any of it. Offensive line coach George Barnett’s clinic on the Hawkeye run game is nothing but fundamentals — leverage, eye discipline, stance, footwork — cut against the game film those drills actually produced. Leverage beats size, and it’s the one advantage available to an undersized line on every single snap.
Watch it: Run Blocking at Iowa — George Barnett
No. 23 — Clemson
Clemson went 7-6 and Dabo Swinney’s answer was to bring back Chad Morris, the coordinator who called plays during the program’s rise a decade ago. Co-coordinator Matt Luke’s clinic on grouping plays is the mechanism underneath the whole rebuild: Morris builds his entire offense off four base runs, and nothing else makes the call sheet unless it answers a specific coverage, blitz, or front you can actually name. Most staffs add plays in a losing season. The good ones subtract.
Watch it: How to Group Plays — Matt Luke
No. 24 — Houston
Willie Fritz is entering his 34th year as a head coach — Division II, FCS, Group of Five, and now a Power Four program in the Top 25. His clinic isn’t scheme at all. It’s practice organization and situational football: the four-minute offense, the two-minute defense, what you do on 4th-and-2 from your own 38 — all scheduled periods, not leftover minutes. Your fourth-down chart and your clock rules should be settled on a calm Tuesday, because you will not out-think a piece of paper at 10:45 on a Friday.
Watch it: Masters of Situational Football — Willie Fritz
No. 25 — Missouri
Missouri closes out the Top 25 under Eli Drinkwitz, who’s 46-29 in Columbia and facing a schedule where five of nine SEC opponents are also ranked. We don’t have a clinic from this staff in the library yet either — but two coordinators without a paired clinic out of twenty-five is a good problem to have, and it just means there’s real film still to go find.
The Pattern Underneath All 25
Line these up and the same handful of ideas keep showing up under different team names: continuity beats a new voice more often than it gets credit for, fundamentals compound while schemes come and go, and the phases everybody else treats as an afterthought — special teams, situational football, eye discipline — are exactly where the best-coached staffs in the country are still spending real coaching hours. None of it requires a five-star roster. It requires a practice plan that protects the boring stuff.
