ShareThisFinal exams still await, but it's not too early to grade the Southeastern Conference football coaches on their body of regular-season work.
When the final standings vary considerably from the preseason projections, as was the case in 2010, it leads to some interesting grades.
I don't see the final marks changing much after the bowls are tallied in. Maybe a plus or minus here and there.
Here's a peek at my grade book:
-- The As: No matter what happens Saturday in the Georgia Dome, Steve Spurrier and Gene Chizik go to the head of the class.
Spurrier finally pushed South Carolina through to the SEC East title, the program's first. If he can upset Auburn, the Gamecocks will play in their first BCS bowl.
Chizik may be the national coach of the year for getting Auburn to 12-0. Nobody saw it coming. His best strategy was signing Cam Newton.
Bobby Petrino had a very strong year at Arkansas. The Razorbacks improved from 8-5 to 10-2 overall and from 3-5 to 6-2 in the SEC. They'll likely earn the program's first BCS bowl (Sugar) bid.
Dan Mullen of Mississippi State also gets an A. The Bulldogs went from 5-7 his first year to 8-4 his second. State is going bowling for only the second time in 10 years and Mullen is already being mentioned in coaching searches.
-- The Bs: The loss to Arkansas on Saturday dropped Les Miles one letter. For all the grief Miles gets, LSU still improved from 9-3 in 2009 to 10-2 and beat Florida and Alabama.
The November winning steak upgraded Derek Dooley to a B in his maiden voyage at Tennessee. If he'd had only 11 men on the field that last play in Baton Rouge he'd get a B-plus.
No SEC coach faced more roster issues than Dooley, taking over as the third coach in three years. Hanging in there at 6-6 was solid work, especially after the team hit 2-6.
Dooley fares relatively well in the 2010 national class of first-year coaches.
Of 23 FBS jobs that came open, just eight are bowl eligible and only four -- Florida State, Notre Dame, Texas Tech and South Florida -- take a winning record into their bowl.
Jimbo Fisher should be the national first-year coach of the year for getting Florida State to the ACC championship game at 9-3, 6-2.
Lane Kiffin, you ask? He's 7-5 with UCLA left to play. If he wins, the probation-bound Trojans match the 5-4 Pac-10 mark Pete Carroll had last year.
-- The Cs: Decorated coaches with strong track records, Nick Saban and Mark Richt have seen better days than 2010.
Expecting Alabama to repeat as national champions (which several publications did) was unfairly setting the bar too high. But the Tide still under-achieved, losing to South Carolina, LSU and Auburn.
Richt dropped a game from 7-5 last year to 6-6 and barely got Georgia qualified for a 14th consecutive bowl game.
A sour ending Saturday leaves Joker Phillips with an average grade for his first season at Kentucky. He took over a 7-5 team and finished 6-6, leaving Wildcat fans wanting more -- especially an end to the losing streak to Tennessee.
-- The Ds: Florida skidding from 12-0 last year (regular season) to 7-5 is one of the bigger national stories of the 2010 season. It might be over-simplification, but Urban Meyer never seemed to adjust to not having QB Tim Tebow around.
Ole Miss was expected to drop off from 8-4, but all the way to 4-8? Houston Nutt won only one SEC game and even lost to Vanderbilt.
Speaking of which, Robbie Caldwell inherited a 2-10 program from Bobby Johnson and produced a 2-10 season. Vandy's administration apparently didn't give Caldwell high marks either since he's already gone.
(Contact Mike Strange of the Knoxville News-Sentinel in Tennessee at strangem(at)knoxnews.com. Follow him at http://twitter.com/strangemike 44 and http://blogs.knoxnews.com/strange.)
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