College Football: 25 greatest head coaches of the 21st century

Best college football coaches of 21st century: 10. Jim Tressel

• Youngstown State Penguins (1986-00)
• Ohio State Buckeyes (2001-10)

Jim Tressel will be looked at for the scandals that happened under his tenure, but he was incredibly successful during his time with Ohio State on the field. The Buckeyes won the BCS title in the Fiesta Bowl in 2002, and he competed for two more BCS Championships in straight seasons with the Buckeyes.

If you ignore the games redacted, Tressel won over 100 games with an 82.8 win percentage. Outside of his first season, his worst year included an 8-4 record and a bowl victory. Those were the only two years where he won fewer than 10 games.

When you look at it all, Tressel had an incredibly successful career. He won a ring, and he never had a down season. The only insult you can have on him besides the scandal that led to his resignation is that he didn’t have a long coaching career.

If he had 20 seasons with the same level of success as he did the first 10, he would be one of the greatest head coaches of all time. He just didn’t get the chance to get as many wins.

Another harsh take you can have is that he was only 6-4 in bowl games. Making a bowl game in every year is impressive, but you would like to see more wins from an elite team. However, two of those four losses were in the BCS Championship, so you can give him passes in those. If he won one or both of those games, Tressel’s legacy would be completely different.