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Reaction: The ‘Bear’ roars Who is the Century’s Best college football coach
Posted: Saturday August 28, 1999 04:55 PM
CNN/SI asked users to tell us who is the Century’s Best college football coach. Here are some of the most interesting responses...
Is there even a doubt? Paul "Bear" Bryant is undoubtedly the greatest coach all-time. Not only did he win 323 games as a coach but include in five national championships with three of those in a five year span and the other two were back to back. And anyone who can win the SEC with the University of Kentucky is beyond comparison to other mortal coaches.
Barry Switzer is the century's best football coach. He was also, hands down, the greatest recruiter to ever step onto a football field. This coach won three national championships, eight Big Eight championships and had more All Americans than any other coach in recent history. Albeit Coach Switzer did encounter his share of problems near the end of his career at The University of Oklahoma, but no one can deny that what he accomplished at OU was phenomenal. This was a school that was set in the middle of the U.S., not on a beach and not in a huge metropolitan area where a coach could draw the elite athletes like Florida State or USC. Yet he was able to recruit athletes like Joe Washington, Billy Sims, Steve Owens, Jamelle Hollieway, Kieth Jackson, Brian Bosworth etc.... Other coaches have had similar success i.e. Tom Osborne, but it took him ten years longer to accomplish the same kind of success. Coach Switzer is an icon in college football. It's a shame that most of the people responsible for voting members into the NCAA College Football Hall of Fame have not chosen Coach Switzer to be inducted. He rubbed a lot of people the wrong way back in the ‘70s and ‘80s with his brash style of coaching and his raw personality. But he is deserving of being the greatest coach of the century because what he accomplished is unparalleled.
There have been many great coaches but I think Bud Wilkenson at Oklahoma has to be considered among the best. He won 47 consecutive games a record that will never fall and three national championships -- more then Bowden and Paterno, and in a shorter career.
I cast my vote for Eddie Robinson. I don't have to make a case. His record speaks for itself.
I believe Darrel Royal is the century's best coach because he created an atmosphere in which his expectations for success so permeated the psyche of his players that they often didn't realize they were not the best team on the field. They did know they were "Longhorns", and that was enough. He also had a genuine concern for the feelings of young players, on any team. After the Horns routed TCU by 69-7 in 1969, Coach Royal made the statement the next day that if he were coaching the TCU players, they would be in a bowl game. He probably didn't endear himself to Abe Martin, but he did return a little dignity to those young men. By the way, I arrived late in the first quarter of that game and didn't get to see any of our Longhorn starters play. Coach Royal would not run up a score.
The all-time greatest college football coach is Joe Paterno of Penn State. Winning is only one aspect of college sports. Coach Paterno knows the true value of why his players are at PSU -- to get an education. He cares about them as people rather than just a commodity to make the school money. Joe knows football, too. Watch him in the Sugar Bowl this year!
Bobby Bowden has been at Florida State for 23 years. For a quarter century Coach Bowden has led the Seminoles onto the field at Doak Campbell Stadium with one attitude, "to be the best." Florida State has finished each of the past 12 seasons in the top four of the Associated Press Poll, seven straight Atlantic Coast Conference titles, 12 consecutive seasons with 10 or more wins and a 40-game home-unbeaten streak. Name me one coach who could be in 15 straight bowls between 1981 and 1995 and not lose. Coach Bowden is that man. Year in and year out he has one of the country's highest graduation rates. 70% of his scholarship players that stay in school all 4 years make it to the National Football League. Bobby Bowden is the general of all coaches and deserves to be coach of the century.
Fielding H. Yost coached Michigan from 1901 to 1923, and in 1924 and 1925. Had an .833 winning percentage, and a record of 165-29-10 -- including an incredible 125 shutouts! He had eight teams that were undefeated, including an incredible run from 1901 to 1905 when his teams were 55-1-1. Six of his teams were considered to be National Champions. His 1901 team scored 550 points and gave up zero points in an 11-0 season, capped off by winning the first ever Rose Bowl over Stanford 49-0. In 1902 his team went 11-0 again outscoring opponents 644-12. For the first quarter of the 20th Century, this coach dominated college football like no other coach. Some may say Bear Bryant is the coach of the century, but Yost dominated college football for 25 years like no one before or since.
Don James from the University of Washington. He inherited a mediocre program in a conference dominated by warm weathered California schools (USC, UCLA, Stanford) and built a dynasty in the rainy Pac-NW. He won big games, little games, road games and bowl games (four Rose Bowls and one Orange). He won a national title in 1991 and should have in 1984. He outcoached and defeated better teams. He scheduled difficult opponents and developed players (Warren Moon, Chris Chandler, Mark Brunell, Steve Emtman). His teams had excellent defense and special teams.
Tom Osborne not only won 250 games faster than any other coach in College Football history, but the players he recruited have gone on to become academic all americans at a number that far exceeds those of any other school. Simply put, he instilled the value of winning into his student athletes in more ways than one. Years later, his players remember him most not for what he taught them about football, but what he taught them about life. I'll take that over anyone else any day of the week.
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