Ranking the five best college football coaches after Nick Saban's retirement

Nick Saban shocked the college football world with his sudden retirement just over a week ago. Unlike Mike Krzyzewski, Saban didn't go on a year-long retirement tour, he just quietly made his announcement two days after Michigan won the national championship. This left Alabama scrambling to find a new coach, a position that was quickly filled with Washington Huskies coach Kalen DeBoer.

DeBoer seems to be an excellent hire, but he has his work cut out for him in this age of the transfer portal, as there has been a mini-exodus of talent out of Tuscaloosa since Saban made his announcement.

The argument for Saban as the greatest college football coach of all time is a strong one. He's won seven national championships, the most of any coach, and the fact that he won a title at LSU before going on to make Alabama the most dominant program in the nation is a huge feather in his cap.

Now that Saban is gone, who are the best college football coaches in the country? It's a difficult question to answer, so let's lay out some criteria. First, there are a number of up-and-coming coaches that very well may end up being the best in a few years, but they don't have the body of work yet to make this list, so apologies to DeBoer, Dan Lanning, Mike Norvell, and Marcus Freeman. Second, it's easy to be swayed by recency bias, in which the most recent season's results carry too much weight. We're not going to let that happen, which means that Steve Sarkisian, Eli Drinkwitz, and Lance Leipold also won't be making the list. Finally, we won't be recognizing any coaches whose teams have become a meme for their inability to score points. Apologies to Kirk Ferentz for the snub.

Without further ado, our picks for the top five coaches in college football:

5) Lincoln Riley, USC

Just as putting too much stock in this past season could have gotten someone like Sarkisian on this list, recency bias could have worked the other way to keep Riley from being recognized here, because USC's defense this past season was an affront to both God and man. Caleb Williams' final college season was wasted by the Trojans' inability to hold anyone under 50 points, but Riley still deserves to be on this list.

Riley possesses a 74-18 career record, and he is rightfully recognized as the premier developer of quarterbacks in the nation. Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, and Caleb Williams all won the Heisman Trophy while playing for Riley, and Jalen Hurts reinvented himself after leaving Alabama to play for him at Oklahoma.

Oklahoma was the class of the Big 12 while Riley was at the helm, reaching the College Football Playoff three times in five years, but he hasn't yet been able to duplicate that success at USC. While he lost exactly two games every year in Norman, his two seasons in SoCal have produced eight losses.

RIley's recruiting prowess and talent for putting points on the board will be a shock to the conference when USC moves to the Big Ten later this year. New defensive coordinator D'Anton Lynn has been hired to get the defense back to respectability, and if he can, USC will be a national contender for years to come.