Last week, a Until Saturday listener sent a podcast voicemail with a simple question: “Who would be on Mount Rushmore as a college football coach?”
Talk about an impossible task. Who could narrow down a list of great figures spanning over a century to just four?
David Ubben and Ari Wasserman tried anyway. Our answer is written here. For more, you can also hear us and Mitch Wright tackle this question in the latest edition of Until Saturday, published Friday mornings wherever you get your podcasts.
There are multiple ways to answer a question this big. Who is the greatest? Who won the most? Who is the best? Who represents this sport to you?
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Here are the people we chose and the various criteria:
Ali Wasserman's List
My approach to the Mount Rushmore prompt was to create a list that personally resonated with me. For me, just picking the manager who won the most games or had the best winning percentage is boring. Anyone can do it. But who are the people I admire and who helped shape why this sport became my life?
As with most things I write, there will be some backlash, and I'm completely prepared for it.Please know that I am working on this with the following mission: personalize We encourage you to do the same.
1. Nick Saban: I don't care how funky you want to add to this list, Saban has to be on that list. There's no other coach I respect more than what Bill Belichick accomplished with the New England Patriots, winning six Super Bowls in a league with many teams of relatively equal talent. You can list the total wins or national championships Saban won or countless other amazing statistics. But Saban is bigger than that. He won during one of college football's most competitive eras, evolving and influencing the sport every step of the way. He is the epitome of what a college football coach should represent. (Note: Bear Bryant didn't make my list because he didn't want two coaches at Alabama, but he's definitely a good fit.)
2. Pete Carroll: Some may take exception to Carol's inclusion on the list. By doing so, he could claim to be better known for his accomplishments in the NFL than in college football. But I'm a West Coast kid, and his USC dynasty under Carroll coincided with my early teens. I can't imagine college football without the Carroll Trojans. Yes, they won multiple national championships and were dominant in the field. But those USC teams were also pretty cool. Not only did they win; It was how they won and who they won with. Names like Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, and countless others will forever be etched deep in my college football fandom. Open practices, California culture, all that. In a sport primarily dominated by teams from the South, Carroll is the face of West Coast college football to me. There's a reason why no one can match the bravado and swagger that the USC team had.
Pete Carroll led USC to seven top-four finishes in nine years. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
3. Woody Hayes: I've been accused of being a prisoner of the moment, and that shines through on my current list. But in his 10 years at Ohio State, I learned a lot about Hayes, what he stood for, how he develops personnel, and how he is the perfect embodiment of traditional coaching. I learned a lot. Sure, he had a short fuse — he ended up resigning from his coaching job after throwing a punch at an opposing player in the 1978 Gator Bowl — but he's the only player who played for Hayes to do so. I've never met a single person who didn't love a man. He also won five national championships while at Ohio State, laying the foundation for a program that remained successful decades after leaving the school. Hayes probably can't be coached in today's climate — he'll grab his facemask, smack his ass, and get in his face in ways that are now frowned upon — but I'm sure he'll grab his facemask, smack his ass, and get in his face in a way that would now be frowned upon. I miss the time when he wasn't coaching. I go around to experience it. When you think of hard-nosed, old-school college football coaches who loved their universities and players more than themselves, Hayes comes to mind.
4. Dabo Swinney: This is there. I know that. And I had a hard time adding him to this list. Because his inability to adapt to the portal era has led to Clemson's slide. But how many other coaches in the modern era of college football have run a solid program and turned it into an absolute powerhouse? Has anyone come close to doing what he did? Every coaching hire in the sport right now is done with the hope that the coach can replicate what Swinney did at Clemson. Sure, there are other coaches with more national titles and wins, but the basic fact that he accomplished something that no one else has done recently still amazes me. I have a lot of opinions on some of the things he said and how he approaches his job in 2024, but no one can take away what he built at Clemson. I have a lot of respect for him in that respect.
David Ubben's List
My approach to this particular Mount Rushmore exercise is to tag four coaches who represent the greatness of college football of all forms, regions, and eras. Unlike Ali, who wanted to forget about college football before the BCS era, I wanted to express it all.
1. Nick Saban: He is the single greatest coach in the history of college football. Continued success at the University of Alabama in the most competitive era in sports should have been impossible, as he won national titles with his two schools in the SEC and ranked him among the greatest players of all time. further proved its status. Of all the managers before him who may have had a higher winning percentage, no one did it in more difficult times than Saban.
2. Bill Snyder: Snyder's simplest case is this. No other coach in college football history has done what Snyder did when he took over at Manhattan, Kansas in 1988. Hayden Frye's protégé has made Little Apple his home. He appeared in one bowl game in two separate stints, turning a program that had never finished in the rankings before his arrival into a conference champion and perennial power, making even his dream year impossible. Sustained success where it seemed. Go back and read the iconic Sports Illustrated story “Futility U” written before his first game. Excellence at K-State is somehow taken for granted for a coach who won two Big 12 titles and at one point won 11 games in six of seven seasons. That's the best compliment.
Knute Rockne had a 105-12-2 record at Notre Dame. (Related news organizations)
3. Knut Rockne: He was one of the sport's first great coaches, taking over under less than ideal circumstances near the end of World War I. During his 13 seasons, he lost more than one game only twice, won three national titles and amassed a 105-12 record. He achieved a -5 record and turned Notre Dame football into a national phenomenon. The Four Horsemen, immortalized by the great Grantland Rice, are the quintessential college football legend.
4. Eddie Robinson: Robinson took over as manager of Grambling in 1941 and retired in 1997. Over his 50 years, he has persevered and won time after time, winning HBCU national titles nine times and SWAC titles 17 times, and he has championed HBCUs in a way that no other coach can match. It has achieved the status of being synonymous with football. He achieved success in his football department. For much of his career, many across the country despised Robinson and never thought he had the chance he deserved. In any case, he may not have received them.
He thrived where he was in a way no one had ever done before, embracing his philosophy: “No matter what league you're in, no matter what level you're at, you're going to win there.”
Honorable Mention: Very interesting
Steve Spurrier: He's the king of trolls in college football, poking and prodding everyone, infuriating those in the sport who might take themselves a little too seriously. And he was our truest man, always willing to take a break for a good tea time. He left his best arrows for his rivals. After telling the University of Tennessee, “You can't spell Citrus without UT,” he decided to play at Georgia at the beginning of the season because some players could be suspended for offseason shenanigans. Even the fans who disliked Spurrier the most must have had a smile on his face. center of the heart. Funny is funny. “There are no Vanderbilts in the NFL,” Spurrier said of his unsuccessful tenure in the nation's capital.
Barry Switzer: The bootlegger boy was a sports outlaw throughout his decade-and-a-half reign in Oklahoma State. He turned the Sooners into a juggernaut behind his own version of the wishbone. Although he had his flaws, his aversion to (some might say disregard for) NCAA rules seems prescient in retrospect. “When I try to get a babysitter for my kids, they always say, 'Dad, call (then-Oklahoma State quarterback) J.C. Watts.' Pay your babysitter $100 an hour. “Would the NCAA frown on that?” Switzer said in 1979. These days, Mr. Switzer still lives in Norman, but I can't help but appreciate his willingness to answer the phone almost every time. For the past 15 years, I've been calling him. He always has an interesting perspective on almost anything.
Mike Leach: The disciple of Hal Mumme is almost single-handedly responsible for the proliferation of spread offenses in high school and college football. His offense was simple but effective, and as the Air Raid evolved into a more balanced one in many games under coaches like Lincoln Riley, Sonny Dykes, Dana Holgorsen, and Kliff Kingsbury. , his coaching tree all put his own spin on many of these principles. His tendency to think twice about everything from dating advice to mascot brawls and countless stories about his idiosyncrasies are legendary. And while he's a Pirates expert and an active college football coach, he somehow found time to write a book about Geronimo. It still shocks me that he left us so early in 2022 at the age of 61.
Lee Corso: I was too young to remember Corso being a college football coach, but he's still a coach by trade. And no director has provided more moments of joy and entertainment than Corso. Corso loves donning the mascot's head for the official Saturday kickoff in the fall, a tradition of his own making. He's the biggest legend in college football television history. I can't condone this wording, but it's hard to imagine one day watching this clip of Houston's Corso and not laughing. For me, it's Fowler and Herbstreit's response. Of all the managers on this list, Corso might actually be my favorite.
(Top photo of Nick Saban and Bill Snyder: Streeter Recca and Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
