Which head coaches have been most successful at leading teams to victories and championships? Here are the 25 best coaches in college football history.
What classifies someone to even be considered among the best head coaches in college football? It is a question that has started many a barroom argument and heated internet debate over the years.
Ultimately, even the most heated debaters would tend to agree on a few key things:
- Great head coaches win. They wins games, they wins championships and they keep on winning. To be considered in this analysis, a coach had to have at least two recognized national championships on his resume. That served as the starting point for the analysis that follows.
- A great coach has staying power. Even if they don’t stay at the same school, notable head coaches will always have a job for as long as they want a job.
- That said, a great coach more than anything wins consistently. A coach who wins only two national championships in four decades of coaching is going to suffer in comparison to a coach who needs less time to haul in more hardware. Winning percentage and championship win rate are both factored into this analysis as well.
First I weighted a total for each of these categories so that they represent the coaches along a 1-10 scale. I then tabulated the totals from the five categories. That provided the final score that determined which head coaches ultimately made the final cut. Click ahead to see which legendary head coaches made the Top 25.