College Football’s 10 greatest back-to-back coaching duos

It cannot be understated just how hard it is to follow not just an icon of the coaching ranks but somebody who effectively created a powerhouse from whole cloth. When Bobby Bowden came to Tallahassee from West Virginia in 1976, Florida State was coming off a three-season stretch where they won only four games.

After going 5-6 in his first season with the Seminoles, Bowden never again posted a losing season. In his 34 seasons leading the program, Bowden’s Florida State teams launched the nation’s longest bowl attendance streak in college football history and evolved from an independent afterthought into a powerhouse both as an independent and as a member of the ACC.

Bowden’s teams finally broke through for national titles in 1993 and 1999, after years of heartbreak and close calls. Between 1987 and 2000, the Seminoles finished in the top five of both the AP and Coaches poll every year. Eventually stepping down in 2009 after clamor from the fan base for a new start, offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher stepped up and offered that breath of fresh air.

Fisher’s first Seminoles team won their division in 2010, and by year three they had reclaimed the ACC title for the first time since 2005. In 2013, Florida State returned to the top of the mountain when they beat Auburn in the final BCS championship game. Between Bowden and Fisher, the duo won 391 games in 42 seasons. Yet in retrospect they are no higher, in part because the Seminoles inexplicably managed only three national titles in that span and because their combined winning percentage ended at only .761 with neither finishing over .800 for his tenure in Tallahassee.