College Football: 10 toughest coaching careers to follow

5. Knute Rockne (Notre Dame)

When one thinks of the Fighting Irish, one of the first things that comes to mind is inevitably Knute Rockne. The legendary coach at Notre Dame set the standard for all future Irish coaches to come. Winning more than 88 percent of his games on the sideline, Rockne led the Fighting Irish to three national championships and led Notre Dame to two other undefeated seasons in his 13 years at the helm.

Rockne’s legend in South Bend was forged before he even took over the coaching gig. A former player on the Irish, Rockne was on the receiving end of Gus Dorais’s passes as they beat a strong Army team in 1913 and put the Catholic school on the national map. As a coach, he was equally enamored with the power of the forward pass and used it to great effect.

While other Fighting Irish coaches have a better career winning percentage, and Frank Leahy even has one more national championship to his name, it is Rockne that continues to live in the consciousness of Fighting Irish fans nearly 90 years after his tragic death. Victim of a plane crash in the early days of aviation, Rockne was just 43 when he prematurely passed.

The suddenness of his death is a huge factor in why his coaching career was such a tough act to follow. Fighting Irish fans are left pondering counterfactuals about what might have happened if the plane hadn’t crashed and Rockne had remained on the sidelines at Notre Dame Stadium. While Heartley Anderson and Elmer Layden continued the winning ways, Irish fans had to wait until Leahy’s arrival until they could claim another national crown.