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

We tend to forget that there was a period when Michigan State was consistently among the best schools not just in the Midwest but across the entire country. But thanks entirely to Biggie Munn and Duffy Daugherty, the Spartans can claim the same half-dozen national titles as Georgia and boast more than teams like Clemson, Auburn, and Florida.

Biggie Munn came to East Lansing after a long period as a coordinator at rival Michigan and a forgettable 4-5 season as coach of Syracuse. For all but one of his seven seasons with the Spartans, Munn coached an independent school. But a pair of national titles in 1952 and 1953 led the Spartans to complete the Big Ten, and Munn coached a final season that resulted in the conference title and a Rose Bowl win over Pacific Coast Conference champion UCLA.

As Munn stepped into the athletic director role, he tabbed his longtime assistant Daugherty to take his place as the leader of the football team. Daugherty’s first squad finished only 3-6 in their sophomore season of Big Ten football, but won the Rose Bowl again and finished second nationally in 1955. That team and the 1957 squad have a marginal claim to national titles, thanks to the now-defunct Boand System and the currently-operational Dunkel System.

The Spartans won two more recognized claims to national titles in 1966 and 1967, going 19-1-1 over the two-year span. Daugherty coached six more seasons, never quite capturing the glory days again, until he resigned under pressure from a fan base dissatisfied with the downturn after the 1972 season. That downswing helps explain why the pair have a combined .673 winning percentage and averaged only 6.3 wins per season.