Ranking the Best Offensive Coordinators In College Football In 2025

College football is a sport generally defined by strong coaching staffs and effective quarterback play. 

To correctly bet in the college football odds market – especially before the season starts – bettors must first read the tea leaves on which programs have assembled competent coach-quarterback batteries. 

One deeply overlooked piece of that formula is the offensive coordinator. It’s no coincidence that the top two names on my list for 2024 – Chip Kelly and Mike Denbrock – both coached their teams in the national championship game. 

Here are some of the top offensive coordinators in college football for 2025.

Best Offensive Coordinators In College Football (2025)

Kendal Briles, TCU

TCU’s assistant head coach and offensive coordinator since 2023, Briles effectively uses misdirection and route tree verticality to stress opposing defenses. He routinely creates one of the most efficient offenses on a yards per play basis, and he’s creative enough to make year-to-year installs on the fly. 

Mike Bobo – Georgia

Bobo’s stock may have taken a slight dip after Georgia’s up-and-down offensive performance in 2024, but the Bulldogs could still do a heck of a lot worse than their third-year coordinator. The 51-year-old is one of the most deft OCs in college football.

Carson Beck is gone, but fans can still expect the Georgia offense to include balance, motion, and situational excellence in high-leverage moments.

Mack Leftwich, Texas Tech

Leftwich is a young up-and-comer who isn’t quite old enough to run for president – he’ll turn 31 this year – but he can dial up the juice in Lubbock. He previously worked with GJ Kinne at Texas State, pairing tempo and quick reads to create offense that’s simple but unstoppable.

Leftwich makes the jump to power football this year, which will be a stress test for his fast ascension. But after jump-starting Cam Ward’s career at Incarnate Word, I’ve already seen enough to make a ruling. 

Jake Spavital – Baylor

One of the purest Air Raid offensive coordinators in college football today, the 40-year-old Spavital is a seasoned vet in Big 12 country. He previously worked at Oklahoma State and West Virginia, not to mention Houston, Tulsa, Texas State, and Texas A&M. He was the head coach in San Marcos from 2019-22. 

Sawyer Robertson exploded onto the scene in the middle of 2024 as arguably the best quarterback in the Big 12, and he should have a chance to cement that status with Spavital this season. For Spavs, it’s probably the best quarterback he’s worked with since Geno Smith.

Bobby Petrino – Arkansas

OK, fine. Get your motorcycle jokes and True Detective references in now. But Petrino returned to Arkansas in 2024, and whatever else he is, he’s a pretty good OC.

Head coach Sam Pittman is a college football hot seat candidate, and Petrino will turn 65 next offseason, so who knows how long any of this will go on. But Arkansas, for all its other potential limitations, does have a pretty experienced coach calling the shots on offense, with complex routes and concepts to stress opposing defenses.

Garrett Riley – Clemson

Riley, who will turn 36 this year, is one of the bright young offensive minds in college football right now. He manipulates tempo and balance by adding air raid concepts into a run-first offense.

Riley was the OC behind TCU’s incredible run to the national championship game in 2022. He used that run to propel himself upward in the coaching ranks, now working with a more conventional championship contender at Clemson. He’s going to start popping up on head coaching short lists soon. 

Andy Kotelnicki – Penn State

Presnap motion is all the rage these days, and few college coordinators utilize it better than Kotelnicki. 

One of the chief architects behind the recent rejuvenations of Kansas football, he now has major resources and blue-chip playmakers after joining the PSU staff in 2024. The fact that last season’s playoff breakthrough coincided with Kotelnicki’s arrival is no accident. 

Will Stein – Oregon

Stein has continually impressed as one of the bright young minds in college football. Oregon has cut him a paycheck to match, affording him one of the largest salaries of any FBS coordinator.

Stein’s RPO concepts looked strong in the hands of seasoned quarterbacks like Bo Nix and Dillon Gabriel. This year’s upcoming season with relatively unproven UCLA transfer Dante Moore could cement his status as a gifted creator of offense.

Kyle Flood – Texas

With Chip Kelly now gone to the NFL again, Flood inches closer to the top of this list. 

The Texas OC has done something radical and rare in this hyper-mobile age: stayed put. A years-long working partnership with Steve Sarkesian at a resource-rich program like Texas has allowed Flood to continually refine his power run game and intermediate passing tree with five-star pieces. It’s been decades since Texas’ offense looked this complete.

Mike Denbrock – Notre Dame

Denbrock has created quite a resume for himself over the last couple of years. In 2023, his mentorship as the LSU OC helped nab Jayden Daniels a Heisman Trophy. 

When he returned to Notre Dame for the 2024 season, he helped the playoff win-starved Irish mount a run through the new expanded postseason format and reach the national title game.

I got some light pushback last year when I placed Denbrock at the top of my 2024 coordinator rankings, but I think the results of last season validated the choice. Denbrock blends scheme elements better than most and sequences incredibly effective red zone ideas. He’s the best offensive coordinator in America right now.

Don’t be surprised if he’s pulled up to another job soon – perhaps a college football head coaching job at a premium institution. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the NFL grab him for a high-profile OC job, either. His concept mixes are exactly what the NFL is looking for these days.