The B1G is on a heater. The league with the amazing map commercial has won the last game of the season in three straight years. Do they have great players? Yes, of course. Do they have lots of media money? Absolutely. While we still don’t know why they put their best games at noon, 11 am for real ones, the biggest reason for the heater is coaching. The B1G has the best collection of coaches in CFB right now. That’s what made putting together our list of the Top 5 B1G coaches returning in 2026 so much fun. Let’s get started with our Honorable Mentions, those that were “ineligible” or didn’t meet our criteria.
Honorable Mention
To be considered for this list, you must be returning to coach your program in 2026. That takes two big names from this year’s coaching carousel: Matt Campbell and Kyle Whittingham. Campbell and Whittingham made our list of Top Big 12 Coaches in 2025 while leading.
Iowa State and Utah. Campbell is now the leading man in Happy Valley and will look to win the “big games” that James Franklin couldn’t. Campbell is an Ohio native, and the move to Penn State and the B1G is just a natural fit. He won consistently at Toledo and helped bring Iowa State out of the Big 12 cellar into a consistent winner. While he never won a Big 12 Championship, Campbell has done an excellent job of winning with fewer resources and lesser expectations. He will not have those problems in Happy Valley. Penn State is looking to get out of Michigan, Ohio State, and Oregon’s shadow. Time will tell if Campbell is the right choice.
Whittingham just won at Utah, but apparently, according to the Utes’ athletic department, not enough. Whittingham “retired” (read, pushed out) of Utah at the end of last season. Rather than take a cushy job in the Athletic Department, Whittingham took his Harley and some big-time coordinators and coaches from Utah and BYU to come help resurrect a dumpster fire of a program in Ann Arbor. Michigan is three years removed from a national championship, but the program is far from being the “Leaders and Best.” Whittingham was a steal and a gift. He is a winner and runs a respected program. There was no better fit if Michigan was going to go outside of the “Michigan Man” tree for their next head coach.
Top 5 B1G Coaches in 2026
We spent a lot of time on who didn’t make our list of top returning B1G coaches in 2026. Let’s take a quick moment to review the criteria. We already said you have to be returning to coach in the B1G. Other criteria included winning B1G Championships and National Championships. We also used some subjective criteria, such as how the program is performing relative to the “difficulty” of the job, as we look ahead to the 2026 season.
#5 Brett Bielema
Bielema is a great quote and an even better football coach. In February 2015, while coaching Arkansas, Bielema shared a recruiting quote that tells us everything about his program. “Would you rather have an overachieving 3-Star, or an underachieving 5-Star?” The Illini were bottom dwellers before Bert came to Champaign. Under Lovie Smith, Illinois was 17-39 (10–33 in B1G play) during his five seasons (2016–2020). Contrast that with Bielema, who is 37-26 overall (and 18-18 in Big Ten play) in his five seasons.
#4 Kirk Ferentz
Kirk Ferentz is the godfather of B1G football. His offenses, at times, can be downright offensive, but Phil Parker’s defense and those punters make Ferentz a staple on any list of the top B1G coaches year in and year out. It’s hard to imagine a world without Ferentz as the head football coach at Iowa. The Hawkeyes are consistently an 8-9-win team and will likely be a staple in the CFB Playoff when it expands to 24, as the B1G coaches get their wish. We’ve heard that Bielema and How will Ferentz do against Campbell at Penn State? Ferentz owns a 6-3 record against Campbell, but the young coach did win three of the last four meetings.
#3 Ryan Day
Ryan Day has all the stats and data to be the #1 coach on our list. But we are never ones to let facts ruin a good argument. Day is 82-12 at Ohio State. That is fantastic and great. What draws pause and puts him at number three are a few other numbers. He has just two Big Ten Championships in 2019 and 2020. He has a 5-4 record in the CFB Playoff and 1-1 in the 4-Team version, with one national championship. Those are very good numbers, but Day, year in and year out, consistently has one of the best rosters in the B1G and college football. With great power comes great expectations, and that’s where and why Day comes in at #3 on our list. We just want him to win more and more importantly, the “right” games.
#2 Dan Lanning
“You have Ryan Day at #3, how in the world can you then put Dan Lanning at #2?” This will likely be a comment from Last Word Ohio State beat writer Drew Crabtree, as well as many of our B1Ggest fans on social media and message boards. Vibes and feel are the answer. Dan Lanning is all about the vibes, despite having only one conference championship (B1G 2024) and a couple of huge Quarterfinal blowout losses on his resume. With Franklin no longer in the conference, we can maybe pass the “Big Game” crown to Dan. But one thing we know, Lanning knows how to recruit football players. If there is a fourth B1G team to win a championship in 2026, we are just ducky that it should be Lanning.
#1 Curt “Google Me” Cignetti
Who else are we going to put at #1? Curt Cignetti went undefeated, won a B1G Championship, kicked Alabama’s butt in the Rose Bowl, and won a national championship at Indiana. Not Ohio State, Michigan, or USC. Indiana. Yeah, that still seems weird and more like an AI-generated hallucination than reality. That is why Cignetti is #1 on our Top B1G Coaches list and should be #1 on yours, too.
Main Photo: Ben Lonergan/The Register-Guard / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
