Who are your five? Here are mine. 1. Eddie Robinson 2. Bear Bryant 3. Joe Paterno 4. Pop Warner 5. Woody Hayes All these guys didn't win titles but excelled with their players either on or off the field or both.
Good top 5 list, although I think Bobby Bowden's record is tarnished a little bit lately with all of the hearsay and allegations about the Free Shoes University program. Bo Schembechler, John Robinson, Barry Switzer, Paul Dietzel probably deserve honorable mention. Who was Notre Dame's coach back in the 30's and 40's? If we can see Saban/Stoops/Carroll staying in the college ranks for the next 10 or so years you can easily expect those names to be added to the lists.
1. Frank Leahy (won 5 NCs in 11 years at Notre Dame) 2. Bear Bryant (won 4 NCs, turned around horrible programs at Kentucky, A&M and Alabama) 3. Knute Rockne (won 3 NCs, had he not died in 1930 in a plane crash, who knows how big his legacy would have been) 4. Barry Switzer (won 3 NCs, beat Nebraska into the ground) 5. Tom Osborne (won 3 NCs, can thank Switzer for not being higher in this list) Honorable Mention Ara Parseghian (won 2 NCs and turned around a struggling Notre Dame program back into prominence) Bobby Bowden (only 2 NCs due to "wide right") Woody Hayes (won 3 NCs but left the game on a bad note) Joe Paterno (ruining his legacy by holding on too long...hasn't beaten a top 10 team since 1990) Steve Spurrier (what he did in the SEC for a 12 year period is mindboggling, but could only manage 1 NC)
How Bud Wilkinson, for example, isn't in the top five is a mystery to me *red agrees with me, though*. http://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/wilkinson_bud.html Wins and longevity are nice and all, but give me the coaches who are innovative as well.
Wilkinson's 47 consecutive wins from 1953 to 1957 is probably as safe a record as Joe DiMaggio's 56 game hitting streak. Nick Saban only needs to win the next 40 games to break it.
