Ranking the top 20 college football coaches for 2021

17. Luke Fickell, Cincinnati

A former Ohio State nose guard, Luke Fickell began his college coaching career as a graduate assistant for the Buckeyes. And after a brief stint at Akron, he spent 15 years working his way up the ranks in Columbus before being hired by the Cincinnati Bearcats after the 2016 season and five years as the co-defensive coordinator for OSU (and one year as interim head coach).

Taking over a Bearcats program that was 4-8 the previous year under Tommy Tuberville, Fickell had plenty of work to do, which was evidenced by an identical 4-8 showing in his first season. But the turnaround happened extremely quickly. Cincinnati went 11-2 in 2018 under Fickell and hasn’t looked back, going a combined 31-6 over the past three seasons.

And we truly got a glimpse of how well Fickell has built this program up last season as Cincinnati dominated the AAC en route to a perfect regular season, which was good enough to earn them a Peach Bowl berth and a date with Georgia. Sure, they fell to the Dawgs but they also more than held their own, which is a credit to what the head coach has done.

Fickell has Cincinnati recruiting at a consistently high level for a Group of 5 team and, frankly, has them knocking on the door of the College Football Playoff (and they’d likely be a favorite to make it in a 12-team format). It shouldn’t be long before he’s poached by a much bigger program.