The SEC has long been known as dominant for college football, owning 13 of the last 19 national champions. SEC basketball, however, made its case in recent seasons to be considered the best conference in the country, and in 2024-25 it sent a historic 14 teams to the NCAA Tournament.
Within the conference itself, many teams perform more highly in one sport than the other, but a handful of schools are led to success by high-level coaches in both. Here is a list of the best football-basketball coaching combos across the SEC.
Alabama — Kalen DeBoer, football; Nate Oats, basketball
In terms of recent history, the tandem in Tuscaloosa is the highest-performing in the country. Oats took the Crimson Tide from its perpetual spot in the middle of the pack and transformed it into a consistent national contender, guiding the team to two Elite Eights, its first Final Four and two SEC Tournament championships while also sending off six NBA draft picks.
DeBoer’s 9-4 mark in his first year at Alabama was disappointing for many, but it’s a small stain on a career marked by winning. He boasts a 46-13 record as a Division I head coach, including a run with Washington that brought the Huskies to the 2023-24 CFP national championship game and earned DeBoer the AP Coach of the Year award that same season.
There are coaches who have a case to be ranked above Oats and DeBoer in their respective sports, but perhaps no school can brag of having a top 10–worthy leader at the helm of both programs.
Tennessee — Josh Heupel, Rick Barnes
The Heupel experience at Tennessee has seen both high-flying offense and stout defense, and the end result has been four winning seasons, two bowl victories and an appearance in the newly expanded College Football Playoff. At 47, Heupel is still on the younger side for CFB head coaches, and with only four seasons in the driver’s seat for the Volunteers, he seems to have a bright future in addition to his current success.
Barnes, on the other hand, is one of the most experienced college basketball coaches in the country, having been coaching since before Heupel was in middle school. Across 38 years, he has racked up an 846-423 record at George Mason, Providence, Clemson, Texas and now Tennessee. He has seven tournament appearances in 10 years with the Volunteers, including two Elite Eights and two Sweet 16s.
They’re on separate ends of the experience spectrum, but both consistently have their respective programs not just at the top of the SEC but the entire country.
Ole Miss — Lane Kiffin, Chris Beard
Kiffin has been around the block with stops in college and the NFL, and he has seen both success and controversy. After being ignominiously fired from USC in 2013 and spending the next few years regaining his footing as offensive coordinator at Alabama, he took over as head coach at Florida Atlantic and took the Owls to multiple 11-win seasons. That earned him the head gig at Ole Miss, and in his time the Rebels have had four winning seasons, including three double-digit win campaigns and a school-record 11 victories in 2023-24.
Like Kiffin, Beard has faced controversy, coming after an arrest for allegedly strangling his fiancée — a case later dismissed — and was fired from his head job at Texas. Before the firing, he took mid-major Little Rock to multiple winning seasons and an upset of Purdue in the NCAA Tournament, and then led Texas Tech to a national championship game appearance in 2018-19, winning AP Coach of the Year along the way.
In two years with the Rebels, Beard has a 44-24 record and a trip to the NCAA Tournament, as well as a No. 18 finish in the final 2024-25 AP poll. He and Kiffin’s career-long success both in Oxford and at other schools makes Ole Miss a top contender on this list.
Auburn — Hugh Freeze, Bruce Pearl
Auburn basketball is fresh off an AP Coach of the Year and an appearance in the Final Four, losing a narrow 79-73 semifinal against eventual-champion Florida. This was the second Final Four in Pearl’s tenure — also in school history — and the latest feather in his cap as the Tigers’ head coach. Before he took over in 2014-15, the team had seen just two winning seasons in the previous 12 years; since he took over, Auburn has had eight winning seasons and two conference tournament championships to go along with the Final Fours.
Freeze hasn’t experienced the same highs. However, he has been a winner almost everywhere he’s gone, boasting a 94-57 career record with 10-win seasons at Arkansas State, Ole Miss and Liberty. The exception to that success has ironically been Auburn, where in two seasons the Tigers have gone 6-7 and 5-7. A top 10 incoming recruiting class should be a major boost, and if Freeze can get the team to contention status in the SEC, Auburn’s football-basketball duo will be even more esteemed.
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