They've been doing these conference by conference by polling the coaches. I'm mostly a believer that practically every job is only as good as the coach that currently has it, but still potentially interesting. The put out the Big 12 yesterday.

🔥 BIG 12 JOB RANKINGS 🔥

We anonymously polled coaches and asked them to rank every job in the league! 👀

RANKINGS HERE ⬇️https://t.co/gJsJvRt2Vp pic.twitter.com/ffc1p7EmDu

— The Field of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) January 15, 2026

Pretty wild to see Oklahoma State below TCU on this list.

bobinator said:

---

They've been doing these conference by conference by polling the coaches. I'm mostly a believer that practically every job is only as good as the coach that currently has it, but still potentially interesting. The put out the Big 12 yesterday.

🔥 BIG 12 JOB RANKINGS 🔥

We anonymously polled coaches and asked them to rank every job in the league! 👀

RANKINGS HERE ⬇️https://t.co/gJsJvRt2Vp pic.twitter.com/ffc1p7EmDu

— The Field of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) January 15, 2026

Pretty wild to see Oklahoma State below TCU on this list.

---

Is TCU a better job because they have a better coach and people think it's good because of that?

Oklahoma State and Utah…yikes

Cincinnati seems high

I don't want to live anywhere in Texas but I'd way rather live around Fort Worth than Waco.

To support your idea that coaches make programs, during the Eddie Sutton era, Okie St would probably be 3rd on that list. Gallagher Iba had one of the best atmospheres in the country.

Also to state the obvious, NIL is a huge factor in the rankings and the main reason TT, BYU, and UH are so high.

10, 13 and 14 have all made the final four within the past 30 years. Pretty sad to see how far Okie has fallen, as it was probably a top5 job 15 years ago.

To Bob's point, TCU is probably a lot lower without Dixon, same for Baylor without Drew.

Arizona State seems way too low, but I'm guessing their facilities suck and being second fiddle to Zona.

I was surprised Baylor isn't a lot higher. Not sure what a coach could want that Baylor doesn't seem to have other than just a hoops crazy fan base.

New facilities, seem to be doing fine with NIL, I mean they (allegedly) won a national championship a few years ago and were among the favorites to win it the year it got cancelled.

cutter said:

---

To support your idea that coaches make programs, during the Eddie Sutton era, Okie St would probably be 3rd on that list. Gallagher Iba had one of the best atmospheres in the country.

Also to state the obvious, NIL is a huge factor in the rankings and the main reason TT, BYU, and UH are so high.

---

Those reasons are also why I think Kansas is going to drop once self retires/fired(absurd but before isu their fans were over him).

Without adidas money and nil for everyone else they haven't been the same. Next coach will be fascinating there.

It turns out coaches also have poorly thunk opinions just like every one else???

In my opinion there are 4 tiers of equivalent programs in that list.

Tier 1-Kansas
Tier 2-Arizona
Tier 3-Iowa State, Kansas State, West Virginia, Texas Tech, Houston, Baylor, Cincinnati, BYU, Oklahoma State, Utah
Tier 4-TCU, Arizona State, UCF, Colorado

Since it's "jobs" and not "programs" I'd probably put Texas Tech on the same tier as Arizona. The history of the program would have some relevance if it was the other way but only your recent history really matters if we're talking about the job.

Doesn't seem to be anything you could possibly want as a coach that they don't have. I'd maybe even have Baylor in that group but Baylor hasn't been nationally relevant under multiple recent coaches like Tech and Arizona have.

You can also tell how much current NIL perception clouds this list because BYU is so high. BYU has two sweet sixteens in the last 40 years, and nothing beyond that and only recently joined a major conference.

I think there's blurry lines and/or permeability between 2 and 3 and 3 and 4. Where you can argue that a school on that tier is close to one on another. I'm also not using just history to define a "program" either, otherwise Houston would be with Arizona.

I try not to follow recruiting so hard, but Arizona for a good long while has recruited blue chips, best of the best type recruits. Is Texas Tech pulling that type of player now to be thought of in that way, or is it just an assumption that the money will lead to that eventually?

I just think Tech is clearly better than like, West Virginia or Cincinnati.

The SEC list is going to be pretty wild I imagine. Where do we think we land?

Using your tier system I'd have the SEC like this:

Tier 1: Kentucky
Tier 2: Tennessee, Arkansas, Florida, Texas
Tier 3: Everyone else? I think I'd argue that we're maybe the best of this group from a "job" standpoint because three of our last four coaches got hired to bigger jobs and even the one that didn't made the Sweet 16 twice. Not sure anyone else in this group can say anything like that.

I could maybe see the argument for a Tier 4 of like South Carolina and Georgia, schools willing to hire coaches that other schools have fired.

I'm looking at this like, if all of these schools were interviewing the same coaching candidate, how likely are they to take the job and if a "blue blood" school has a job opening, how likely are they to lose their coach?

I mean they dropped like $4M on one guy supposedly this year. They've made their moves more through the portal than the high school ranks, but they've been throwing money around.

Tier 1: Kentucky
Tier 2: Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Florida
Tier 3: Alabama, Auburn, Missouri, Oklahoma, LSU, Texas A&M
Tier 4: Vanderbilt, Georgia, South Carolina, Ole Miss, Miss State

We couldn't take Ole Miss' coach even with a pay raise

I think it's easier to win here though. Also wonder if he's regretting that decision.

He's one coach that they only have because he was available in the bargain bin. Yeah he didn't come here, but one guy's opinion is not the whole market, and also deciding to leave a job is not the same as making a choice between two jobs when you arent attached.

_lefraud_ said:

---

10, 13 and 14 have all made the final four within the past 30 years. Pretty sad to see how far Okie has fallen, as it was probably a top5 job 15 years ago.

To Bob's point, TCU is probably a lot lower without Dixon, same for Baylor without Drew.

Arizona State seems way too low, but I'm guessing their facilities suck and being second fiddle to Zona.

---

The only thing that ASU has to offer is the chance to live here. They've been to the tournament 5 times the last 20 years and have had 7 losing seasons in that time.

Arizona State is a hockey school and if you think I'm kidding I'm not.

bobinator said:

---

They've been doing these conference by conference by polling the coaches. I'm mostly a believer that practically every job is only as good as the coach that currently has it, but still potentially interesting. The put out the Big 12 yesterday.

🔥 BIG 12 JOB RANKINGS 🔥

We anonymously polled coaches and asked them to rank every job in the league! 👀

RANKINGS HERE ⬇️https://t.co/gJsJvRt2Vp pic.twitter.com/ffc1p7EmDu

— The Field of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) January 15, 2026

Pretty wild to see Oklahoma State below TCU on this list.

---

Baylor is too low. That's a great job in a relatively stress free environment.