College Football: 10 toughest coaching careers to follow

1. Bud Wilkinson (Oklahoma)

Following a coaching titan is never easy, but it was especially tough to follow up the man whose teams boast the longest winning streak in college football history. Bud Wilkinson came to Norman in 1947, and his teams won 178 games in his 17 years at the helm while dominating the Big Eight.

Wilkinson was a pivotal figure in launching not just a football team to superstardom but also, as historian Andrew McGregor notes, in turning around national perceptions of Oklahoma as a state. After being hit hard by the Dust Bowl and watching its population plummet from westward migrations, Oklahomans remained stigmatized by John Steinbeck’s depiction of “Okies” and by the state’s earlier territorial history of political infighting.

Oklahoma football changed the narrative for the state, as Wilkinson won the Big Six in his first season as the head coach following a year as Jim Tatum’s assistant. The Sooners continued to dominate the league as it grew to the Big Eight. Oklahoma did not lose a conference contest for Wilkinson’s first dozen years in charge, as they posted overall winning streaks of 31 and 47 games along the way.

Wilkinson won the Big Eight and its antecedents in 14 of his 17 seasons on the job, a run of dominance that no Sooners coach was able to replicate until Barry Switzer came to Norman in 1973. In the interim, neither former Wilkinson assistant Gomer Jones nor Jim Mackenzie and Chuck Fairbanks came close to the stratospheric successes of the toughest coaching act to follow in college football history.