What’s the best job in college football?

That’s a simple question on the surface. It’s also an extremely loaded and complicated inquiry once you start to peel back layers. Still, that’s the question 247Sports hopes to tackle when examining the 18 best jobs heading into the 2018 season. In other words, if every FBS job opened today, which 18 posts would be picked first?

Knowing how subjective a list like this can be, we’ve attempted to make it somewhat analytical by assigning certain metrics a point value in order to help sort teams. Below is the methodology and point system we utilized:

Championships Won Over Last Decade: 1 point (A division title), 2 points (A conference title), 3 points (Multiple conference titles and/or multiple major bowl appearances), 4 points (A playoff or national title game appearance), 5 points (A national title)

Recruiting Over Last Decade: 1 point (No top 10 classes or five-star recruits), 2 points (One top 10 class or five-star recruit), 3 points (Multiple top 10 classes and/or five-star recruits), 4 points (A top 5 class), 5 points (Multiple top 5 classes)

Revenue*: 1 point (No top 25 finishes within last 3 years), 2 points (Top 25 revenue finish), 3 points (Multiple Top 25 finishes), 4 (A top 10 finish), 5 (Multiple top 10 finishes)

* Using Business Insider’s revenue rankings from 2015 to 2017

Pressure: 1 point (Extreme job volatility), 2 points (High volatility), 3 points (Moderate volatility), 4 points (Some volatility), 5 (Low volatility)

Obviously, you could argue with all of these measures for one reason or another. But let’s quickly explain the reasoning within each category.

In terms of winning, results from over the last 10 years were prioritized to show how likely it would be for a coach to pile up victories now. If we used all-time results, Yale and Harvard would still earn high marks – we have to have some sort of cutoff. When it comes to recruiting, you simply don’t win championships without top 10 classes and five-star recruits. The point system was created to reflect that. Revenue is a measure of a program’s ability to spend. That translates to coaching salaries, staff sizes, facilities and the ability to truly invest in a program. Some schools can spend more, but when you get into the top 10 a program’s available checkbook is negligible compared to another. It comes down to an administration’s willingness to invest in football at that point. Finally, pressure is a measure of expectations and turnover at the school. Pressure can bring out the best in people, but we’re assigning points for long-term comfort and stability in this case. Generally that's much more appealing for coaches.

This procedure was critical to separate programs and sort them in to tiers. From there, other factors like administrative stability, history, location and facilities – along with a dose of my own opinion – were considered to form the final rankings. It’s important to note the results were guided by the point system, not dictated by it. For emphasis, this is a list for jobs entering the 2018 season. But likely 2018 results weren't the only thing taken under consideration. If that was the case, this list would just be the 18 coaches from our most recent too-early Top 25. This list is a combination of the ability to win now and the posts that give a coach the best opportunity to win over the long term.

With that out of the way, these are the top 18 jobs in college football heading into the 2018 season.