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

When John McKay came to USC after nine years as an assistant at his alma mater, Oregon, he first arrived to serve as an assistant under Don Clark. After Clark abruptly resigned following the 1959 season, McKay was elevated to the lead role after just one season in Los Angeles. His first two years were rough, yielding only four wins apiece, but year three recaptured the glory days of Howard Jones that were by then more than two decades in the past.

McKay’s 1962 Trojans squad went a perfect 11-0, sweeping their conference and ending the regular season as the No. 1 team in the AP and UPI Top 25 polls. They earned a date with No. 2 Wisconsin in an epic Rose Bowl game, prevailing 42-37 to stay perfect. After following that historic victory with four straight seven-win seasons, McKay won another title with his 1967 team and snatched two more in 1972 and 1974.

Then the Tampa Bay Buccaneers came calling, and McKay left his post in Los Angeles to another Oregon alumnus, John Robinson. Robinson also won a national title in his third season guiding the Trojans, and won three Rose Bowls in total in his first stint at USC. Then, like McKay, the pros came calling and Robinson went on to coach the Los Angeles Rams for nine seasons.

In this study we are only counting the period when Robinson first followed McKay, as he returned to USC in 1993 after the Rams let him go following the 1991 campaign. The 23-year run of McKay and Robinson produced a national championship every 4.6 seasons, and while McKay won the bulk of those titles Robinson carries the duo in terms of their combined winning percentage of .770 as well as the average of 8.4 victories per season.