College Football: The Mount Rushmore of head coaches

Bear Bryant

Maryland (1945), Kentucky (1946-53), Texas A&M (1954-57), Alabama (1958-82)

By the time that Paul “Bear” Bryant retired, he had won more games (323) than any other coach in college football history.

His career has set the bar for all who have followed.

Bear Bryant initially found success at stops at Kentucky and Texas A&M before “momma called,” and he returned to Alabama where he was previously a player.

For the next 25 seasons, he would go 232-46-9 with six national championships while coming very close a handful of other times.

Notably, after his first season, his teams were invited to bowl games for the next 24 straight seasons. This was back when going to bowl games used to mean something.

In his career, Bryant had 37 winning seasons overall.

Donning his trademark houndstooth fedora, Bear Bryant was a rock who squeezed every last ounce of talent from his players including future pros such as Joe Namath and Ken Stabler.

Bryant won three national titles in the sixties, but following a short slump around the turn of the decade, he realized the need to integrate black players into his team in order to stay competitive. The seventies would turn out to be a decade of dominance that has rarely been equaled as the Tide would win three more championships.

Bryant notoriously said that if he ever quit coaching he might “croak in a week,” and sure enough, he died less than a month after retiring.