Third-year coaching grades: Kenny Dillingham, Deion Sanders and Brent Key ranked from A to F originally appeared on The Sporting News. Click here to add Sports News as your go-to source.
The 2025 college football season comes to an end, ending the third year of the Big Eight college football coaches. Kenny Dillingham – Arizona State, Hugh Freeze – Auburn, Scott Satterfield – Cincinnati, Deion Sanders – Colorado State, Brent Key – Georgia Tech, Jeff Brohm – Louisville, Matt Rhule – Nebraska and Luke Fickell – Wisconsin.
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CBS Sports compiled grades for these eight coaches. Within their hierarchy, these coaches can be divided into three levels. Well done, on the hot seat and then fired.
All eight coaches have varying degrees of notoriety, hype and expectations. Letter grades are derived based on a comparison of these factors to field results. However, grades and order may be less predictable.
Third year coaching results: Well done
No. 1 Kenny Dillingham – Grade A
Coach Dillingham is the only coach on this list of third-year coaches with hardware. In 2024, Dillingham’s Sun Devils won the Big 12 division title. Although Dillingham got off to a 3-9 start during his time coaching at Arizona State, he found unqualified success at his alma mater.
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Since joining the Big 12, ASU is 13-5 against conference opponents. In addition to the Big 12 championship, Dillingham led the Sun Devils to the College Football Playoff and a top-10 finish in 2024.
Dillingham came off a signature win against a top-10 Texas Tech team and has gone 6-2 against top-10 opponents the past two seasons.
No. 2 Brent Island – Grade: A
Georgia Tech’s Keay is another example of a former man at the helm. A former Yellow Jackets offensive lineman has done an admirable job of getting Georgia Tech back into the national conversation.
The Yellow Jackets qualified for the bowl game every year under Key, and the win total peaked in 2025 at nine. One step away from making the College Football Playoff.
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In just three seasons, Key turned Georgia Tech into a serious ACC contender. Key is 20-11 against conference opponents. He also had signature wins against Miami and Clemson. The only ACC team to reach the national championship game in the playoff era.
3rd Place Jeff Brohm – Grade: A
The final “A” belongs to Louisville coach Brohm. Brohm saw immediate success in Louisville. The 2023 Cardinals competed in the ACC Tournament and finished the season with a top-20 finish.
The former Louisville quarterback took over as head coach in 2023 and quickly posted a double-nine-win season (2024, 2025). Brohm had 28 wins in three seasons. Giving him the best win rate on this list.
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Brohm’s record against conference opponents has been inconsistent, partly due to a late-season losing streak in 2025. Regardless of where the wins come from, Brohm have earned a place in the top flight with the best win total in the group.
Third-year coaching results: On the hot seat
No. 4 Deion Sanders – Grade: C+
Objectively speaking, this feels a bit high. Sanders has capitalized on the hype more than any other coach on this list. There were some high points in 2023 as his Louis Luggage followed him to Boulder, but it was an objectively unsuccessful season.
Sanders’ Buffs improved to 3-0 after defeating TCU in the 2022 championship game. Overnight Colorado became must-see television. In Week 4, they were convincingly defeated by Oregon and lost to USC shortly thereafter.
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In 2024, Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders led a pass-happy offense to a 9-3 regular season record. They also played in the Alamo Bowl. Colorado State remains in contention for the Big 12 title game until Week 11.
Although the trend is correct for 2024, Buffalo is having its worst season under Sanders in 2025. Sanders faces serious medical issues heading into the offseason and the 2025 recruiting calendar. Sanders has since promised changes and once again overhauled the roster. Sanders is the highest-ranked coach on this list with a losing record.
No. 5 Matt Rhule – Grade: C
Rule is five and Sanders is four, which is a little confusing. However, this may be a comparison of these respective programs to what has been the case in the past. While Sanders has revitalized Colorado, Rhule has yet to live up to expectations.
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A program once considered a national contender is coming off two bowl-eligible seasons and its first playoff win in nearly a decade. Bowl eligibility is not an expectation at all.
Rhule’s Cornhuskers are better than before, but a 10-17 record against conference opponents is far from “doing well.” In three seasons, Rhule has failed to produce quality wins against AP Top 25 opponents.
No. 6 Scott Satterfield – Grade: C-
Technically, the Cincinnati Bearcats are trending in the right direction under Satterfield, just not as quickly as fans would like. In 2023, Satterfield and the Bearcats are 3-9 and 1-8 in conference play.
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They improved to 5-7 (3-6 conference) in 2024 and 7-6 (5-4 conference) in 2025. In 2025, they finished in the top half of Division I for the first time under Satterfield.
Cincinnati is very active in the transfer portal in 2025. Twenty new players were brought in, most of them three-star players at various levels, while 19 players were lost. The biggest loss was five-star quarterback Brendan Sorsby to Texas Tech.
No. 7 Luke Fickell – Grade: C-
Fickell has become a big deal after finding some success in Cincinnati. College football viewers celebrated the news when Fickell was hired by Wisconsin. The results were not at all what was expected.
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Fickell’s Badgers made it to a bowl game in 2023, but their on-field production has declined since then. Fickell’s 17-21 record has prompted plenty of speculation about his future with the program.
Surprisingly, Fickell survived the 2025 hot seat. The name appears on many lists of coaches who could be fired in 2025. Joe Thomas, one of the greatest coaches in Badgers history, said in a radio interview late last year that firing Fickell was not the answer.
Fickell will likely start the 2026 season, where he spent the 2025 season. Sit in the hot seat.
Third-year coaching performance: fired
No. 8 Hugh Freeze – Grade: F
In three years, Coach Freeze has led the Auburn Tigers to one bowl game win and a 6-7 record. Auburn did not finish in the top half of Division I that season (71Yingshi 133 items in total).
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A double 5-7 record was set in 2024 and 2025. Minutes of the meeting paint a harsher picture. Once considered a college football powerhouse and a leading SEC team, Auburn has managed just three conference wins over the past two seasons.
The overall record against SEC teams in three years is 6-16, significantly below expectations.
Auburn decided to part ways with Hugh Freeze before the end of the 2025 season. Alex Golesh from South Florida took over in December. Since then, the Tigers have replaced more than 39 players on the 2025 roster.