Countdown: Top 100 CFB coaches of all-time

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100-76 http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/191396720/best-college-football-coaches-ever-part-one

[h=3]100. R.C. Slocum[/h]Teams: Texas A&M (1989-2002)
Record: 123-47-2 in 14 seasons
Slocum led Texas A&M's transition from the Southwest Conference to the Big 12, and his Aggies dominated the final years of the SWC. It wouldn't be success in the Southwest Conference without NCAA trouble, and Texas A&M was banned from the postseason in 1994, when it went 10-0-1. Still, the Aggies won three conference titles and finished in the top 10 three times in a row. Upon moving to the new Big 12, the Aggies won the conference championship in 1998, upsetting undefeated Kansas State in double-OT before losing to Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl. Slocum finished at least .500 in each of his 14 years, but a 6-6 2002 campaign led to him being forced out after a successful tenure in which the Aggies had 10 top-25 finishes. They've finished ranked only three times in the 16 seasons since his coaching career ended.
[h=3]99. John Cooper[/h]Teams: Ohio State (1988-2000), Arizona State (1985-87), Tulsa (1977-84)
Record: 192-84-6 in 24 seasons
Cooper came up short of college football immortality, partly because of a devastating loss to rival Michigan. Two of his Ohio State teams finished 11-1 with major bowl wins (1996 and 1998), but they both ended up No. 2 in the final AP rankings, with the '96 squad losing to Michigan to end the regular season and the '98 team spending most of the season ranked first before losing to Michigan State and missing the BCS title game. Still, in a long career as head coach, Cooper had only two losing seasons -- his first at Tulsa and first at Ohio State -- and he won at least 10 games in a season at three schools, with four top-10 teams and Rose Bowl victories at both Ohio State and Arizona State. Before that, he won five straight Missouri Valley titles at Tulsa. He also coached a Heisman winner, Eddie George, and a rare fourth-place Heisman finisher in offensive tackle Orlando Pace. Nothing can ever make up for the sin of losing to Michigan too many times, but Cooper's overall body of work remains impressive.
[h=3]98. Mike Leach[/h]Teams: Texas Tech (2000-09), Washington State (2012-present)
Record: 105-72 in 14 seasons
No, Leach has never won a conference championship or finished better than 12th in the AP poll. He is, nevertheless, one of the most influential coaches in college football history. Leach didn't play football in college, but he rose to the top of his profession anyway, closely studying LaVell Edwards' teams while a student at BYU and working his way up the ladder for years. He ultimately caught on as offensive coordinator for Hal Mumme at Iowa Wesleyan and Valdosta State before taking the Air Raid offense mainstream with Tim Couch at Kentucky. Leach branched out on his own as Oklahoma's offensive coordinator in 1999, then got the job at Texas Tech, where he coached some of the most prolific passing offenses in history. B.J. Symons (5,833 in 2003) and Graham Harrell (5,705 in 2007) are the all-time single-season FBS passing leaders, and Leach's passing success, combined with his quirky personality and interests (he recently published a book about Geronimo), led to all kinds of national attention, including profiles by "60 Minutes" and Michael Lewis. Leach's tenure at Texas Tech ended in controversy, as he was fired at the end of the 2009 season following allegations of mistreatment by a player, Adam James, the son of former SMU star and ESPN analyst Craig James. Leach resurfaced in 2012 at Washington State, where he led the Cougars to a 9-4 record last year. Leach coached five top-25 teams and had no losing records at Texas Tech, and his influence will be lasting, with a coaching tree that includes Dana Holgorsen, Kliff Kingsbury, Art Briles, Sonny Dykes and young rising star assistants like Lincoln Riley and Sonny Cumbie.


[h=3]97. Don Nehlen[/h]Teams: West Virginia (1980-2000), Bowling Green (1968-76)
Record: 202-128-8 in 30 seasons
Longevity can inflate numbers, but it has to count for something. After all, in a fickle, impatient business, it takes a lot of talent to outlast any criticism, any feeling of stagnation, and not get fired. Nehlen went 53-35-4 at Bowling Green, and after three year's as Bo Schembechler's quarterbacks coach, he took on the challenge at West Virginia. Bobby Bowden had some success with the Mountaineers, but they had finished ranked in the AP poll in only two of the previous 24 seasons when Nehlen got the job. Nehlen consistently won, headlined by two 11-1 teams, including the 1988 squad that had a shot at the national title but lost to Notre Dame 34-21 in the Fiesta Bowl. A third of West Virginia's all-time ranked teams were coached by Nehlen, and to boost his profile in Morgantown, he won seven of his last nine Backyard Brawl meetings with Pitt. Being remembered as the greatest coach in the history of a school counts for something, too.
[h=3]96. Mike Bellotti[/h]Teams: Oregon (1995-2008), Chico State (1984-88)
Record: 137-80-2 in 19 seasons
Progress at Oregon had already been made when Bellotti was elevated from offensive coordinator to head coach after Rich Brooks left following a Rose Bowl season. But that 1994 Pac-10 title team was one of only two Oregon teams to ever finish a season ranked in the AP poll. Bellotti made the Ducks a sustainable contender, proceeding to finish ranked in seven of 14 seasons. It all peaked at the turn of the century with 2000's No. 7 team that went 10-2 and 2001's No. 2 team that went 11-1. Bellotti had only one losing record in 14 seasons at a program that had finished below .500 in 18 of the previous 30 years before he became head coach. He made Oregon consistently relevant, and in 2007 he hired an unknown offensive coordinator from New Hampshire named Chip Kelly, setting the stage for the Ducks' recent rise to national power status.
[h=3]95. Frank Kush[/h]Teams: Arizona State (1958-79)
Record: 176-54-1 in 22 seasons
Kush had a long and successful but ultimately controversial career at Arizona State, with 176 wins in 22 years, although only his last two years were spent with the Sun Devils as a member of the Pac-10. Before that, Kush led Arizona State to two Border Intercollegiate Athletic Association titles and seven WAC titles. Despite playing mediocre schedules, Arizona State finished in the top 10 four times in six years from 1970-75 and went 12-0 in '75, ending up as the national runner-up to Oklahoma after beating Nebraska in the Fiesta Bowl. Kush was forced out in 1979 amid an investigation into mistreatment of players, including a lawsuit filed by a player that alleged Kush punched him in the face. Kush ultimately won in court, although the result didn't end questions about his disciplinary tactics. Despite the acrimonious ending, Kush is revered at Arizona State, where the playing surface at Sun Devil Stadium is named for him and he eventually returned to an administrative role.
[h=3]94. Mark Richt[/h]Teams: Georgia (2001-15)
Record: 145-51 in 15 seasons
Richt got fired by Georgia for being very good but not great enough. But that's life in Nick Saban's SEC. After serving as offensive coordinator during Florida State's run of top-five finishes in the 1990s, Richt got the Georgia job, and in 15 years he had seven AP top-10 finishes, never missed the postseason and won six SEC East and two overall SEC championships. The latter wasn't enough. Georgia parted ways with Richt after a 9-3 2015 regular season, thanks in part to some embarrassments in high-profile games, and also because Georgia hasn't won the SEC since 2005. But when you stop comparing him to Nick Saban, Richt should be viewed favorably, as a coach consistently delivering around 10 wins, with a career winning percentage of .740 as he moves on to coach Miami, his alma mater. If he successfully revives The U, he can climb higher on this list.
[h=3]93. Mark Dantonio[/h]Teams: Michigan State (2007-present), Cincinnati (2004-06)
Record: 105-50 in 13 seasons
A Nick Saban protégé who served as the defensive coordinator for Ohio State's 2002 national championship team, Dantonio has established himself as one of the game's best present-day coaches, molding Michigan State into a sustainable power after years of aimlessness and underachieving in the shadow of Michigan and Ohio State. From 1991 through 2007, the Spartans finished in the AP top 25 once. Dantonio has led them to the top 25 in six of nine seasons, with three straight major bowls and top-six rankings. Under Dantonio, Michigan State has developed a reputation for great defense and has won three conference titles after a 20-year drought. He also coached Michigan State in its first Rose Bowl since the 1987 season, and got the Spartans into the field of the second-ever College Football Playoff.
[h=3]92. Terry Donahue[/h]Teams: UCLA (1976-95)
Record: 151-74-8 in 20 seasons
Donahue achieved a terrific run of consistency, making the Bruins into a regular Pac-10 frontrunner through most of the 1980s. He coached five top-10 teams and from 1982-85 won three Rose Bowls in four years, with a Fiesta Bowl win in between. In fact, Donahue had a run of seven straight victories in bowl games at the time, winning or sharing the Pac-10 title in four of those seasons. He made one final run to the Rose Bowl in the 1993 season, resulting in a loss to Wisconsin. Donahue went 10-9-1 against rival USC, and after his four Rose Bowl appearances, UCLA has returned to the Granddaddy of Them All only once in the 20 years since his tenure ended.
[h=3]91. Charles McClendon[/h]Teams: LSU (1962-79)
Record: 137-59-7 in 18 seasons
Cholly Mac faced a plight similar to Les Miles': He coached LSU in an era in which rival Alabama had one of the greatest coaches ever, thereby limiting his ceiling. All of McClendon's 18 years as head coach in Baton Rouge were spent with Bear Bryant coaching in Tuscaloosa. (McClendon actually played for the Bear at Kentucky.) McClendon won only one SEC championship, taking advantage of a brief Alabama downturn to claim the conference crown in 1970 and win national coach of the year honors. Despite the problems keeping up with Alabama, McClendon finished in the AP top 20 in nine of his first 12 seasons, with five top-10 appearances. He had only one losing record, and he had a pair of one-loss seasons. His LSU teams were regulars in major bowls, winning the Sugar Bowl and the Cotton Bowl twice each while losing in the Orange Bowl twice. He was also an assistant at LSU under Paul Dietzel, meaning he was on the staff for LSU's first national championship in 1958 and only Heisman Trophy winner (Billy Cannon) in '59.
[h=3]90. Bill Yeoman[/h]Teams: Houston (1962-86)
Record: 160-108-8 in 25 seasons
Houston politicking for a spot in a major conference is nothing new. Yeoman successfully did it, taking Houston from independent irrelevance to the Southwest Conference in 1976. In a quarter century at Houston, Yeoman coached nine top-20 teams, four of which finished in the top 10. The Cougars thrived immediately upon joining the Southwest, winning or sharing the league title in three of their first four years, and doing so again in 1984. All four titles resulted in Cotton Bowl appearances. In a theme for surging SWC teams, Yeoman's career ended in controversy amid an NCAA scandal that rocked the program and forced him out. Overall, though, Yeoman's run built Houston into a dangerous team after years of mediocrity, and he is also credited as the creator of the veer offense and is the answer to a trivia question: Who is the last major college coach to score 100 points in a game? He wasn't outwardly happy about it at the time -- "Please don't ask me anything. I'm embarrassed that we could beat a Tulsa 100-6,"Yeoman said after the game -- but it happened in 1968, with Cougars scoring 49 in the fourth quarter alone against a Tulsa team that maybe included a young Dr. Phil.

[h=3]89. Jackie Sherrill[/h]Teams: Mississippi State (1991-03), Pittsburgh (1977-81), Texas A&M (1982-88), Washington State (1976)
Record: 180-120-4 in 26 seasons
Sherrill came up just short of a national championship, but he coached contenders at Pitt with Dan Marino at quarterback and went on to a handful of strong seasons at both Texas A&M and Mississippi State. From 1979-81, Pitt went 33-3 with three top-seven finishes (including No. 1 in '80), but the Panthers couldn't quite finish off undefeated seasons, with a 48-14 loss as the No. 1 team in the country to Penn State ruining strong title chances in 1981. In five years at Pitt, Sherrill won Sugar and Fiesta bowls. While he never reached that high again, he had a pair of top-10 seasons at Texas A&M and led Mississippi State to its first 10-win season (1999) since 1940, ultimately coaching six top-10 teams at three schools over nearly three decades of coaching.
[h=3]88. Frank Howard[/h]Teams: Clemson (1940-69)
Record: 165-118-12 in 30 seasons
Howard's teams may not have always achieved consistently great results, but he is one of the most important figures in the university's history, one who spent 30 years as head coach and athletic director and nine as an assistant coach, in addition to continuing to serve the school after his retirement. Howard played under Wallace Wade at Alabama, and as coach at Clemson he won two Southern Conference championships and six ACC titles, with six top-20 finishes and two unbeaten seasons. The field is named for Howard at Clemson's Memorial Stadium, and he also is part of the most famous entrance in college football, as the team touches Howard's Rock -- a rock from Death Valley, California, now at the stadium known as Death Valley -- before running down a hill onto the field. In 1989, Sports Illustrated wrote: "If ever a college, a town, an environment was set in time, made, stamped and fingerprinted by one man, it's Frank Howard's Clemson."
[h=3]87. Dutch Meyer[/h]Teams: TCU (1934-52)
Record: 109-79-13 in 19 seasons
In some ways, Meyer's inclusion is a tough decision. In 10 of his 19 seasons, TCU finished with a .500 record or worse, and only three times did he finish with fewer than three losses. But he won one clear national championship (11-0 in 1938) and TCU claims another disputed one via the William System (12-1 in 1935, with a six-point loss to 12-1 SMU). He led TCU to the Cotton Bowl three times, the Sugar Bowl twice and the Orange Bowl once. He won Southwest Conference championships in 1938, '44 and '51. And he helped revolutionize the passing game thanks to two of the biggest names in quarterbacking history: Sammy Baugh and Davey O'Brien. Baugh was a 1936 All-American, and O'Brien won the 1938 Heisman Trophy vote and had the award for the nation's best quarterback eventually named for him. This is how legendary Sports Illustrated college football writer Dan Jenkins, who grew up in the Fort Worth area,described Meyer in 1981:

Dutch was almost a cartoon character of a football coach, a tough little man in a baseball cap with a whistle around his neck. When he spoke the word "football" it sounded like a volcano erupting, and all the words that followed it in a sentence came out like the scratching of cleats on a sheet of rusty tin.
At some point during the week of preparations for that SMU game, Dutch no doubt said:
"FOOTBALL ... is a game played by MEN! Not a bunch of damn sissies and city slickers from Dallas."
​

[h=3]86. Jack Mollenkopf[/h]Teams: Purdue (1956-69)
Record: 84-39-9 in 14 seasons
Located deep within any program's history, no matter how many struggles there have been, is at least one major success story. Long before Joe Tiller brought Purdue to national respectability around the turn of the 21st century and made his own push for inclusion on this list, Mollenkopf made Purdue a regular presence in Big Ten title races, even if breaking through to the very top of the standings was a tough hurdle. In 14 years in West Lafayette, Mollenkopf coached only one losing team. Half his teams finished ranked in the AP top 20, and in 1966 he broke through with Purdue's first and only Rose Bowl bid until Tiller in 2000. Tiller did it with Drew Brees; Mollenkopf did it with Bob Griese, losing only to No. 8 Notre Dame and No. 2 Michigan State in the regular season, en route to a Rose Bowl win over USC. There is an asterisk here: Because of the Big Ten's no-repeat Rose Bowl rule, Purdue played there despite the fact that Michigan State, who went to Pasadena the year before, won the Big Ten. Nevertheless, Mollenkopf coached consistently strong Purdue teams that beat Notre Dame 10 of 14 seasons and didn't have a losing season after his 3-4-2 debut in 1956.
[h=3]85. Hayden Fry[/h]Teams: Iowa (1979-98), SMU (1962-72), North Texas (1973-78)
Record: 232-178-10 in 37 seasons
Fry had remarkable longevity, ultimately coaching 20 years at Iowa after a long stay in his home state of Texas. At SMU, Fry recruited the first black scholarship player in Southwest Conference history, receiver Jerry LeVias, and while he had an up-and-down tenure -- in 1966 the team went to the Cotton Bowl and finished 10th in the AP poll -- he was fired under unclear circumstances after a 7-4 season in 1974 season. After a pair of 9-2 seasons at North Texas, Fry was hired by Iowa, and he proceeded to rescue the Hawkeyes from two decades of subpar results. In 1981, his third year, Iowa earned its first Rose Bowl bid in 23 years, and Fry made bowl games in 10 of 11 seasons, including the Rose Bowl three times (all losses). Fry reached the height of his powers in 1985, when, behind star quarterback Chuck Long, who finished second to Bo Jackson in the Heisman race, the Hawkeyes rose to No. 1 in the AP poll and beat No. 2 Michigan, before falling from the top with losses to Ohio State and to UCLA in the Rose Bowl to finish No. 10 with a 10-2 record. Fry finished with fewer than three losses only twice at Iowa, but he sustained consistent success, won three Big Ten titles and was consistently competitive within the league. He also left an enduring legacy through a coaching tree that includes Barry Alvarez, Bob Stoops, Bill Snyder, Kirk Ferentz and others.
[h=3]84. Chris Petersen[/h]Teams: Boise State (2006-13), Washington (2014-present)
Record: 107-24 in 10 seasons
We're still waiting to see just how far Petersen can rise, but regardless of what happens at Washington -- who is primed for a third-year breakout -- he has already established a lasting legacy thanks to his work at Boise State. Dirk Koetter and Dan Hawkins both had success at Boise before Petersen, but he took the program to another level, making it the sport's premier Cinderella. In his first season, Petersen coached the Broncos to the Fiesta Bowl, where he used hook-and-ladder and Statue of Liberty magic to stun Oklahoma, capping a perfect 13-0 season. In eight seasons, Petersen coached five AP top-11 teams and guided the Broncos to the Fiesta Bowl twice, with wins over power programs like the Sooners, Oregon, Virginia Tech and Georgia along the way. Petersen identified under-the-radar system fits on the recruiting trail and developed them with success that few other coaches can match.


[h=3]83. Gary Patterson[/h]Teams: TCU (2001-present)
Record: 143-47 in 15 seasons
No matter the conference, Patterson has proven that he'll make TCU a winner. After decades of irrelevance -- TCU didn't finish a season ranked from 1960 through 1999 -- Dennis Franchione jumpstarted the Horned Frogs, and then Patterson was promoted to replace him and has achieved success in Fort Worth not seen in decades. Patterson's first season was TCU's first in Conference USA after jumping from the WAC, and he's guided the Frogs through the Mountain West and up to the big leagues in the Big 12, where he's coached back-to-back top-10 teams. Despite coaching at what was seen as a mid-major until 2012, Patterson has five top-10 finishes, 11 top 25s, 10 double-digit-win seasons and appearances in the Rose Bowl, Fiesta Bowl and Peach Bowl. Franchione quickly fled TCU after achieving brief success; Patterson has stayed the course, making the Horned Frogs into a Big 12 contender behind some excellent defenses over the years, but also adaptability on offense that has produced All-America caliber players from LaDainian Tomlinson early in his tenure to Trevone Boykin and Josh Doctson recently.
[h=3]82. Homer Norton[/h]Teams: Texas A&M (1934-47), Centenary (1919-21, 1926-33)
Record: 142-73-18 in 25 seasons
Norton unexpectedly beat up on Southwest Conference teams as coach at Centenary, including undefeated seasons (8-0-1 and 8-0-4) in 1932-33 in which the Gentlemen defeated teams like Baylor, SMU, Texas and Texas A&M. After back-to-back defeats to Centenary, Texas A&M took the if-you-can't-beat-them-join-them route, hiring Norton to escape from a period of mediocrity and help the football team solve potentially crippling financial problems. After a rough first couple seasons, Norton's Aggies ascended toward the top of the national conversation, peaking in 1939 with a squad that went 11-0, finished the season ranked No. 1 in the AP poll to win the national championship and beat Tulane in the Sugar Bowl. Norton led three straight top-10-ranked Southwest champions, in addition to an Orange Bowl bid in 1943, before a downturn in which eight straight losses to Texas became too much for the Aggies to take. Texas A&M still hasn't won a national championship since Norton's in '39.
[h=3]81. Tommy Prothro[/h]Teams: Oregon State (1955-64), UCLA (1965-70)
Record: 104-55-5 in 16 seasons
Current Pac-12 teams not named USC have produced five Heisman Trophy winners. Prothro coached two of those at two schools, with the only one ever at both Oregon State (Terry Baker, 1962) and UCLA (Gary Beban, 1967). After helping lead Duke to the Rose Bowl as a player in 1941, then serving as an assistant at Vanderbilt and UCLA under legendary coach Red Sanders, Prothro went on to a stellar coaching career of his own on the West Coast. He inherited an Oregon State team that had five losing seasons in a row and promptly went 6-3, then took the Beavers to the Rose Bowl the next year and again eight years later in 1964. Prothro is responsible for two of Oregon State's three all-time trips to Pasadena, and the Beavers haven't returned since he left. At UCLA, he immediately made another Rose Bowl and spent a few years dueling with John McKay at USC in a high point for their crosstown rivalry, before he took the Los Angeles Rams job in the NFL.
[h=3]80. Carl Snavely[/h]Teams: North Carolina (1934-35, 1945-52), Cornell (1936-44), Bucknell (1927-33), Washington University in St. Louis (1953-58)
Record: 180-96-16 in 32 seasons
Snavely had a long run of on-field success, but he is most known for an innovation off the field: More than any other coach, he popularized the study of game film. "Just as the doctor uses X rays to tell us what's wrong with the body, we use movies to tell us what's wrong with our team," Snavely once said, according to the book "Great College Football Coaches of the Twenties and Thirties." An expert in the single-wing offense, Snavely had two successful stints at North Carolina but peaked in 1939, when he led Cornell to an 8-0 record. The program claims a national championship for that season, although the Big Red finished fourth in the AP poll. Cornell turned down a Rose Bowl invitation, but Snavely went on to coach North Carolina in the Cotton Bowl once and the Sugar Bowl twice, all losses. Nicknamed "The Grey Fox," Snavely was also the coach of Cornell in 1940 when the Big Red forfeited a game against Dartmouth after game film determined that officials mistakenly had given Cornell a fifth down.

[h=3]79. Bill McCartney[/h]Teams: Colorado (1982-94)
Record: 93-55-5 in 13 seasons
McCartney's time at Colorado -- after serving as an assistant at Michigan under Bo Schembechler -- didn't start off smoothly, but the university gave him time, and he gradually built up the Buffaloes over the course of the 1980s before a rapid rise to the top of college football. In 1989, the Buffaloes went 11-1, losing the national title with a 21-6 loss to Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl. The next year, they bounced back to go 11-1-1 and claim the national title (with the help of a fifth down vs. Missouri), by avenging their previous loss and taking down Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl 10-9. In McCartney's last six seasons, Colorado finished in the AP top 20 each time and the top four three times, with three 11-win seasons and 1994 Heisman winner Rashaan Salaam. McCartney resigned after that season to focus on his work with the Promise Keepers, an evangelical Christian organization.
[h=3]78. Gene Stallings[/h]Teams: Alabama (1990-96), Texas A&M (1965-71)
Record: 97-61-2 in 14 seasons
Stallings had a strange coaching career. A member of the infamous Junction Boys team at Texas A&M under Bear Bryant, Stallings went on to assist Bear at Alabama from 1958-64. He got the head coaching job at his alma mater at age 29, perhaps before he was ready: He went to the Cotton Bowl in 1967 and beat Bryant and Alabama, but he finished with six losing records in seven years. Stallings coached in the NFL under Tom Landry, then had an unsuccessful four-year stint as head coach of the Cardinals. Finally, he got the Alabama job, and 19 years after his previous college experience, he began building his College Football Hall of Fame resume: three top-five teams, including a victory in the first-ever SEC Championship Game in 1992, capped by Alabama's only national title between the Bear Bryant and Nick Saban eras. Stallings resigned at the end of the 1996 amid an NCAA scandal, but his place in Alabama history is secure, with a national championship of his own on top of the two he helped Bryant win as an assistant.
[h=3]77. Wallace Butts[/h]Teams: Georgia (1939-60)
Record: 140-86-9 in 22 seasons
Perhaps best known for successfully suing the Saturday Evening Post for accusing him and Bear Bryant of fixing a game in 1962 (when he was athletic director), Butts helped establish Georgia as a power as coach. In his third season in 1942, Butts and Heisman winner Frank Sinkwich guided the Bulldogs to an 11-1 season, a 9-0 win over UCLA in the Rose Bowl and a claimed national championship, although Ohio State finished No. 1 in the AP poll and the NCAA's list doesn't acknowledge it. Regardless, Butts went on to coach Georgia to an undefeated season in 1946 (11-0) and a 10-1 mark in 1959. He won four SEC titles and had four AP top-10 finishes, three appearances in the Orange Bowl and a win in both the Rose and Sugar bowls. And in contrast to most top schools of the time, Butts embraced the passing game. His teams regularly finishing in the top 10 nationally in passing yards per game, and he capped his coaching career with Fran Tarkenton as his quarterback.
[h=3]76. Jim Tatum[/h]Teams: Maryland (1947-55), North Carolina (1942, 1956-58), Oklahoma (1946)
Record: 100-35-7 in 14 seasons
Tatum's career was tragically cut short, as he died suddenly after contracting a viral infection at age 46 in 1959, just three years after returning to coach his alma mater. Tatum began his coaching career at UNC, only to enlist in the Navy when World War II started. He returned to coach Oklahoma for one year (Bud Wilkinson replaced him), before moving on to Maryland, where he lost only 15 games in nine years and led the Terrapins to their first and only national championship with a 10-1 mark in 1953 -- although they had gone undefeated two years earlier. In the history of the AP poll, Maryland has finished ranked in the top 10 only five times. Four of those seasons happened under Tatum, who was a leader in spreading the Split-T offense. Tatum spent his last three years coaching back at North Carolina, with the highlight being a 13-7 win over a Navy team that finished 10-1-1 in 1957.

 

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75-51 http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/191396720/best-college-football-coaches-ever-part-two

[h=3]75. John Robinson[/h]Teams: USC (1976-82, 1993-97), UNLV (1999-04)
Record: 132-77-4 in 18 seasons
Robinson replaced the legendary John McKay and kept USC rolling, coaching two Heisman-winning running backs (Charles White and Marcus Allen). As a team, the Trojans split the 1978 national championship with Alabama and finished second in both '76 and '79, with Rose Bowl wins in three of his first four years. After nine years coaching the Rams in the NFL, Robinson returned to USC in 1993. His five years back weren't as successful, but he led the Trojans back to the Rose Bowl in '95 and ultimately finished with four Rose Bowl wins in four appearances and five conference titles over two stints as coach. Robinson finished out his college coaching career by taking over perennial doormat UNLV. He inherited a 0-11 team and went 8-5 two years later, with one of the three bowl wins in UNLV history.
[h=3]74. Forest Evashevski[/h]Teams: Iowa (1952-60), Washington State (1950-51), Hamilton (1941)
Record: 68-35-6 in 12 seasons
After around a quarter-century of irrelevance nationally, at least beyond Nile Kinnick's 1939 Heisman Trophy win, Iowa achieved a breakthrough under the guidance of Evashevski. He first gained fame blocking for Michigan Heisman winner Tom Harmon, and coached Washington State to a top-20 season. Then, Evashevski made a strong impression in nine years at Iowa, finishing with one loss and a spot in the AP top six four times, with the 1958 team claiming the school's only national championship, thanks to the FWAA's vote. Evashevski coached Iowa to two of its six Rose Bowls, beating Oregon State in the 1956 season and Cal two years later, with another shared Big Ten title coming in 1960. He subsequently retired and spent the 1960s as Iowa's athletic director, and it took Iowa 21 years to finish ranked in the AP poll again. In 1958, Sports Illustrated wrote, "As a tactician on the field, Evashevski is ranked at the top. Never afraid to try something new, he has gone from the multiple offense to the Split-T to the Wing-T, sometimes even changing his attack before a specific game to confound the opposition." It worked: Despite coaching the Hawkeyes for only nine years, the best four Iowa teams ever, according to both Sports-Reference's Simple Rating System data and final AP rankings, were coached by Evashevski.
[h=3]73. William Alexander[/h]Teams: Georgia Tech (1920-44)
Record: 134-95-15 in 25 seasons
The second in a trio of excellent long-term Georgia Tech coaches, Alexander followed John Heisman and proceeded Bobby Dodd. He's not as famous as either, but he racked up an impressive run of accomplishments in his quarter-century as head coach, headlined by the 1928 national championship team that finished 10-0, shutting out Knute Rockne and Notre Dame and beating Washington 8-7 in the Rose Bowl. Alexander had four seasons with one or no losses, and he was the first coach to appear in all four major bowls of the time: Rose, Sugar, Cotton and Orange. Alexander had a several down seasons in the middle of his career during the Great Depression, but he held onto his job and enjoyed one of the pristine reputations in the sport. Journalist Allison Danzig wrote, "For almost a quarter century his name was synonymous with sportsmanship and clean athletics -- a man respected and cherished by the public loved by this players and honored by his colleagues." Alexander's on-field results rebounded late in his career, as he ended his tenure on a strong note, finishing fifth once and 13th twice in the AP poll in his final three years before stepping down and handing off the job to Dodd.
[h=3]72. Jimmy Crowley[/h]Teams: Fordham (1933-41), Michigan State (1928-32), North Carolina Pre-Flight (1942)
Record: 86-23-11 in 14 seasons

Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore their names are Death, Destruction, Pestilence, and Famine. But those are aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Crowley, Miller and Layden.
​

Little that Crowley did as a football coach could surpass the notoriety he gained in perpetuity when Grantland Rice wrote his famous opening paragraph after Notre Dame's 1924 win over Army. One of the members of the four horsemen backfield under Knute Rockne at Notre Dame, Crowley went on to a productive coaching career of his own, one shortened by the start of World War II, when Crowley left Fordham and served in the Navy. But after losing eight games in four years at Michigan State, Crowley cranked out consistently strong Fordham teams. His Rams finished ranked in each of the first six years of the AP poll, including a No. 3 ranking in 1937, when they went 7-0-1. Crowley took the Rams to a Cotton Bowl and a Sugar Bowl (his final Fordham game, a 2-0 win over Missouri), and after being one of the Four Horsemen, he and assistant Frank Leahy -- who would go on to be the most dominant coach of the 1940s at Notre Dame -- assembled the famed Seven Blocks of Granite line, which featured none other than Vince Lombardi.
[h=3]71. Henry Williams[/h]Teams: Minnesota (1900-21), Army (1891)
Record: 140-34-12 in 23 seasons
While nearly all of his coaching career took place at Minnesota, Williams is the answer to an obscure trivia question elsewhere: In 1891, Army beat Navy, the second meeting between the two on a football field and the first win for Army. The Army coach for that first rivalry win? Williams, in his first and only season at West Point. Also a physician, Dr. Williams went on to a wildly successful coaching career at Minnesota, with his teams losing zero or one game 13 times out of 22. It took 108 years, but in 2012 Minnesota began claiming Williams' 1904 team as a national champion because of retroactive ratings by Richard Billingsley. It's hard to argue; that team finished 13-0 with 12 shutouts, although the Golden Gophers did not play western heavyweights Michigan and Chicago. Williams was responsible for several innovative strategies as the early game evolved, and according to Allison Danzig's book "The History of American Football," Williams was "one of those chiefly responsible for persuading the Football Rules Committee to legalize the forward pass."
70. Pat DyeTeams: Auburn (1981-92), East Carolina (1974-79), Wyoming (1980)
Record: 153-62-5 in 19 seasons
A Georgia player who began his career as linebackers coach for Bear Bryant at Alabama, Dye moved on from Auburns' enemies to become a Tigers icon. After a solid '70s stint at East Carolina and one year at Wyoming, Dye took responsibility for an Auburn team that hadn't won the SEC since 1957 and proceeded to take charge of the post-Bear conference landscape. Dye and Bryant crossed paths only twice before Bear stepped down, splitting their two meetings, and Dye subsequently led Auburn to a strong run around the top of the conference. The Tigers won or shared four SEC championships -- including three straight from 1987-89 -- and finished in the top 10 of the AP poll five times. The peak was 1983, when the Tigers went 11-1 and won the Sugar Bowl, behind the phenomenal running of multi-sport superstar Bo Jackson -- who would go on to win the Heisman in 1985 -- but were passed over for the national championship by pollsters, who crowned Miami. ("There comes a time in everybody's life when you're going to get screwed over," Dye said afterward, according to Sports Illustrated. "And this was our time.") Dye was also athletic director, but he was eventually pushed out amid an impermissible benefits scandal. Still, he goes down as an all-time great Auburn coach, with the field at Jordan-Hare Stadium named after him, and a legacy for securing the first Iron Bowl games on Auburn's campus after decades of exclusively playing the rivalry in Birmingham.
[h=3]69. Danny Ford[/h]Teams: Clemson (1978-89), Arkansas (1993-97)
Record: 122-59-5 in 17 seasons
Clemson's 2015 team was fantastic, going undefeated in the regular season and falling just short of the national championship. But it can only be as good as the second-best team in school history. In 1981 -- after finishing in the top 10 only twice ever -- Clemson began the season unranked and ended with a 12-0 record and an undisputed national title, still the only one in the history of the program. Ford's Tigers upset Georgia early in the season and beat Nebraska in the Orange Bowl, becoming the gold standard in Clemson football history. Ford's record at Arkansas late in his career was mediocre (although the Razorbacks did win the SEC West in 1995), but at Clemson he didn't have a losing season and coached eight top-20 teams in 12 years, with five ACC championships to make the 1980s Clemson football's best era.
[h=3]68. Charles Daly[/h]Teams: Army (1913-16, 1919-22)
Record: 58-13-3 in 8 seasons
One of the greatest players in early college football history -- a five-time All-American who played at Harvard and Army -- Daly did not have the longest coaching career, but he made a substantial impact, before and after the United States' involvement in World War I. Daly debuted with an 8-1 record in 1913, then went undefeated (9-0) in two of the next three seasons, being recognized as national champions (although Army claims neither officially). Among the stars on Daly's teams was Robert Neyland, who would go on to be a general and a legendary coach at Tennessee. After the war, Daly returned to coach four more years, with an 8-0-2 record in his final year before stepping down to concentrate on teaching at West Point. He was also a founder and first president of the American Football Coaches Association. In its football history, Army has had nine undefeated teams. Red Blaik coached six of them, and in just eight years, Daly coached the other three.
[h=3]67. Johnny Majors[/h]Teams: Tennessee (1977-92), Pittsburgh (1973-76, 1993-96), Iowa State (1968-72)
Record: 185-137-10 in 29 seasons
A star player at Tennessee who finished second in the 1956 Heisman race, Majors started his head coaching career by going just 24-30-1 in five years at Iowa State, but he vaulted to the Pitt job and soon had his crowning achievement in his fourth year. Majors led the Panthers to a 12-0 season, a Sugar Bowl win over Georgia and a national championship behind Heisman-winning tailback Tony Dorsett. Majors used that success to land the job at his alma mater, Tennessee, where he struggled for a few years but ultimately won three SEC titles with three top-10 teams, including the 1989 Vols that went 11-1. Once his tenure on Rocky Top ran its course, Majors returned to Pitt for another four-year run, although this time he was unable to snap the Panthers out of their funk. Regardless, Majors had a successful run in the SEC, and at Pitt he led the Panthers to their only national championship since the 1930s.
[h=3]66. Bennie Oosterbaan[/h]Teams: Michigan (1948-58)
Record: 63-33-4 in 11 seasons
A three-time All-American player in the mid-1920s, Oosterbaan never left Ann Arbor, staying on as an assistant the next 20 years under Tad Wieman, Harry Kipke and Fritz Crisler before he was chosen to become head coach. In Crisler's final season, Michigan was denied the national championship despite finishing 10-0 with a Rose Bowl win, as Notre Dame got the votes. But Oosterbaan took over and pushed Michigan to the top, going 9-0 to give Michigan its only AP national title until 1997, and earning recognition as AFCA Coach of the Year. Oosterbaan began his tenure with three straight Big Ten titles and top-10 finishes, capped by a win over Cal in the Rose Bowl. After a couple seasons of mediocrity, Oosterbaan built four more ranked teams and ultimately stepped down after 1958. A relatively short tenure can cause Oosterbaan to be overlooked at a school with so many great coaches, but he more than made his mark.
[h=3]65. Barry Alvarez[/h]Teams: Wisconsin (1990-2005)
Record: 119-74-4 in 16 seasons
When Alvarez took the Wisconsin job, the Badgers had been dwelling in the Big Ten basement for years. They had not finished in the final AP poll since the Rose Bowl team in 1962 team, nor had they won more than seven games in a season in that span. Not surprisingly, it took Alvarez -- who played linebacker for Bob Devaney at Nebraska and coached under Hayden Fry and Lou Holtz -- a few years to get things rolling. But suddenly, the Badgers went from 1-10 and two 5-6 records to the Rose Bowl, with a 10-1-1 mark in 1993. Beyond a couple losing seasons, the Badgers became perennially competitive, with back-to-back Rose Bowl wins in 1998 and '99 behind Heisman-winning running back Ron Dayne. Alvarez won three Big Ten titles and established a clear identity for the Badgers, who became known for their powerful offensive lines and smash-mouth philosophy, a trend that continued when Alvarez stepped down to become athletic director and Bret Bielema took his place. Alvarez then coached in a fourth Rose Bowl in 2012, when he named himself interim coach after Bielema left (he did the same in 2014 for the Outback Bowl when Gary Andersen left). Alvarez may not have won a national championship as a head coach (although he was the defensive coordinator for Notre Dame's 1988 title team), but he stands in a class with contemporaries Frank Beamer and Bill Snyder as turnaround artists who changed the fortunes and perceptions of their universities' football programs.
[h=3]t-64. Les Miles[/h]Teams: LSU (2005-present), Oklahoma State (2001-04)
Record: 140-53 in 15 seasons
For all the quirks, for the maddening losses to Alabama, the occasionally baffling clock management and the questionable quarterback play, Miles has been an unquestioned success since replacing Nick Saban in Baton Rouge, with the best case to be the greatest coach in LSU history. His third LSU team won the BCS national title in 2007, and he coached for another in a loss to Bama in 2011. Miles has won two SEC titles in an era dominated by Saban, and he has won at least 10 games seven times and finished in the top 10 five times. LSU has produced some of the greatest defenses of the 21st century, and Miles is having the longest sustained period of success for an LSU coach since Charles McClendon in the 1960s and '70s. And he's not done yet. While some LSU boosters attempted to force him out last fall, he retained his job, with high hopes for a talented team returning in 2016.
(Update! A mistake upon re-organizing the original rankings left Lloyd Carr off the list. He's been added here, equal with his fellow former Bo Schembechler assistant.)
[h=3]t-64. Lloyd Carr[/h]Teams: Michigan (1995-07)
Record: 122-40 in 13 seasons
Yes, Carr's career will partially be remembered for the Wolverines' stunning upset loss to Appalachian State to start the 2007 season (in what would turn out to be Carr's final year as coach, and still ended with a No. 18 ranking and a bowl win over Heisman winner Tim Tebow). But Carr coached five AP top-10 teams, finished only one season unranked and, most importantly, led the Wolverines to a split 1997 national championship, with a win over Washington State in the Rose Bowl and a Heisman Trophy for Charles Woodson. After Carr stepped down, it's easier for appreciation for him to grow, as Michigan experienced seven years of aimlessness under Rich Rodriguez and Brady Hoke before hiring Jim Harbaugh. Only two coaches in the AP poll era -- Barry Switzer and Tom Osborne -- have been a head coach for at least 10 years and had a higher percentage of their teams finish ranked than Carr, who went 12-for-13. And while Michigan has been one of the sport's most successful programs throughout the history of the game, Carr owns the Wolverines' only national championship since 1948, meaning that Carr accomplished something that Bo Schembechler did not.
[h=3]63. Dennis Erickson[/h]Teams: Miami (1989-94), Oregon State (1999-02), Arizona State (2007-11), Washington State (1987-88), Idaho (1982-85, 2006), Wyoming (1986)
Record: 147-81-1 in 19 seasons
Erickson seemingly coached half the teams in the West -- three Pac-12, two smaller schools and two NFL teams, plus he's currently an assistant at Utah -- but he made a name for himself on the opposite end of the country, picking up where Jimmy Johnson left off at Miami and going 63-9 in six seasons with two national championships (1989, 1991) and a Heisman winner (Gino Torretta). Erickson got the job at Miami after going 9-3 in his third season at Wazzu, leading the Cougars to their first bowl victory ever. At The U, he immediately won a national title with the team he inherited from Johnson. He finished in the top three of the AP poll four years in a row, and after coaching the 49ers, he returned to college ball to lead Oregon State to an 11-1 season in 2000 in which the Beavers finished ranked fourth, making for the greatest season in school history. Erickson's late-career run at Arizona State didn't go well, and neither did his two stints in the NFL, but his overall college body of work, headlined by a remarkable run at Miami, makes his place on this list secure.
[h=3]62. Jimmy Johnson[/h]Teams: Miami (1984-88), Oklahoma State (1979-83)
Record: 81-34-3 in 10 seasons
Johnson's college career may be overshadowed by his two Super Bowl championships with the Dallas Cowboys, but for half a decade he shook up the college football world, going from Oklahoma State to Miami to build upon the foundation Howard Schnellenberger had created to make Miami into The U. Johnson went only 29-25-3 at Oklahoma State, but he inherited Schnellenberger's national championship team and proceeded to go 52-9 over the next five years with a national title in 1987, and runner-up finishes in the AP poll in 1986 -- after a stunning 14-10 loss to Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl notorious for the Canes showing up to Arizona dressed in combat fatigues -- and 1988 -- thanks to a 31-30 regular-season loss to Notre Dame in the Catholics vs. Convicts game. In three years before leaving to coach the Cowboys, Johnson's teams went 34-2 with losses to undefeated national champions by a total of five points, plus the '87 title thanks to an Orange Bowl win over Oklahoma. Johnson coached a Heisman winner in Vinny Testaverde and numerous other stars, leading one of the most memorable -- even if controversial -- eras for any team in the history of the sport.

[h=3]61. Howard Schnellenberger[/h]Teams: Miami (1979-83), Louisville (1985-94), Florida Atlantic (2001-11), Oklahoma (1995)
Record: 158-151-3 in 27 seasons
Schnellenberger's career trajectory is among the strangest on this list. He is not eligible for the College Football Hall of Fame, with a career winning percentage of only .512. According to Sports-Reference, his career Simple Rating System average is -2.19, which means his average team was below average. That, of course, does not tell the whole story, because Schnellenberger took on significant challenges through his career, while cutting short his most impressive tenure. Schnellenberger played for Bear Bryant at Kentucky and went on to be a key assistant to the Bear at Alabama, where he was responsible for recruiting Joe Namath. After coaching in the NFL, Schnellenberger took the Miami job -- at the time, a massive rebuilding effort. The Hurricanes hadn't won more than six games in a season in over a decade and had one ranked finish in the previous two decades. In five years, Schnellenberger doggedly recruited South Florida, signature pipe in hand, and built Miami into a power, going 41-16 and leading the Canes to their first national championship in 1983. That year, they climbed from unranked to 11-1 with 31-30 win over Nebraska in the Orange Bowl on a failed two-point conversion attempt by Nebraska. Schnellenberger promptly left to coach the impending Miami team in the USFL, only for the proposed move of the Washington franchise to fall apart, leaving Schnellenberger without a job. He resurfaced at Louisville, with a team that had one ranked finish in its history. After a rough start, Schnellenberger had a 10-1-1 record in 1990 and a 9-3 record in '93, which he turned into a disastrous one-year stint at Oklahoma. Schnellenberger finished his coaching career as the architect of Florida Atlantic football, starting the program and then serving as coach for 11 seasons as the school moved from FCS to FBS, with an 8-5 record, Sun Belt title and a bowl bid in his third season. Only five times in his career did Schnellenberger lead ranked teams, but he invented The U, added credibility to Louisville, built a new program from scratch and assisted Bryant for three national championship teams at Alabama. Recognized or not, Schnellenberger had a Hall of Fame career.
[h=3]60. Ben Schwartzwalder[/h]Teams: Syracuse (1949-73), Muhlenberg (1946-48)
Record: 178-96-3 in 28 seasons
A World War II paratrooper honored with a Purple Heart and Bronze Star, Schwartzwalder is the only coach in Syracuse history to record multiple top-10 finishes in the AP poll, doing it three times. None, of course, was more impressive than his national championship -- Syracuse's only title -- in 1959. Led in part by Ernie Davis, who would go on to be the first black player to win the Heisman Trophy, Syracuse went 11-0, pitching five shutouts and never allowing more than 21 points. Final polls were conducted before bowls those days, but Syracuse still solidified its standing nationally by topping Texas in the Cotton Bowl. Schwartzwalder coached Davis, Larry Csonka, Floyd Little and Jim Brown, arguably the greatest running back ever. He had six two-loss seasons to go with the undefeated run, and he finished with a losing record only three times in 28 years.
[h=3]59. Phillip Fulmer[/h]Teams: Tennessee (1992-2008)
Record: 151-52-1 in 16-plus seasons
While Steve Spurrier and Florida got the best of Tennessee more often than not in Fulmer's prime in the '90s, Fulmer has plenty going for him on his resume: He coached Peyton Manning, and when Manning left, he propelled the Volunteers even higher, capturing the first-ever BCS championship in 1998. Fulmer replaced Johnny Majors during the 1992 season, then led the Vols to at least 10 wins in five of his first six campaigns and five straight top-10 finishes. While things went south with two losing seasons in his last four years, Fulmer ended his career with a .743 winning percentage, a national title and two SEC titles at the school where he played offensive line from 1968-71. He made sure his alma mater was a consistent contender for most of his tenure, finishing ranked in 12 of his 16 full seasons. The Vols have had a top-25 season only once in the eight years since Fulmer was forced out.
[h=3]58. Shug Jordan[/h]Teams: Auburn (1951-75)
Record: 176-83-6 in 25 seasons
In a quarter-century of largely successful football, Jordan won only one SEC championship. Such was the plight of anyone in the SEC not named Bear Bryant. Jordan made the one SEC championship season count, though, as his Tigers finished a perfect 10-0 and won the national championship in 1957 -- Auburn's only one until 2010. The Bear arrived at Alabama the next year, and Jordan never finished better than second in the SEC again. Despite the Alabama problem, Jordan had two losses or less nine times, had only three losing records and coached seven top-10 teams. He also coached 1971 Heisman winner Pat Sullivan. Auburn's Jordan-Hare Stadium is named in part for Jordan, an Auburn alum who, before going into coaching, landed in Normandy as part of the D-Day invasion of 1944 and was awarded a Purple Heart and Bronze Star for his service in the Army during World War II. While Bear often got the best of him, Jordan oversaw one of the most infamous defeats in Crimson Tide history, the "Punt Bama Punt" game in 1972 in which Auburn upset undefeated Alabama 17-16 on two blocked punts returned for touchdowns.
[h=3]57. Bill Snyder[/h]Teams: Kansas State (1989-2005, 2009-present)
Record: 193-101-1 in 24 seasons
The Sept. 4, 1989 issue of Sports Illustrated ran a feature about Kansas State football under the headline "Futility U." This was the reality Bill Snyder -- a Hayden Fry assistant at Iowa -- faced when he decided to take on the challenge of coaching one of the most historically inept programs in football. Kansas State had never finished ranked in the AP poll, played in one bowl game (a loss to Wisconsin in the 1986 Independence Bowl) and hadn't lost fewer than five games in a season since 1954. It is a difficult job without a natural recruiting base and, until Snyder arrived, no track record of success. Snyder went 7-4 in his third year, then had eight straight seasons of three or fewer losses from 1993-2000. The Wildcats went from doormat to consistently good, with 10 top-25 finishes in 11 years, six top-10 teams and 11-1 squads that fell just short of championships in 1997 and '99 because of losses to Nebraska. Snyder finally got over the hump to win a Big 12 title in 2003 thanks to an upset win over Oklahoma. He retired in 2005, only to return in 2009 after a lackluster three-year tenure for Ron Prince. Even in his 70s, Snyder went 11-2 with a Big 12 title in 2012, coaching Heisman finalist Collin Klein. Snyder coached some highly efficient offenses with players like Klein, Darren Sproles and Michael Bishop, and throughout his tenure he found a way to create a junior college pipeline better than any other coach. And at 76 years old, Snyder is still going.
[h=3]56. Frank Beamer[/h]Teams: Virginia Tech (1987-2015, Murray State (1981-86)
Record: 280-143-4 in 35 seasons
Few coaches have done for their school what Beamer did before retiring at the end of the 2015 season. After six years at Murray State, Beamer returned to Blacksburg to coach his alma mater. He inherited a Peach Bowl team, but Virginia Tech had finished ranked in the AP poll only twice ever and was coming off its first-ever bowl victory. In 29 seasons, Beamer proceeded to guide the Hokies into the final AP poll 15 times, with the first seven top-10 finishes in school history. He finished his career on a 23-year bowl streak. He recruited Michael Vick and led the Hokies to the BCS title game in 1999, where they lost to Florida State. He won at least 10 games 13 times, won three Big East titles and four ACC titles and for a decade and a half produced some of the most consistently good teams in college football, with a knack for great defense and special teams. Beamer was the architect of a program, allowing Virginia Tech to realize its potential and become a sustainable contender.
[h=3]55. Pappy Waldorf[/h]Teams: Northwestern (1935-46), California (1947-56), Oklahoma State (1929-33), Kansas State (1934)
Record: 157-89-19 in 28 seasons
In "The History of American Football," Allison Danzig describes Waldorf as "one of the calmest and sanest of football coaches." Waldorf had remarkable runs at schools not traditionally known as football hotbeds. He inherited a 1-7 team at Oklahoma State (then Oklahoma A&M) and went 34-10-7 in five seasons with three Missouri Valley titles. After a 7-2-1 season at Kansas State, he went to Northwestern and captured the school's first solo Big Ten championship, when the Wildcats reached as high as No. 1 in the AP poll after beating Bernie Bierman's top-ranked Minnesota, before losing to Notre Dame to end the season and be denied a national title. Waldorf and Bierman -- who won five national titles -- had a terrific rivalry, with every meeting from 1935-41 decided by eight points or less, Minnesota winning four and Northwestern winning three. At Cal, Waldorf made (and lost) three straight Rose Bowls after three straight top-five seasons (amid four straight one-loss seasons). Ultimately, he coached six top-10 teams at Cal and Northwestern, two schools that have a combined four top-10 finishes since his coaching career ended.
[h=3]54. Don James[/h]Teams: Washington (1975-92), Kent State (1971-74)
Record: 178-76-3 in 22 seasons
In 1971, James' first season as a head coach, he had three noteworthy names on his Kent State roster: Jack Lambert, who would go on to be a Hall of Fame linebacker with the Steelers, and two future standout coaches, Gary Pinkel and none other than Nick Saban. James went 25-19-1 in four seasons at Kent State, then went on to become the greatest Washington coach in the modern era. The Huskies had a few big seasons under Jim Owens, but they had finished ranked in the AP poll only once in 14 years when James took over in 1975. After a couple slow years, James pushed Washington into the AP poll 11 of the next 16 seasons, including seven top-10 teams, a runner-up in 1984 and the 1991 team that split the national championship with Miami, winning the coaches' vote. That Huskies team went 12-0, winning the second of three straight Rose Bowl teams, with a dominant defense led by Steve Emtman, a lineman who finished fourth in the Heisman vote. James resigned after the 1992 season after an NCAA scandal that he believed resulted in unfair punishment. Washington has been to 13 Rose Bowls in its history, with James responsible for six of those trips.
[h=3]53. Red Sanders[/h]Teams: UCLA (1949-57), Vanderbilt (1940-42)
Record: 102-41-3 in 15 seasons
A former Vanderbilt quarterback, Sanders achieved modest success in his six years at alma mater, split in half by World War II, with his final season being an 8-2-1 1948 campaign in which the Commodores finished ranked 12th in the AP poll -- their first and only ranked season until James Franklin did it in 2012. Sanders left for UCLA and embarked on a successful run that featured a 9-0 season in 1954 that allowed the Bruins to capture their first and only national championship, recognized by the FWAA and UPI. The Bruins shut out five opponents, including a 34-0 win over USC to end the season. Sanders coached four straight top-six teams with two Rose Bowl losses, but after going 8-2 in 1957, his life was tragically cut short at the age of 53 because of a heart attack. While often attributed to Vince Lombardi, the quote "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing," is likely to have originated with Sanders.
[h=3]52. Hugo Bezdek[/h]Teams: Penn State (1918-29), Oregon (1906, 1913-16), Arkansas (1908-12), Delaware Valley (1949)
Record: 127-58-16 in 24 seasons
An underappreciated coach and colorful character, Bezdek was born in Prague and played fullback for Amos Alonzo Stagg's famous early 1900s Chicago teams, capping his career as part of the famous 2-0 win over Fielding Yost and Michigan in 1905. He coached at Arkansas, where the official story claims that he popularized the Razorbacks nickname. He coached at Oregon, where he led the Ducks to a 14-0 upset win over Penn in the Rose Bowl. He coached at Penn State, where he went three years without a loss from October 1919 to October 1922 and led the Nittany Lions to a Rose Bowl, where they lost to USC. The beginning of his Penn State tenure overlapped with a three-year stint managing Pittsburgh Pirates of Major League Baseball, and later, while at Penn State, the Philadelphia Phillies tried but failed to poach him too. After his college football career ended, he became the first and only person to be both an MLB manager and NFL head coach, leading the Cleveland Rams for a disastrous season and a half. Bezdek finished his college career with a record of 127-58-16, leading five unbeaten seasons at three schools, while coaching Penn State, Oregon and the Mare Island Marines (during World War I) in the early days of the Rose Bowl.
[h=3]51. LaVell Edwards[/h]Teams: BYU
Record: 257-101-3 in 29 seasons
Since Army's back-to-back national championships in 1944-45, only one school not currently in a Power Five conference (or named Notre Dame) has won a national championship: BYU, who stunned the college football world by going from preseason unranked to No. 1 in 1984, finishing as the nation's lone undefeated at 13-0 to claim an undisputed title. In retrospect, some might dispute it because of BYU's weak schedule, as a member of the WAC. The only ranked team BYU beat was No. 3 Pitt in the opener, but Pitt went on to finish 3-7-1. BYU moved to the top by default and beat Michigan in the Holiday Bowl to finish the season No. 1. Of course, Edwards proved time and time again to be an excellent coach, and a national championship is a national championship. While BYU started that season unranked, it had finished seventh the year before. Edwards ultimately coached three top-10 teams and 12 ranked squads, and five teams that finished with one or no losses. He also was ahead of his time in the passing game, an early adopter in the spread revolution, as he produced Heisman Trophy winner Ty Detmer and All-Americans Steve Young and Jim McMahon. Edwards' offenses inspired a non-football-playing student named Mike Leach, and his teams regularly ranked at or near the top of the nation in passing throughout his coaching career. Beyond influencing Leach, Edwards produced a remarkable coaching tree, which includes Mike Holmgren, Andy Reid, Brian Billick, Kyle Whittingham, Norm Chow and others.

 

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50-26 http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/191807038/best-college-football-coaches-ever-part-three

[h=3]50. Charley Moran[/h]Teams: Centre (1917-23), Texas A&M (1909-14), Bucknell (1924-26), Catawba (1930-33)
Record: 122-33-12 in 18 seasons
When Moran died in 1949, many of the obituaries printed in newspapers led with his fame as a National League umpire. He had played in 25 baseball games with the St. Louis Cardinals, and he spent 23 years in the game as an umpire. But Moran is also responsible for one of the most stunning results in sports history, and for making a tiny college in Kentucky into a major football school, if only briefly. When the Centre Praying Colonels traveled to Boston on Oct. 29, 1921, Harvard had not lost a game since Nov. 28, 1918, in a season shortened by World War I. (A week before the game, Centre beat nearby Transylvania University 98-0.) But a week after tying Penn State, Harvard's streak ended at the hands of Centre, who had gone 19-0 in Moran's first three seasons and had several impressive wins but hadn't garnered much national respect. Despite entering the game as a 4-to-1 underdog, Centre, behind All-American Bo McMillin, beat Harvard 6-0, and C6H0 is still celebrated to this day at the tiny Kentucky college. Under Moran, Centre's teams rated in the top five of Sports-Reference's Simple Rating System in three seasons, after he previously coached a few dominant Texas A&M squads, going 38-8-34 while in College Station. Moran is unfairly forgotten as an important of college football lore.
[h=3]49. Dan Devine[/h]Teams: Notre Dame (1975-80), Missouri (1958-70), Arizona State (1955-57)
Record: 172-57-9 in 22 seasons
Notre Dame's list of coaching legends is crowded, and Devine's stint in South Bend was relatively short at only six years. But between what he accomplished at Notre Dame and what he did at less prestigious jobs in the preceding two decades, it's clear that he belongs on this list. At Arizona State, Devine coached the Sun Devils' only ranked team until 1970, going 10-0 in 1957. At Missouri, Devine owns four of the school's eight all-time top-10 finishes and its two most recent conference championships, as he led the Tigers to Big 8 titles in 1960 and '69. He guided the Tigers to three Orange Bowls and a Sugar Bowl, and after a rough stint coaching the Green Bay Packers, he returned to the college ranks to replace Ara Parseghian at Notre Dame. While subjected to criticism as the replacement for a legend, Devine kept the good times rolling in South Bend, going 53-16-1 and winning the 1977 national championship with an 11-0 record and a blowout win over Texas in the Cotton Bowl.
[h=3]48. Mack Brown[/h]Teams: Texas (1998-2013), North Carolina (1988-97), Tulane (1985-87)
Record: 238-117-1 in 29 seasons
Like many coaches who hang around for a long time, Brown's coaching career didn't end smoothly, but his peak was exceptional. From 2001-09, Brown won at least 10 games every year at Texas, headlined by the 2005 national championship win over USC, an all-time classic game, behind the transcendent performance of star QB Vince Young. While his career started off slowly, Brown had three 10-win seasons at North Carolina -- after he left, it took 18 years for UNC to finish in the top 25 again -- then immediately coached a Heisman winner, Ricky Williams, at Texas in 1998. Surprisingly, Brown won only two Big 12 titles, both resulting in national championship game bids, with a loss in 2009 to Alabama. He coached eight top-10 teams, won two Rose Bowls and made Texas a consistent contender again after many frustrating years in the 1980s and '90s. Brown mastered the political maneuvering required of a Texas coach, embracing his CEO role during an inarguably successful stint as head coach of one of the most powerful programs in college football, with a .767 winning percentage in Austin despite the late downturn.
[h=3]47. George Woodruff[/h]Teams: Pennsylvania (1892-1901), Illinois (1903), Carlisle (1905)
Record: 139-23-2 in 12 seasons
Long before he became attorney general of Pennsylvania and acting secretary of the interior under Teddy Roosevelt, Woodruff produced some of the most dominant football in the pre-passing history of the sport. At Penn, behind his innovate guards-back formation, Woodruff broke up the stranglehold Princeton, Harvard and Yale had on the sport, although he first came to notice as a star player and teammate of Amos Alonzo Stagg at Yale. As head coach of the Quakers, Woodruff won a remarkable 124 games in 10 years, at a time when Penn played long schedules that featured records of 15-1, 15-0, 14-0, 14-1 and 12-1, among others. Two major college football awards are named after players Woodruff coached at Penn -- John Heisman and John Outland -- and he had winning streaks of 34 and 31 games. In his 10 years at Penn, his teams outscored the opposition 1,777-88.
[h=3]46. Bob Stoops[/h]Teams: Oklahoma (1999-present)
Record: 179-46 in 17 seasons
At this point in his career, it's easy to call Stoops underappreciated. Steve Spurrier's defensive coordinator at Florida in the '90s, Stoops took the Oklahoma job, inheriting a famed program coming out of an aimless decade and won the national championship in his second season. He set as high a standard as possible, and later in his tenure it became easy to bash him for big-game flops. Yes, Stoops lost his last three, but he appeared in four BCS championship games -- more than any other coach -- and has won nine Big 12 championships. He's 10-7 against rival Texas and 13-4 against Oklahoma State. He has 10 top-10 finishes, 13 seasons with at least 10 wins and nine major bowl appearances. Stoops revived Oklahoma, making it a consistent national power again, and he's been adaptable. His national championship team won with defense, but he also recruited Adrian Peterson and had two quarterbacks win the Heisman, Jason White and Sam Bradford, with Bradford's 2008 offense standing among the best in college football history. And with things starting to feel a bit stale in recent years, Stoops rebuilt his coaching staff and guided Oklahoma to the College Football Playoff in 2015. It's a remarkable resume for a coach who's still just 55.
[h=3]45. Jim Tressel[/h]Teams: Ohio State (2001-10), Youngstown State (1986-2000)
Record: 229-79-2 in 25 seasons
After an accomplished Division I-AA career at Youngstown State in which he won four national championships, Tressel was tapped to replace John Cooper at Ohio State, which had success but hadn't scored consecutive victories over rival Michigan since 1981-82. Yes, he was occasionally conservative to a fault on offense, but Tressel changed the rivalry, winning nine of 10 matchups with the Wolverines, and made the Buckeyes a reliable national contender. Tressel debuted with a 7-5 record, then had a team led by a great defense and freshman tailback Maurice Clarett march to an unexpected BCS title, with a 14-0 record capped by the somewhat controversial double-OT upset of a loaded Miami team in the Fiesta Bowl. Tressel's Buckeyes proceeded to get blown out by Florida and LSU in national championship games in 2006-07, but in a decade, he coached eight top-10 teams that played in eight BCS games, and he had a Heisman winner in Troy Smith. Tressel's tenure ended in controversy, as he was forced out in 2011 after the NCAA said he lied during a scandal involving impermissible benefits for players. He has since returned to Youngstown State as university president. Scandal or not, Tressel more than proved himself in his decade in Columbus, with an .828 winning percentage and seven top-five teams.
[h=3]44. Lou Holtz[/h]Teams: Notre Dame (1986-96), Arkansas (1977-83), South Carolina (1999-2004), N.C. State (1972-75), Minnesota (1984-85), William & Mary (1969-71)
Record: 249-132-7 in 33 seasons
Long before he was saying regrettable things at national political conventions, Holtz bounced around from job to job, coaching six teams, and he took all six to bowl games. He won one conference championship each at William & Mary, N.C. State and Arkansas, and he went on to rescue Notre Dame from the down years under Gerry Faust, with Notre Dame's 11th and most recent national championship in 1988. Holtz coached five top-10 teams at Notre Dame and three at Arkansas, and at his peak he won 64 games in six seasons from 1988-93, after he coached Heisman winner Tim Brown in '87. Holtz ended his career at South Carolina, setting the stage for Steve Spurrier's Gamecocks revival. He went winless in his debut but finished in top 20 each of the next two years, equaling the number of South Carolina's ranked finishes in the previous 40 years to cap a long career in which he had success everywhere he went.
[h=3]43. Dana X. Bible[/h]Teams: Texas A&M (1917, 1919-1928), Nebraska (1929-36), Texas (1937-46), LSU (1916), Mississippi College (1913-15)
Record: 198-72-23 in 33 seasons
No frills, no fuss, just three decades of relentless success. Bible's official College Football Hall of Fame biography points out that "his idea of living dangerously was a fake-and-run punt formation on third down." According to "Great College Football Coaches of the Twenties and Thirties," Bible, as coach of Texas A&M, recalled the famous story from the Alamo and drew a line on the floor at halftime of a game against Texas, saying "Those who want to go out and be known as members of an A&M team that defeated Texas in Austin, step over the line." They did, and won … and 15 years later Bible was coaching the Longhorns. Bible had only two losing records in 33 seasons as head coach. He led the Aggies to three undefeated seasons, winning five Southwest Conference championships, and coached led Texas and Nebraska to three one-loss seasons each, ultimately winning 14 conference titles at three schools in the Southwest and Big 6. While he went on to coach Texas, Bible will forever be revered at Texas A&M for starting the 12th Man tradition.
[h=3]42. Duffy Daugherty[/h]Teams: Michigan State (1954-72)
Record: 109-69-5 in 19 seasons
Michigan State claims three national championships, and Daugherty owns two of them. Michigan State has finished in the AP top 10 on 16 occasions, and Daugherty is responsible for seven of them. His tenure may have petered out over his last few seasons, but when things were good, they were as good as they've ever been in East Lansing. Daugherty's second team went 9-1 and won the Rose Bowl. Two years later, the Spartans finished No. 3. And in 1965-66, Michigan State reached its peak, going 19-1-1 over two seasons. In both years, the Spartans ended up second in the AP poll, but they won the UPI and FWAA votes in '65 and received a share of the National Football Foundation championship in '66 after a 10-10 tie with Notre Dame that, of course, ended up with the Fighting Irish staying atop the major polls. Overall, Daugherty led Michigan State to some of its greatest heights, and he also left a strong legacy with his recruitment of African-American athletes to play for the Spartans.
[h=3]41. Dan McGugin[/h]Teams: Vanderbilt (1904-17, 1919-34)
Record: 197-55-19 in 30 seasons
A Founding Father of southern football, McGugin played for two years and coached for one as part of Fielding Yost's legendary "Point a Minute" Michigan teams from 1901-03. He started at guard for teams that went 22-0 and didn't allow a point in two seasons. After serving as Yost's assistant, he went on to Vanderbilt as head coach at just 25 years old. He picked up where he left off at Michigan, going a perfect 9-0 in 1904 -- the only unbeaten and untied team in Vandy history. McGugin's first team looked a lot like Michigan, out-scoring opponents 474-4, albeit against a weak schedule. Known for his pep talks and ability to psychologically handle his players, McGugin had a famous inspirational moment before a game against his mentor, Yost, in 1922 at its brand-new 20,000 seat stadium. According to Tim Cohane's book "Great College Football Coaches of the Twenties and Thirties," McGugin -- an Iowa native who played at Michigan and was the son of a Union officer, who participated in Sherman's March -- gestured out the window toward a military ceremony and told his team: "In that cemetery sleep your grandfathers, and down on that field are the grandsons of the Damn Yankees who put them there." Vandy held Michigan to a 0-0 tie, and both teams finished the season unbeaten. With a one-year hiatus during World War I in the middle of his career, McGugin spent 30 seasons coaching Vandy, four times finishing without a loss while recording a losing record only once. Despite the fact that he died in 1936, and despite the fact that he split his time between practicing law and coaching football, he's still responsible for 57 percent of Vanderbilt's winning seasons since he took over in 1904. McGugin finished his career with 197 wins; no other Commodores coach has more than 39.
[h=3]40. Gilmour Dobie[/h]Teams: Cornell (1920-35), Washington (1908-16), Navy (1917-19), Boston College (1936-38), North Dakota State (1906-07)
Record: 180-45-15 in 33 seasons
Once Dobie became a head coach, 11 years passed before he lost a game. He didn't lose in two years at North Dakota Agricultural (now FCS power North Dakota State), and in the very early days of Western football -- when competition wasn't exactly stiff -- he rang up a 58-0-3 record at Washington, meaning that he never lost a game until Oct. 6, 1917, when his Navy team lost to West Virginia 7-0. Beyond a rivalry with Oregon's Hugo Bezdek -- both would go on to became prominent coaches in the East -- and occasionally tough games against Washington State and Oregon State, Washington racked up wins against plenty of forgettable opponents (including multiple high schools), but in never actually losing, and then going on to success against stiffer competition in the East, Dobie more than proved himself as one of the finest coaches of the early 1900s. He made his mark nationally at Cornell, with claims to national titles in three straight 8-0 seasons from 1921-23. "Gloomy Gil" left a legacy of pessimism and an old-school football mentality, even reportedly attempting to hold a practice at Boston College when the infamous New England hurricane of 1938 was bearing down on the city. Dobie's teams thrived behind the off-tackle play, as he abhorred passing. In 1925, Dobie's Cornell team suffered an unusual 62-13 loss. According to Grantland Rice, Dobie told him afterward, "Well, we won, 13 to nothing." Rice asked him to explain. "I don't count those scores made by passing," Dobie said. "That isn't football."
[h=3]39. Biggie Munn[/h]Teams: Michigan State (1947-53), Syracuse (1946), Albright (1935-36)
Record: 71-16-3 in 10 seasons
Munn's tenure didn't last long, as he stepped down as Spartans head coach to become athletic director in 1954, holding the position until 1971. An All-American at Minnesota as a player, Munn assisted at Michigan, coached one 4-5 season at Syracuse and then went to Michigan State, where he proved to be perhaps the most important coach in school history. The Spartans previously had some good teams -- the 1937 squad went to the Orange Bowl -- but they had yet to appear in the AP poll in a decade of its existence, and they had not yet been welcomed into the Big Ten. That changed under Munn. He went 7-2 his first year, then had six straight top-10 teams. In his last three years, Michigan State finished in the top three each year with a total record of 27-1, a win in the Rose Bowl in 1953 and the school's first national championship in 1952. That '52 season was the Spartans' final year of independence, as they joined the Big Ten, at long last, in Munn's final campaign, sharing the league title with Illinois and going on to beat UCLA in Pasadena in Munn's last game as coach.
[h=3]38. Pete Carroll[/h]Teams: USC (2001-09)
Record: 97-19 in 9 seasons
Carroll fled USC for the NFL just as NCAA sanctions were about to hit because of impermissible benefits received by Heisman winner Reggie Bush. Before the dynasty ended, though, USC somewhat unexpectedly recaptured former glory. Carroll had been fired after three years as head coach of the New England Patriots, and he was not among the initial top choices of the Trojans, who hadn't finished in the top 10 since 1989. But after a 6-6 debut, Carroll answered critics, coaching Carson Palmer to the Heisman in 2002 as the Trojans won the Orange Bowl, setting off a run of seven straight top-five finishes and BCS bowl appearances. A 12-1 USC team was left out of the title game in 2003, only to secure the AP's vote as national champions. The next year, Heisman winner Matt Leinart led USC to an easy championship, capped by a blowout win over Oklahoma. With Bush and Leinart, USC carried a 34-game winning streak into the 2005 title game against Texas, only to lose an all-time classic. While USC won just one BCS title, it lost only nine games over a seven-year period in which it produced three Heisman winners. Carroll restored USC's status as one of the most prestigious programs in college football, with a laid-back, positive style that embraced USC's role as the sport's Hollywood program.
37. Frank BroylesTeams: Arkansas (1958-76), Missouri (1957)
Record: 149-62-6 in 20 seasons
Arkansas had a mixed football history before Broyles got the job, but he succeeded quickly. After a losing season in his first year, Broyles went 9-2 in 1959, the start of a run of six top-10 teams in seven seasons, including the 1964 squad that went 11-0 and shared the national championship with Alabama and Notre Dame -- still standing as the Razorbacks' only title. Broyles won seven Southwest Conference championships, and among his players were Jimmy Johnson, Jerry Jones and Barry Switzer. Later, Broyles was on the losing end of one of the most famous games in college football history, a No. 1 vs. No. 2 showdown vs. Texas in which the Hogs lost 15-14, leading to President Richard Nixon, who was in attendance, to declare the Longhorns the national champions. Broyles went 10-2 with a Cotton Bowl win in 1975, but he stepped down after the '76 season to focus on his duties as athletic director, which he continued until 2007, making him the face of Arkansas sports for decades.
[h=3]36. Percy Haughton[/h]Teams: Harvard (1908-16), Cornell (1899-1900), Columbia (1923-24)
Record: 96-17-6 in 13 seasons
A team captain at Harvard, Haughton went on to become arguably the greatest coach in Crimson history. In nine years leading his alma mater, Haughton achieved a staggering record of 71-7-5, with claims to national championships in 1910, '12 and '13. His teams didn't lose once from 1912-14 (although they tied twice in '14), and he went undefeated in five of nine seasons at Harvard. Haughton innovated as a coach with the idea to spread the workload around to a coaching staff, with specific position coaches under his umbrella. Haughton may have had no problem delegated to others within his team, but he apparently had no time for anyone else. "The History of American Football" cites former Notre Dame coach Jesse Harper as saying: "[Haughton] was colder than an iceberg, harder than granite. But he was brilliant -- a natural leader. He was to football what General George Patton was to our armies. He was on his own. He had no respect for what 120,000,000 Americans thought of him because he knew that 95 percent of them were wrong as far as his job was concerned." Credited with inventing the hidden-ball trick, Haughton later helped revive Columbia football after the school stopped playing football for 16 years, but he died at age 48 during the 1924 season.
[h=3]35. Robert Zuppke[/h]Teams: Illinois (1913-41)
Record: 131-81-12 in 29 seasons
Zuppke won Illinois' four national championships. He is credited with inventing the huddle, the flea flicker, the screen pass and the onside kick, among other things. He coached Red Grange. It is not hard to see how he ends up here. Born in Berlin, Zuppke presided over Fighting Illini football for three decades, but he was more than a football coach. He was a talented artist, and he became known for his philosophical football attitude, which resulted in maxims of sorts that were known as Zuppkeisms. On the field, Zuppke is credited with championships in 1914, '19, '23 and'27, and he won the Big Ten seven times. And, of course, he had Grange, a three-time All-American from 1923-25 and one of the greatest players in the history of football. As time moved on, Zuppke struggled to adapt to the evolution of the sport, as he refused to put effort into recruiting. "They tell me that I should go around kissing babies and talking to mothers of poor boys to persuade them to send their sons to Illinois," Zuppke said after the 1929 season, according to "Great Football Coaches of the Twenties and Thirties. "And they say this is one of the duties of a modern coach. I told them that if that was the duty of a modern coach, then I wasn't capable of being a modern coach." Zuppke had a few more good teams -- he went 7-1 in 1934 -- but the last decade of his career was filled with mostly disappointing results. Ultimately, though, few coaches could match the success Zuppke had in the 1910s and '20s, in addition to his innovations that last to this day.
[h=3]34. John Heisman[/h]Teams: Georgia Tech (1904-19), Pennsylvania (1920-22), Clemson (1900-03), Auburn (1895-99), Rice (1924-27), Washington & Jefferson (1923), Oberlin (1892, 1894), Akron (1893-94)
Record: 185-70-17 in 36 seasons
Heisman achieved immortality as the namesake of the Heisman Memorial Trophy, which was named in his honor. While the head of the Downtown Athletic Club, he died in 1936, the second year of the award's existence. Heisman had a long, storied career as a coach, including a 1917 Georgia Tech team recognized as national champion after out-scoring opponents 491 to 17 in a 9-0 season. While that team was dominant, no team will ever touch the record Heisman's Golden Tornado set in 1916, when they beat up on hapless Cumberland 220-0 in the biggest rout in football history. Heisman was an early football perfectionist who abhorred fumbling, with motivational techniques that included holding up a ball and saying things like: "What is this? It is a prolate spheroid, an elongated sphere-in which the outer leather casing is drawn tightly over a somewhat smaller rubber tubing. Better to have died as a small boy than to fumble this football." An early innovator of strategy, Heisman was also a proponent of legalizing the forward pass and was the driving force behind the game being split into four quarters.
[h=3]33. Bobby Dodd[/h]Teams: Georgia Tech (1945-66)
Record: 165-64-8 in 22 seasons
A star quarterback under Robert Neyland at Tennessee, Dodd made a quick transition from Volunteers player to Georgia Tech assistant, and he'd never leave the Yellow Jackets. After a 14-season apprenticeship under coaching great William Alexander (who had taken over for John Heisman), Dodd ascended to the head coaching job in 1945 and continued the Yellow Jackets' success. While not voted No. 1, Georgia Tech claims a share of the 1952 national title for going 12-0 with a Sugar Bowl win. Dodd led the Yellow Jackets to back-to-back SEC titles in 1951-52, a time in which they went 31 games without a loss (including two ties). Dodd finished with a losing record only twice and coached nine teams that finished in the top 13, and at one point he won eight straight bowl games that he coached in, including three Sugar Bowls, two Orange Bowls and a Cotton Bowl. From 1904-66, Georgia Tech had only three coaches -- Heisman, Alexander and Dodd, all Hall of Famers.
[h=3]32. Fritz Crisler[/h]Teams: Michigan (1938-47), Princeton (1932-37), Minnesota (1930-31)
Record: 116-32-9 in 18 seasons
Just as Michigan legend Bo Schembechler played under rival coach Woody Hayes, Crisler played for a rival coach too, as he trained under Amos Alonzo Stagg, who had one of the sport's most famous rivalries with Fielding Yost. After a two-year stint at Minnesota, Crisler went to Princeton and led two undefeated teams in 1933 and '35, both of which the Tigers claim for national championships. Crisler moved on to Michigan and shined, ending his career with eight straight top-10 seasons. In his final year, Crisler went 10-0 and won the Rose Bowl, although Notre Dame was voted national champion. Crisler coached 1940 Heisman Trophy winner Tom Harmon, in addition to future national championship coaches Biggie Munn (while at Minnesota) and Forest Evashevski, and perhaps made his biggest mark as the innovator of two-platoon football.
[h=3]31. Vince Dooley[/h]Teams: Georgia (1964-88)
Record: 201-77-10 in 25 seasons
Georgia is a powerful football program with a storied history, but it has only two national championships to its name -- and only one since World War II ended. That came in 1980, when Dooley led the Bulldogs to the top of the polls behind star freshman running back Herschel Walker. Georgia was coming off a 6-5 season, but with Walker rushing for 1,616 yards, the Bulldogs tore through their SEC schedule -- plus power nonconference opponents having down seasons -- to go 12-0, solidifying their championship with a win over Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl. Walker won the Heisman in 1982 and left for the pros, and in four years from 1980-83, Dooley's Bulldogs went 43-4 with four top-six finishes, coming up just shy of a national title in 1982 with a loss to Penn State in the Sugar Bowl. Dooley -- who played at rival Auburn -- ultimately coached Georgia to eight top-10s in 25 years, winning the SEC six times in an era in which winning the conference was usually reserved for Bear Bryant.
30. John VaughtTeams: Ole Miss (1947-70)
Record: 190-61-12 in 25 seasons
Ole Miss has never been crowned national champion by the AP poll, but in 1960 it shared titles honors with Minnesota, thanks to the FWAA vote, and the Rebels also claim shares of championships in 1959 and 1962. Needless to say, it was a remarkable era of success for Ole Miss football, all under the watch of Vaught, who led the Rebels to seven straight top-11 rankings from 1957-63 and ultimately coached 10 top-10 teams that played in eight Sugar Bowls and two Cotton Bowls in his career. Far more than anybody else, Vaught is Ole Miss football, having won all six of the program's SEC titles, with the only two undefeated teams and the top 11 teams in school history, according to Sports-Reference's SRS data. Plus, he finished out his career by bringing Archie Manning to Oxford, setting the stage for Eli to play for the Rebels too in the early 2000s.
[h=3]29. Frank Thomas[/h]Teams: Alabama (1931-46), Chattanooga (1925-28)
Record: 141-33-9 in 19 seasons
Perhaps this blurb could begin and end with this: Frank Thomas coached Bear Bryant at Alabama. But Thomas was much more than Bryant's coach, of course. He stepped in for the wildly successful Wallace Wade and continued the Crimson Tide's winning ways, behind players like Bryant and Don Hutson. Alabama lost a total of eight games in Thomas' first eight seasons, appearing in two Rose Bowls, and in his tenure he boasts two claimed national championships -- one for an undefeated 1934 season, and another much more dubious claim with a 9-2 record in 1941 for a team that finished 20th in the AP poll. Regardless of debates about mythical national titles, Thomas won 81.2 percent of his games and coached in three Rose Bowls, and a Cotton, Sugar and Orange. He sustained Wade's success, and he set the table for Bryant's eventual return as head coach, hiring him as an assistant in 1936.
[h=3]28. Andy Smith[/h]Teams: California (1916-25), Pennsylvania (1909-12), Purdue (1913-15)
Record: 116-32-13 in 17 seasons
The leader of Cal's "Wonder Teams" of the 1920s, Smith's Golden Bears claimed three straight national championships from 1920-22. While a native of Pennsylvania who played for both Penn State and Penn, Smith's biggest accomplishment was bringing respect to Pacific Coast football, starting with a 9-0 season in 1920 that ended with a 28-0 Rose Bowl win over Ohio State -- the Buckeyes' only loss of the season. From 1920-24, Cal did not lose a game, with four ties, including a 0-0 result with Washington & Jefferson in the Rose Bowl in the '21 season. While traveling back home to Pennsylvania, Smith caught pneumonia and died in 1926 at the age of 42. His ashes were scattered on the field at Cal's Memorial Stadium, which was built in large part because of the success of his teams.
[h=3]27. Jock Sutherland[/h]Teams: Pittsburgh (1924-38), Lafayette (1919-23)
Record: 144-28-14 in 20 seasons
Sutherland had the unenviable task of replacing Pop Warner at Pitt, but he succeeded in a big way, sustaining the success of his mentor and continuing the Panthers' status as an Eastern power. Pitt claims nine national championships, while the NCAA's list includes four, so Sutherland won either five championships or one, depending on who you believe. The one that is undisputed is 1937, when Sutherland's Panthers claimed the second-ever AP poll championship with a 9-0-1- record in a season in which Pitt allowed more than a touchdown only once. Sutherland had one undefeated season at Lafayette, then finished with zero or one loss 10 times at Pitt and led the Panthers to the Rose Bowl four times -- before declining a fifth invitation in '37. A Fellow of the American Dental Society, Jock was more formally known as Dr. John Bain Sutherland, and he served in both World Wars. On the field, he put his own spin on single-wing football and produced prolific rushing attacks.
[h=3]26. Wallace Wade[/h]Teams: Alabama (1923-30), Duke (1931-41, 1946-50)
Record: 171-49-10 in 24 seasons
When Bear Bryant was still just a kid growing up in Arkansas, Wade was putting Alabama football on the map. Southern football struggled to garner respect in the early years, but the perception gradually changed, in part because of Wade's accomplishments. He's credited with three national championships in six years (1925, '26 and '30), all three of which were undefeated seasons that ended with the Crimson Tide playing in the Rose Bowl (two wins and a tie). After that third championship, Wade made a move to Duke -- one that had been in the works since before that season, after he got fed up with criticism during three mediocre season -- where he had a 110-36-7 record with six Southern Conference titles and two Rose Bowl losses (including the 1942 game, which was moved to Durham after the attack at Pearl Harbor). His time at Duke was cut into two because, in his 50s, he took a leave of absence and served as a field artillery officer in World War II (he also fought in WWI), where he made plans to listen to his current school and future school play in the Sugar Bowl from France. Wade also played at Brown in the 1916 Rose Bowl, allowing him to be credited as the first person to appear in the Rose Bowl as both a player and a coach, according to the National Football Foundation. Wade is the first coach to win national titles at Alabama, and Duke's stadium is named for him.

 

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top 25 ... http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/192030618/best-100-college-football-coaches-ever-top-25

[h=3]25. Bob Devaney[/h]Teams: Nebraska (1962-72), Wyoming (1957-61)
Record: 136-30-7 in 16 seasons
Before Tom Osborne spent a quarter-century leading Nebraska to endless success, Devaney put the Cornhuskers on the college football map. They had finished in the AP poll once in the two decades before Devaney took over. He proceeded to record at least nine wins in nine of 11 seasons, with four straight top-six finishes from 1963-66 and back-to-back national championships in 1970-71. Devaney coached Nebraska's first Heisman winner, Johnny Rodgers, and he led Nebraska to a win in one of the greatest games in college football history, a 35-31 defeat of Big 8 nemesis Oklahoma on Nov. 25, 1971. In the two national championship years, Nebraska finished 24-0-1, and in '71 it held 10 opponents to a touchdown or less, including Alabama in the Orange Bowl with the title on the line. After compiling a 35-10-5 record at Wyoming, Devaney led the Huskers to eight Big 8 championships and finished his coaching career with a winning percentage of .806. Devaney's Nebraska tenure began in 1962, and Memorial Stadium has been sold out for all 347 home games since then.
[h=3]24. Red Blaik[/h]Teams: Army (1941-58), Dartmouth (1934-40)
Record: 166-48-14 in 25 seasons
In the mid-1940s, Army football became one of college football's greatest dynasties. It was a tumultuous time for America, amid World War II, and college football had been shaken up like every other part of life. Some schools stopped playing. Many top players flocked to military training centers before heading overseas. And, of course, many great players ended up at West Point. Army football had been strong before and after World War I under coaches like Charles Daly and Biff Jones, with a storied rivalry with Notre Dame dating back to 1913. But from 1932-43, Army failed to beat Notre Dame, managing only two ties. That soon changed under the tutelage of Blaik. Blaik, a West Point grad, had made a difficult decision to leave Dartmouth, where he had gone 45-15-4 in seven seasons, finishing seventh in the AP poll in 1937. After three solid seasons back at West Point, Blaik's Black Knights went 27-0-1 from 1944-46. They were clear national champions the first two years. In '44, they didn't allow more than a TD in a game and beat Notre Dame 59-0 and Navy 23-7. In '45, Army beat then-No. 2 Notre Dame 48-0 and then-No. 2 Navy 32-13. In '46, Notre Dame had one of the most talented teams ever, with the war over, and the two battled to a 0-0 tie, with the Fighting Irish vaulting to No. 1 in the final AP poll when Army barely hung on for a 21-18 win over 1-8 Navy. It's a three-year peak that is nearly unmatchable, with Heisman winners Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis sharing the backfield, but it wasn't the end of Blaik's success. An academiccheating scandal in 1951 ripped apart Blaik's team -- including Blaik's son -- but after a couple down years Army football bounced back. Blaik ended his career on a high note in 1958, coaching an 8-0-1 team that finished third in the AP poll and featured Heisman winner Pete Dawkins, making it the last national powerhouse West Point football team. Blaik coached three Heisman winners and eight top-10 teams at Army, with two undisputed national championships and claims to sharing the '46 title as well. To enhance his legacy, Blaik produced an astounding coaching tree, headlined by five-year assistant Vince Lombardi.
[h=3]23. Howard Jones[/h]Teams: USC (1925-40), Iowa (1916-23), Yale (1909, 1913), Duke (1924), Syracuse (1908), Ohio State (1910)
Record: 194-64-21 in 29 seasons
There are two famous Jones brothers, as Howard's brother, Tad, is also in the College Football Hall of Fame for his success as coach at their alma mater, Yale. Both had exceptional careers, but Howard Jones' was longer and more successful, enough to make him one of the greatest coaches ever. Jones claims five national championships over 30 years. The first came in his second season as a head coach, when he led Yale to a 10-0 record. The final four came in his remarkable run at USC in which he had three unbeaten seasons. Jones won two Big Ten titles with perfect 7-0 teams at Iowa, and he went on to win seven Pacific Coast titles at USC. He went 5-0 in Rose Bowl appearances, beating fellow legends Jock Sutherland (twice), Bernie Bierman, Wallace Wade and Bob Neyland in Pasadena. "Howard lived and breathed football," said Al Wesson, USC's publicity man at the time, according to "Great College Football Coaches of the Twenties and Thirties." "If it were not for football he would have starved to death -- couldn't possibly have made a living in business." In Jones' second-to-last season, USC went 8-0-2 and finished third in the AP poll before winning the Rose Bowl. Jones died of a heart attack two years later at age 55, having started as a head coach at age 23 at Syracuse.
[h=3]22. Steve Spurrier[/h]Teams: Florida (1990-2001), South Carolina (2005-15), Duke (1987-89)
Record: 228-89-2 in 26 seasons
The Head Ball Coach retired last October, depriving college football of one of its all-time great characters and coaches. The 1966 Heisman Trophy winner, Spurrier shared an ACC title at Duke in 1989 -- the program's only conference championship since 1962 -- and went on to mold his alma mater into a national power. Florida's success had been spotty previously, but Spurrier never finished worse than 12thin the AP poll in his 12 years in charge of the Gators. The peak was 1996, when Heisman Trophy winner Danny Wuerffel led Florida to a 52-20 win over Florida State in the Sugar Bowl to vault from No. 3 to the national championship, a year after the Gators went 12-0 in the regular season and lost the title to Nebraska. While schools like BYU and Houston had produced huge passing offenses in previous years, Spurrier helped take modern passing games mainstream in the SEC, airing it out with his Fun 'n' Gun offense. Spurrier flopped in the NFL, but he returned to college ball to breathe life into South Carolina football, with three straight top-10 finishes from 2011-13. Spurrier won six SEC championships at Florida, where he had a winning percentage of .817 and made life miserable for opposing coaches, talking trash off the field while backing it up with devastating offenses capable of hanging half a hundred any given week.
[h=3]21. Ara Parseghian[/h]Teams: Notre Dame (1964-74), Northwestern (1956-63), Miami of OH (1951-55)
Record: 170-58-6 in 24 seasons
In 1964, Parseghian was charged with rescuing Notre Dame football. The Fighting Irish had gone -- gasp -- 14 whole years without a national title, and they had lost an unthinkable 45 games in the previous eight seasons. Parseghian had the answers. After a solid stint at Northwestern in which his teams never actually finished a season ranked in the AP poll, Parseghian proceeded to lose only 17 games in 11 years at Notre Dame. The Irish, with Heisman-winning QB John Huarte, blew the national championship in 1964 by losing their finale to USC while ranked No. 1 (they're the National Football Foundation champion that year but the school does not officially claim it), but in '66 they opened 8-0, then rode out a 10-10 Game of the Century tie vs. No. 2 Michigan State and blew out USC to claim the national title. Parseghian added another in 1973, with the 11-0 Irish crowned in a season in which five of the top six teams didn't have a loss. Seven of Parseghian's 11 teams finished in the AP top five; the other four were no worse than 14th. His worst record at Notre Dame was 8-3, and he called it quits at age 51 after a 1974 season in which the Irish went 10-2 and won the Orange Bowl, with an 11-year winning percentage of .836.
20. Bo SchembechlerTeams: Michigan (1969-89), Miami of Ohio (1963-68)
Record: 234-65-8 in 27 seasons
The quintessential Michigan Man, even if he played at Miami of Ohio. Schembechler learned from Woody Hayes, then went on to forge one of the greatest coaching rivalries in sports on the opposite sideline, with their famous Ten Year War from 1969-78 that started with the Wolverines stunning undefeated No. 1 Ohio State to deprive the Buckeyes of the '69 national title. Michigan had ceded ground to Michigan State, Ohio State and others in the 1960s, with one ranked team from 1957-67. Bo promptly changed that. When he arrived in 1969, Michigan embarked on 10 straight top-10 seasons, with five Rose Bowl bids (all losses). He went 5-4-1 against Woody, and he ultimately won or shared 13 Big Ten championships, with 10 trips to the Rose Bowl. The only two questions on Schembechler's record are the lack of a national championship and a 2-8 record in Pasadena. Otherwise, he never coached a losing team, finished ranked in the AP poll in 19 of 21 seasons in Ann Arbor and ended his career with a 10-2 Rose Bowl season. Schembechler built machines at Michigan, and his coaching tree spreads to Jim Harbaugh, Lloyd Carr, Les Miles, Don Nehlen, Bill McCartney and beyond.
[h=3]19. Darrell Royal[/h]Teams: Texas (1957-76), Mississippi State (1954-55) Washington (1956)
Record: 184-60-5 in 23 seasons
A star Oklahoma player who became rival Texas' most famous coach, Royal is responsible for three of the Longhorns' four claimed national championships. He became head coach at Mississippi State at age 30 and retired at 54, and in between he coached 10 top-10 teams at Texas. The most famous were an 11-0 team in 1963, which won the national title and beat Roger Staubach and Navy in the Cotton Bowl; the 11-0 team in 1969, which out-dueled Arkansas in one of the most famous games ever, and was crowned national champion by Richard Nixon and beat Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl; and the 10-1 team in 1970 that lost the Cotton Bowl to Notre Dame but claimed the pre-bowl coaches' poll championship anyway. Royal won 77.4 percent of his games at Texas, never had a losing season and coached in the Cotton Bowl 10 times, with 11 Southwest Conference championships. The Longhorns now play in a stadium that bears his name.
[h=3]18. Walter Camp[/h]Teams: Yale (1888-92), Stanford (1892, 1894-95)
Record: 79-5-3 in 8 seasons
Camp is credited with only eight seasons as a head coach -- two of which were in the same year, as he went 13-0 at Yale, then moved on to Stanford in late November and went 2-0-2 with a late-year schedule. But he cannot be left off this list. After all, he is known as the Father of Football, more responsible than any other person for pushing the sport forward from its roots to a game resembling what we know today. After coaching at Yale and Stanford and losing only five games -- and being credited with three national titles as coach -- he continued to oversee Yale athletics and wielded enormous influence over both the university's football team and football nationally until he died in 1925 at age 64. Camp was responsible for many of the evolutions in rules and football strategy in the early days, and starting in 1889 through his death, he picked the All-America teams. Camp died in 1925, on a weekend in which he was in New York for a meeting of the football rules committee that he had so much influence over for so long. Said West Virginia athletic director Harry Stanbury at the time: "Just as George Washington is considered the maker of this country, so will Camp always be called the man who brought football to its present national status."
[h=3]17. Bob Neyland[/h]Teams: Tennessee (1926-34, 1936-40, 1946-52)
Record: 173-31-12 in 21 seasons
An all-time great defensive mastermind, Neyland built Tennessee football into a power in an amazing 21-season career, broken into three parts because of military service. He never coached a losing team, had five undefeated teams and had six more squads that finished with one loss. A West Point graduate, Neyland was strongly against risk-taking on offense, and, according to "Great College Football Coaches of the Twenties and Thirties," he once pointed out that there are more ways to score on defense (interception, fumble, kick and blocked kick returns) than on offense (run, pass, kick), and that "the psychological shock of being scored on any of those ways is so profound that a team so scored on rarely is able to rally for victory." Neyland shifted the balance of power in the state of Tennessee from Vanderbilt to the Volunteers, and it hasn't changed back since he arrived in Knoxville. In his first seven years, he lost two games and tied four, and after the AP poll began, he led the Vols to top-five finishes five times, including the No. 1 ranking in 1951 (although they went on to lose the Sugar Bowl). Tennessee claims four national championships under General Neyland, and the Vols hold the record for most consecutive quarters holding opponents scoreless in regular-season games: 71, from 1938-40. Among coaches with at least 20 years of experience, only Tom Osborne and Fielding Yost top Neyland's .829 winning percentage.
[h=3]16. John McKay[/h]Teams: USC (1960-75)
Record: 127-40-8 in 16 seasons
In took two years for McKay to find his footing as head coach, as he produced two sub-.500 teams to start his head coaching career, but then he took off into the stratosphere. By 1962, USC had still not been crowned national champion by the AP poll since the start of the rankings in 1936. McKay changed that, piloting a Trojans squad that began unranked and climbed toward the top all season, ultimately finishing 11-0 with a 42-37 win over No. 2 Wisconsin in a classic Rose Bowl in which the Trojans held off a huge fourth-quarter rally by the Badgers. McKay subsequently coached four seven-win teams, then vaulted back to the top with a three-year stretch from 1967-69 in which the Trojans went 29-2-2 and claimed the 1967 national championship. McKay added two more titles to his trophy case (1972, '74) and developed a reputation for his devastating I-formation offense, featuring the unstoppable Student Body Right and Left plays that made USC into Tailback U. Under McKay, both O.J. Simpson and Mike Garrett won the Heisman, while tailbacks Ricky Bell and Anthony Davis came close. Famous for his sharp sense of humor, McKay was hired to be the first coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, coaching nine seasons that started off disastrous but ended up featuring three playoff bids. He'll always be known first for what he accomplished at USC, though, with four national championships, nine top-10 teams and a 5-3 record in the Rose Bowl.
[h=3]15. Urban Meyer[/h]Teams: Florida (2005-10), Ohio State (2012-present), Utah (2003-04), Bowling Green (2001-02)
Record: 154-27 in 14 seasons
Meyer has already taken a one-year leave from coaching, raising doubts about how long he'll stay in the game, but at only 52 years old, there's a chance he could finish career in the same ballpark as Nick Saban. Meyer has won big everywhere he's gone. At Bowling Green, he went 17-6. At Utah, he went 22-2, leading a 2004 Utes team that finished 12-0, demolished Pitt in the Fiesta Bowl and produced No. 1 overall draft pick Alex Smith. At Florida, Meyer had three 13-1 seasons, winning two BCS national championships and finishing third in 2009 thanks to an SEC title game loss to Alabama. And at Ohio State, Meyer has gone 50-4, losing one Big Ten regular-season game in four seasons. His first team went 12-0 but was ineligible for the postseason because of previous NCAA sanctions, and his 2014 team bounced back from an early loss to make a run to win the inaugural College Football Playoff championship. Seven of Meyer's 14 teams have lost one or no games and finished in the top four of the AP poll. His innovative spread offenses led to Tim Tebow winning the Heisman in 2007, and they have led to three national titles and an .851 winning percentage at four schools, a record now showing no signs of slowing down.
[h=3]14. Pop Warner[/h]Teams: Pittsburgh (1915-23), Stanford (1924-32), Carlisle (1899-03, 1907-14), Cornell (1897-98, 1904-06), Temple (1933-38), Georgia (1895-96), Iowa State (1895-1899).
Record: 319-106-32 in 44 seasons
The name Pop Warner has long been associated with youth football, but at the dawn of the sport, the actual Glenn Scobey Warner had an incredibly long and successful coaching career that took him all over the country spreading the game. Warner had nine stints as head coach at seven schools, covering the East, South, Midwest and Pacific Coast. He's credited with four national championships -- three at Pitt and one at Stanford. His Pitt teams went 26-0 from 1915-17, and he won his first 30 games at the school. He coached Jim Thorpe at Carlisle. Before the turn of the 20th century, he coached both Iowa State and Georgia at the same time, leading Iowa State in the preseason and Georgia during the season, and then he did the same with Iowa State and Cornell and Iowa State and Carlisle. He coached in three Rose Bowls at Stanford, and he led Temple to the first-ever Sugar Bowl. A master strategist, Warner succeeded with single- and double-wing formations heavy on misdirection plays. "It would be difficult to say what coach had the greatest influence on college football -- Pop Warner or Knute Rockne," said Grantland Rice in 1947, according to "The History of American Football." "… Pop undoubtedly was the greatest inventive genius." From coast to coast, Warner spread that football genius.
[h=3]13. Bernie Bierman[/h]Teams: Minnesota (1932-41, 1945-50), Iowa ( Pre-Flight (1942), Tulane (1927-31), Mississippi State (1925-26), Montana (1919-21)
Record: 153-65-12 in 27 seasons
Bierman has to be one of the most underrated coaches in college football history. Diehards know the name, but he hardly has the name recognition of other past greats. After playing for legendary Minnesota coach Henry Williams, Bierman embarked on a long career as a head coach in which he claimed five national championships in eight years at Minnesota from 1934-41, capped by a title-winning team with a Heisman winner Bruce Smith, only to have his tenure interrupted by World War II. He coached the Iowa Pre-Flight team in 1942 and served as a colonel in the Marines during World War II before returning to Minnesota, where he struggled to recapture earlier magic and to adjust to an evolving game, and was forced out after a 1-7 season in 1950. Few coaches, however, have ever had a peak that can match Bierman, who had four 8-0 seasons at Minnesota, plus a 9-0 mark at Tulane, where he won three conference titles. If Nick Saban leads Alabama to another national title in 2016, he'll merely have equaled Bierman's feat of five titles in eight years.
12. Barry SwitzerTeams: Oklahoma
Record: 157-29-4 in 16 seasons
In 1970, Switzer, then Oklahoma's offensive coordinator, made the move with head coach Chuck Fairbanks to the wishbone offense. What followed for the next decade and a half was some of the most dominant offensive football ever. After the Sooners finished No. 2 in 1971, Fairbanks leapt to the NFL's New England Patriots, leaving the head job in the hands of Switzer. Switzer began his head coaching career by going 10-0-1 and finishing No. 3, and then he won back-to-back national championships in 1974-75, dominating opponents with Joe Washington at running back and Lee Roy and Dewey Selmon leading the defense. Switzer's teams finished no worse than seventh in the AP poll in each of his first seven seasons, and after a few years of mixed results, the Sooners vaulted back to the top in the mid-1980s behind Brian Bosworth, beating Penn State in the Orange Bowl for Switzer's third and final national title. Switzer coached nine teams that finished in the top three, 12 Big 8 champions, six Orange Bowl winners and 1978 Heisman winner Billy Sims. He resigned amid NCAA problems in 1989 and went on to lead the Dallas Cowboys to a Super Bowl, leaving the college game having won 83.7 percent of his games, never going worse than 7-4-1.
[h=3]11. Joe Paterno[/h]Teams: Penn State (1966-2011)
Record: 409-136-3 in 46 seasons
Some may believe that this is too low for the winningest Division I coach of all time, the man who built Penn State football into a national power and won 409 games and two national championships, spending 16 years as an assistant to Rip Engle and 46 more as head coach. Some may believe that this is too high for Paterno, the man who experienced a monumental fall from grace at the end of his life after longtime defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was convicted of child sex abuse and Paterno was fired and faced with intense criticism and accusations of, at worst, covering up or ignoring allegations about Sandusky, and, at best, not being more vigilant. The purpose of this series is to evaluate on-field accomplishments of college football coaches throughout the sport's history, and these are the facts of Paterno's football career: five undefeated seasons, a .749 winning percentage over 46 years, a 24-12-1 bowl record, 22 top-10 teams, two national championship teams (1982, '86) and four undefeated teams that were not recognized with national titles, including an all-time great offense in 1994. In the '82 season, Penn State out-dueled Georgia in a classic Sugar Bowl; four years later, in one of the biggest college football games ever, Penn State intercepted Heisman winner Vinny Testaverde five times to beat Miami 14-10 in the Fiesta Bowl and win a second title in five seasons. He coached a Heisman winner, John Cappelletti, in 1973, and he won a Big Ten title as recently as 2008, when he turned 82 years old. There's little doubt about what Paterno accomplished on the field. But in the best of times and, at the end, the worst of times, Paterno was the face of Penn State for nearly half a century, and debates about his legacy aren't going to end anytime soon.
[h=3]10. Bud Wilkinson[/h]Teams: Oklahoma (1947-63)
Record: 145-29-4 in 17 seasons
It's amazing to think what Wilkinson's record might look like if he hadn't stepped down from coaching at age 47. After learning the Split-T offense as an assistant to Don Faurot for the Iowa Pre-Flight football team during World War II, Wilkinson ended up at Oklahoma and ascended to head coach at just 31 years old. Oklahoma had previously experienced mixed results in its football history, but Wilkinson quickly made the Sooners into a national power, a status sustained today. Wilkinson's first three teams went 31-2 with three Sugar Bowl bids, with the team's first national championship in 1950. In 1954, the Sooners were denied the national title despite a 10-0 record, and they responded by going 21-0 the next two seasons to claim back-to-back national titles. In total, Oklahoma set an unbreakable record by winning 47 straight games from 1953-57, the streak not ending until a 7-0 loss to Notre Dame on Nov. 16, 1957. Ultimately, Wilkinson won 82.6 percent of his games and 14 conference titles, and he presided over 11 straight top-10 teams, four undefeated seasons and the longest winning streak ever (plus another one of 31 games).
[h=3]9. Bobby Bowden[/h]Teams: Florida State, West Virginia
Record: 357-124-4 in 40 seasons
After experiencing modest success in six seasons at West Virginia, Bowden moved to Florida State to take on the challenge of a program that lacked a national profile, having never finished a season ranked. What followed was one of the most amazing runs in football history. With a program that went 1-21 in 1973-74, Bowden went 10-2 in his second year in 1977, and he lost a pair of Orange Bowls in 1979-80. The true rise started in 1987, when Bowden embarked on a streak of 14 straight AP top-five seasons in which the Seminoles had a record of 152-19-1. Only twice in that span did the Seminoles claim national championships (1993 and '99), due in part to a few excruciating losses to rivals Florida and Miami, but the Noles finished 10-2 or better in each of those years, churning out dominant team after dominant team featuring numerous stars, including Heisman winners Charlie Ward and Chris Weinke. Bowden's tenure lost momentum in the final decade after the 2000 BCS title loss to Oklahoma, but he coached until he was 80 years old, winning 76 percent of his games at Florida State and building the program into a premier contender nationally, with one of the best sustained peaks that college football has ever seen.
[h=3]8. Woody Hayes[/h]Teams: Ohio State (1951-78), Miami of Ohio (1949-50), Denison (1946-48)
Record: 238-72-10 in 33 seasons
A naval veteran of World War II and a student of military history, Hayes coached football with military precision and discipline, to great success over three decades -- before his ultimate demise for striking a Clemson player during the 1978 Gator Bowl. Regardless of how things ended, Hayes may forever be the face of Ohio State football, winning five national championships and 13 Big Ten titles in his 28 years in Columbus. In 1954, Hayes went 10-0, won the Rose Bowl and won the national title. In 1957, Ohio State lost its opener but won nine straight games to win the UPI and FWAA crown. In 1961, Ohio State tied its first game and won the next eight games to claim the FWAA title. In 1968, Ohio State went 10-0 and won the national title. And in 1970, it claims a three-way share of the title despite losing the Rose Bowl to Stanford. Had the Buckeyes not been upset by Hayes protégé Bo Schembechler and Michigan in 1969, Hayes could have won three straight titles. Alas, Hayes settled for those five national championships, a 16-11-1 career record against Michigan and 10 AP top-five teams, along with coaching Archie Griffin, the only two-time winner of the Heisman.
[h=3]7. Amos Alonzo Stagg[/h]Teams: Chicago (1892-32), Pacific (1933-46), Springfield (1890-91)
Record: 314-199-35 in 57 seasons
When Stagg began playing at Yale, football was not yet football. It was 1885, and the game was still evolving from its rugby-like origins. He didn't stop coaching until 1958, when he helped out local Stockton College by coaching kickers. Born one year before the Gettysburg Address and seven years before the first-ever college football game between Rutgers and Princeton, Stagg lived to age 102, long enough to see Bear Bryant's first two national championship teams at Alabama. In his 41 years at Chicago, Stagg stands as one of the most influential and innovative people in football history. A presence close to the beginning of the sport, he influenced just about everybody, from Knute Rockne on down. Four of Stagg's Chicago teams finished undefeated, including the 1905 squad that capped an 11-0 season with a 2-0 win over Fielding Yost's Michigan squad in the first Game of the Century ("Yost's reign of terror is over and Stagg is king again," read The Inter Ocean headline) to be crowned national champion. Twelve more of his teams had just one loss. In 1906, after that unbeaten season, the forward pass was legalized, and, Allison Danzig writes in "The History of American Football" that "Stagg had sixty-four pass plays" in that first year. From the onside kick to shifts to how the quarterback took snaps to laterals to the double pass to the Statue of Liberty and beyond, Stagg has claims to an enormous number of firsts. When he was forced to step down as coach at Chicago at age 70, he couldn't resist the pull of football. He moved to the West Coast and spent 14 years coaching Pacific, even leading the Tigers to a No. 19 AP ranking in 1943, which earned him AFCA Coach of the Year honors at age 81.
6. Tom OsborneTeams: Nebraska (1973-97)
Record: 255-49-3 in 25 seasons
Think about the disadvantages Nebraska football faces. Think about the frustrating reality that has set in over the last two decades since Osborne retired. Nebraska is the 37th most populous state in the U.S. There are almost no blue-chip recruits in the Heartland region that the university occupies. From 1941-62, Nebraska produced one ranked football team. Since 2001, Nebraska has not finished better than 14th nationally. And yet here is what Osborne did upon getting promoted from offensive coordinator to head coach to replace Bob Devaney, who jumpstarted the Cornhuskers and won two national titles in 1970-71: Osborne coached 25 years and, behind a devastating option attack, never once led a team that finished unranked, ending with a winning percentage of .836. Eighteen of his team 25 teams were ranked in the top 10. Twelve won Big 8 titles. Twenty-one played in the Orange, Sugar or Cotton Bowl. And, ultimately, three won national championships. Nebraska famously just missed a title in 1983, when -- as the wire-to-wire unbeaten No. 1 team throughout the regular season -- Osborne opted to go for two and the win against No. 5 Miami in the Orange Bowl. The try failed, and Nebraska lost 31-30, depriving Osborne of his first national championship.
Osborne wouldn't win one until 1994, amid another absurd run of success for Nebraska in which he'd win three in four years. In '94, Nebraska was voted No. 1 over fellow unbeaten Penn State, with the two not meeting in the postseason, in what seems like should have been a split title situation. The next year, Nebraska left no doubt, with a mesmerizing, unstoppable offense behind quarterback Tommy Frazier that went 12-0 and beat Florida 62-24 in the Fiesta Bowl to stake its claim as one of the greatest teams in history. And in '97, Nebraska went undefeated again, splitting the title with Michigan. Osborne ended his career on the highest of high notes, having won 60 of his final 63 games.
[h=3]5. Fielding Yost[/h]Teams: Michigan (1901-23, 1925-26), Ohio Wesleyan (1897), Nebraska (1898), Kansas (1899), Stanford (1900), San Jose State (1900)
Record: 198-35-12 in 30 seasons
From the beginning of intercollegiate football in 1869 through 1900, at least a share of every declared national championship went to an Ivy League team: Princeton, Yale, Harvard or Penn. Beginning in 1901, Yost took college football by storm, ending the East Coast's reign and expanding national respect to the Midwest by dominating the competition with a relentless, unstoppable attack. A century before coaches like Chip Kelly and Gus Malzahn popularized modern up-tempo offenses, Hurry Up Yost's Wolverines were busy earning their Point-a-Minute reputation by dominating overmatched opponents with blazing speed and ruthless efficiency. Yost began his Michigan tenure by out-scoring opponents 550-0 in an 11-0 season, earning the national title and beating Stanford 49-0 in the first-ever Rose Bowl. In his second year, Michigan out-scored opponents 644-12 in an 11-0 national title season. In 1903, Michigan out-scored opponents 565-6 in an 11-0-1 national title season, merely tying Minnesota 6-6. In 1904, Michigan out-scored opponents 567-22, in a 10-0 national title season. In 1905, Michigan out-scored its first 12 opponents 495-0 … but then finally lost 2-0, in one of the biggest football games ever, to Amos Alonzo Stagg and Chicago. The final score tally in five years? Michigan 2,821, Opponents 42.
Yes, it was a much different time for football. Michigan's schedule was extraordinarily imbalanced, as the game of football was still spreading across the country. And while Michigan continued to be dominant, the 2-0 loss to Chicago that ended the Point-a-Minute era was also the Wolverines' last game before the forward pass was legalized. But Yost went on to claim national titles in 1918 and '23. He had only one losing record at Michigan, winning 83.3 percent of his games. According to "The History of American Football," when Yost died in 1946, Grantland Rice wrote, "Yost was not only one of the greatest coaches football has ever seen, but one of the most distinctive characters sport has ever known. He was a human volcano with a tidal wave touch. Hurry Up had a combination of ability and personality that has yet to be surpassed in any field."
[h=3]4. Frank Leahy[/h]Teams: Notre Dame (1941-43, 1946-53), Boston College (1939-40)
Record: 107-13-9 in 13 seasons
During World War II, college football slowed to a crawl at many schools around the country. At Notre Dame, the opposite was true. Beyond taking a backseat to West Point in 1944-45, the Fighting Irish were among the most dominant teams ever during the 1940s, under the guidance of Leahy for three years before he joined the Navy in 1944 and then eight more after the war. Leahy, an assistant for great Fordham teams of the 1930s (including Vince Lombardi and the Seven Blocks of Granite), went 20-2 in two seasons at Boston College (claiming a national title in 1940), then coached eight top-three teams in 11 seasons in South Bend. Leahy won AP national titles in 1943, '46, '47 and '49, with a No. 2 finish in 1948. He coached Heisman Trophy winners Angelo Bertelli, Johnny Lujack, Leon Hart and Johnny Lattner. He finished undefeated in seven of his 13 years as head coach, losing more than two games only once. Upon returning from military service in 1946, Leahy didn't lose a game until Oct. 7, 1950, a string of 39 games without a loss. He was prevented from a prolonged career, stepping down after the 1953 season for health reasons at age 45. But Leahy assembled a sterling resume, accomplishing more than nearly any coach ever in just 13 seasons. The only coach with a better winning percentage? Knute Rockne, also in 13 seasons.
[h=3]3. Nick Saban[/h]Teams: Alabama (2007-present), LSU (2000-04), Michigan State (1995-99), Toledo (1990)
Record: 196-60-1 in 20 seasons
There is supposed to be more parity than ever in modern college football. Yes, it's still easier for the powerful schools to out-recruit and out-spend the opposition. There will never be anything close to true parity. But there are scholarship limitations that didn't exist for most college football history, and the wealth of TV money has given everybody at the power conference level a massive influx of cash. And yet Saban is having one of the most dominant runs in the history of college football. He coached Michigan State to one of its two top-10 seasons between 1967-2012. At LSU, he revived a sleeping giant, winning the BCS national title in his third season before leaving for the Miami Dolphins after his fourth year. And at Alabama, Saban has accomplished the previously unthinkable: He is creating legitimate debates about whether he can surpass Bear Bryant.
After one rebuilding season, Saban has lost 12 games in the last eight years, with every team finishing in the top 10. He has won four national championships, developing some of college football's greatest defenses while coaching Alabama's first two Heisman Trophy winners, running backs Mark Ingram and Derrick Henry. Through his meticulous attention to detail and insistence on focusing on the task at hand and the play in front of you -- the perfectionist Process -- Saban recruits the best prospects, then develops them into the best college players and builds relentless machines that are more ruthless than pretty. Saban went 48-16 with two top-10 teams at LSU. Now, he's 105-18 at Alabama, winner of five of the last seven SEC titles and four of the last seven national titles. And, at 64 years old with another potential top-ranked team, Saban is not finished yet.
[h=3]2. Knute Rockne[/h]Teams: Notre Dame
Record: 105-12-5 in 13 seasons
Rockne was a larger-than-life figure who made Notre Dame larger than life. A private Catholic school in South Bend, Ind., Notre Dame had football success under Jesse Harper before Rockne got the job, but it's Rockne who changed how the Fighting Irish were perceived. It's Rockne who, in a decade, made Notre Dame a national brand. Famous already for helping to popularize the forward pass as a player at Notre Dame, Rockne got the head coaching job in 1918 and, after a 3-1-2 season at the end of World War I, promptly made Notre Dame a powerhouse. He went 9-0 in both 1919 and '20. He went 10-0 with a Rose Bowl win in 1924. He went 9-0 in 1929 and 10-0 in 1930, and then his life was tragically cut short by plane crash on March 31, 1931. In the 13 years Rockne coached at Notre Dame, he lost only 12 games. Notre Dame began playing a national schedule, adding to its famed showdowns with Army opponents like Georgia Tech, Penn State, Navy and, most importantly, USC -- starting an intersectional rivalry that has been played since 1926. Notre Dame claims three national championships under Rockne, although he's credited with as many as five.
The Irish finished with one or no losses in 11 of Rockne's 13 years as coach. He coached the Four Horsemen backfield -- Don Miller, Elmer Layden, Jim Crowley and Harry Stuhldreher -- at the center of a dazzling team in 1924. According to "The History of American Football," legendary coach Pop Warner, in 1934, wrote in the Saturday Evening Post, "No one ever asked me to pick the greatest football coach of all time, but if I were asked I would unhesitatingly name Rockne. No man ever had a stronger or more magnetic personality. No man has ever had a greater ability to transform that magnetism into football results." Charismatic, intelligent, enthusiastic and innovative, Rockne transformed college football, becoming a figure more associated with college football than any man but one in the history of the game …
[h=3]1. Bear Bryant[/h]Teams: Alabama (1958-82), Texas A&M (1954-57), Kentucky (1946-53), Maryland (1945)
Record: 323-85-17 in 38 seasons
If one coach has come to represent college football, to be associated with it more than anyone else, through success on the field and sheer force of personality, it is the man who needs to be known by only one name: Bear. Paul Bryant, legend has it, got the name Bear by literally wrestling a bear as a teenager at a carnival. As an end at Alabama, he once played a game against Tennessee dragging a broken leg. After a stellar career as a player for the Crimson Tide, Bryant assisted at Alabama, then made his mark at various stops as a head coach -- a year at Maryland, five top-20 teams at Kentucky, two top-10 teams at Texas A&M -- before "Mama called." Over the next 25 years, Bryant would become the face of college football and one of the biggest personalities in American sports history.
Success came quickly, despite the fact that the man he replaced, Jennings Whitworth, went 4-24-2 in three seasons. Bryant needed one season to build -- just like Saban -- and then took off to become a dominant force. For most of the next quarter century, Alabama dominated the SEC and mostly dominated college football. In 1961, Bryant led Alabama to an 11-0 season, a Sugar Bowl win and a split national title with Ohio State. The Crimson Tide would go on to share titles in three of five seasons, before going undefeated in 1965 but being denied a championship by pollsters, with a team that had still failed to integrate. Alabama fell into a dry spell, but Bryant recovered in the 1970s for two big reasons: 1) He switched to the wishbone, and most importantly, 2) Alabama football finally integrated, with Wilbur Jackson the first African-American scholarship player in the early 1970s.
From 1971-81, Alabama never finished worse than 11th in the AP poll. It shared a national title with Notre Dame in 1973 (despite losing to the Irish in the Sugar Bowl … this was the last year the UPI crowned its champion before the bowls), then won back-to-back titles in 1978-79 thanks to Sugar Bowl wins over Penn State and Arkansas. Bear stepped down after the 1982 season, and he died one month after his final game. By the end of his Alabama career, he had won 82.4 percent of his games, claimed six national championships and 13 SEC titles and went 35-13-2 against rivals Auburn and Tennessee. Nick Saban is currently making a strong argument that he can surpass Bryant's accomplishments. It may have already happened. But nobody can surpass the almost mythical status that Bear Bryant holds between on-field success and the charismatic persona that made him the quintessential college football coach, and the greatest of all time.

 

[cloverleaf]

I agree Coach Bryant should be rated number one.

I also believe Bud Wilkinson should be rated better than tenth.
Wilkinson was a great coach for the Sooners.

Urban Meyer (154-27) and Barry Switzer (157-29-4) records are amazing.
I don't care if they were playing high school teams...damn strong.

 

[RunLeeRun]

Where's Jim Harbaugh?

 

[mws]

John Heisman number 34? That's ludicrous. And how can Danny Ford be #69 when he schooled five of the top 12?

But thanks for posting it.