Your Program's Best Coach

[847badgerfan]

I have to go with Bud for OU.

I too will defer to MCW for Maryland.

I'd go with Ara or Barnett for NU, but Fitz is pretty damn awesome.

Rutgers.. hmmm.. Who was the coach when they invented football?

[rook119]

For Pitt. Don't really know, maybe someone back in the 30-50s. 

WVU: Nehlen. Who sorted of the perfected the "let's make it so we field of squad of 19 seniors in the starting lineup a have have a go about once every 5 years" thing.  

[rolltidefan]

bryant and saban are both pretty well known, so i won't go into them. but pick either and you won't hear much from most bama fans.

wallace wade and frank thomas both deserves some recognition, though.

wade coached bama and set us up as a southern force to be reckoned with. coached first southern team to a rose bowl win, and went 2-0-1 in rose bowls. had 3 undefeated teams in 7 seasons at bama. went on to duke, and coached them to 2 rose bowl appearances, including the only rose bowl not in california (pearl harbor attacks forced them to move it to duke's stadium in durham, nc).

thomas coached at chatanooga before bama, and won at least a share of their conf title all 3 years they were part of a conf (last 3 of 4 years he coached there), not losing a single game in the southern conf. in 15 seasons (including a break in 43 for wwii) he coached bama to 3 undefeated season, 3 rose bowl births (2-1), and 1 cotton (1-0), orange (1-0) and sugar bowls (0-1). 4 sec titles, and finished at #4 in both the first 2 annual ap polls. finished top 10 2 other times, including a 10-0 rose bowl winning season in 1945 at #2 behind undefeated #1 army.

[SFBadger96]

For Oklahoma, from a distance, Wilkinson seems like the guy. Switzer obviously was awesome, but the scandal and the longevity (not that 15 years is short in CFB, but it's not as long as guys like Wilkinson, Paterno, Bowden, Osborne, etc.).

I love learning about these other coaches (like Owen at OU and Wade at Bama).

On Northwestern, it's an interesting question: do you take the coach who was overall best, or do you--as pointed out for Ohio State--take the coach who was best for Northwestern. If its the latter, it seems like Fitz is a serious contender. If it's the former, this ND fan is partial to Parseghian. Barnett was great at Northwestern, but the scandals at Colorado raise eyebrows. I wonder how much of that was going on in the old days when the media wasn't paying as much attention to such things.

[Hawkinole]

For Iowa, I would say Howard Jones is the all time greatest coach. He had a record of 42-17-1. He had two undefeated seasons at Iowa and arguably a mythical nation championship in the 1920s.

He previously coached at Yale. Jones later coached USC for about 15-years, and I believe he turned USC into a football powerhouse. He coached one season at Ohio State.

I would say Forest Evashevski is #2 for Iowa with a record of 52-27-4, and also arguably a mythical national championship, plus a 2nd place finish in a separate year in the AP top 20.

Since Iowa is usually a rebuilder program when coaches arrive the winning percentages are not that impressive, but the results ultimately achieved by these two coaches stand out.

[TyphonInc]

Stephen Orr Spurrier

122-27-1
.817 win% in 12 seasons
6 conference championships
1996 national championship

Meyer won 2 NCs, but SOS had a higher win% in twice as many seasons.  Florida coaches had topped out at a .686 win% (Ray Graves, Galen Hall) before Spurrier came back home in 1990.  Spurrier had it all, the ball plays, the swagger, the quips, and the visor.  He started at a program under probation and left it as a perennial top 5 program.  

[perennial] "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." - Inigo Montoya

[SFBadger96]

I cannot believe the site logged me out when I hit "post" for my ND lineup...sigh. I can't bring myself to recreate, it, but I'll give some highlights: ND's greatest coaches should be ranked in chronological order:

1) Rockne: 13 seasons, .881, three MNCs, made Notre Dame the Notre Dame we know.
2) Leahy: 11 seasons, .855, four MNCs (Michigan fans highly question 1947), took over from fairly successful Layden (one of the Four Horsemen), so didn't have to turn the program around.
3) Parseghian: first of the reclamation projects: 11 seasons, .836, two national titles (MSU fumes about '66), never finished outside of the AP top 15, and was top 10 nine times.
4) Holtz: second reclamation project (after Faust, the high school coach, bombed). 11 years, .765, one MNC (narrowly missed #2 in 1993, "Seminole-gate"). Much tougher era than the earlier three.
 
#5 is probably Devine, six seasons, .764, one MNC.

Curiously, since Rockne, Kelly is next in winning percentage (.670), and has the fourth longest tenure (going on nine seasons, which puts him ahead of Devine, and behind only Leahy, Parseghian, and Holtz). He is one Alabama whupping (and an angry face) away from ND's pantheon...And there's little doubt he plays in both a more competitive era and with higher academic standards than any of the above (though Holtz will always smart over the administration rejecting Randy Moss).

[OrangeAfroMan]

[perennial] "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." - Inigo Montoya

Well, Florida is still 3rd in win% since 1990.  No, the Gators haven't finished in the top 5 every year, but we've won enough to still be a top program in the country, no?

[Cincydawg]

Spurrier would clearly be South Carolina's best coach also.

He's the best game day coach I've ever seen.  What he did for USCe is more impressive to me than what he did at UF.

[Hawkinole]

Florida State:

Bobby Bowden, easily. Big winning percentage, 315-98-4. Bigger personality.

[CWSooner]

For Oklahoma, from a distance, Wilkinson seems like the guy. Switzer obviously was awesome, but the scandal and the longevity (not that 15 years is short in CFB, but it's not as long as guys like Wilkinson, Paterno, Bowden, Osborne, etc.).

I love learning about these other coaches (like Owen at OU and Wade at Bama).

On Northwestern, it's an interesting question: do you take the coach who was overall best, or do you--as pointed out for Ohio State--take the coach who was best for Northwestern. If its the latter, it seems like Fitz is a serious contender. If it's the former, this ND fan is partial to Parseghian. Barnett was great at Northwestern, but the scandals at Colorado raise eyebrows. I wonder how much of that was going on in the old days when the media wasn't paying as much attention to such things.

Just one nitpick on the OU coaches: Wilkinson and Switzer were each HFC for 17 years.

[DevilFroggy]

For ASU the question should be who's their best all time head football coach NOT named Frank Kush.

Darryl Rogers, who took over after Kush is my pick. Just missed the Rose Bowl a few times but recruited a lot of NFL talent and laid the foundation for Cooper's 1987 Rose Bowl win (and best a solid Switzer-coached OU team with Marcus Dupree in the 1983 Fiesta Bowl.

Snyder definitely should be up there because the ASU team he took over after Marmie was fired was pretty bad and had them this damn close to a MNC 4 years later, but couldn't sustain that success and rather fell back down quite a bit after that 1997 Rose Bowl.

I'd even throw Graham's name in there too. While he never took ASU to any meaningful post-season he still amassed a solid overall record, brought in a MUCH needed culture change after Erickson, and personally spearheaded a massive overhaul of ASU's facilities and stadium. He unquestionably left ASU in a better position than he found it.

[MichiFan87]

Just for the record, I disagree with the notion that Michigan fans have gone into hiding in Chicago since this past fall. Conversely, Sparty fans certainly did last year only to show their colors again since October, and I haven't seen as much of their gear since Saturday, either....

Anyway, Yost is the most successful coach at Michigan. Obviously it was a different era, but you can't deny the results.

Crisler v Schembechler is close, but I guess I'd give the edge to Schembechler for his longevity of 21 seasons to 10.

[SFBadger96]

Just one nitpick on the OU coaches: Wilkinson and Switzer were each HFC for 17 years.

Oops. Must have read the data wrong. Where is FTBobs and what did he do with cfbtrivia!?! (Seriously--where did it go?)