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Notre Dame's Cradle Of Coaches

‘Tis has been the college football season of making lists — although maybe not always checking them twice.

The 150th anniversary of football’s birth in 1869 has prompted various media outlets to assemble all-time lists in various categories, from greatest players and coaches, to top fight songs and stadiums.

This week ESPN, led by esteemed college football historian Ivan Maisel, released its Top 150 college football coaches of all time from every division of the sport.

In any such list, disagreements and even bias inevitably will abound, and we certainly had our share of them, but also respect the effort in assembling such a difficult all-time chart. It is impossible to construct this without intense debate.

Brian Kelly joined Top 25 coaches Ara Parseghian and Lou Holtz on ESPN's Top 150 all-time list for 150 years in football.
Brian Kelly joined Top 25 coaches Ara Parseghian and Lou Holtz on ESPN's Top 150 all-time list for 150 years in football. (Notre Dame Football Twitter)
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Still, the University of Notre Dame had the most representation with eight former and current head coach who made the cut, and four of them were among the Top 25.

• Leading the way was Knute Rockne (1918-1930), who finished No. 3, behind the Alabama duo of Paul “Bear” Bryant at No. 1 and current Crimson Tide boss Nick Saban at No. 2.

In his 13 seasons, Rockne produced to this day the highest winning percentage among major college coaches at .881 (105-12-5), and had three consensus national titles (1924, 1929 and 1930), plus the NCAA recognizes a fourth in 1919.

• At No. 2 is Frank Leahy, who first coached at Boston College for two seasons (1939-40) before returning to his alma mater, first in 1941-43, and then after World War II from 1946-53.

His 13-year stint matches that of his mentor Rockne, and his 107-13-9 record practically mirrors it as well. Leahy’s .864 winning percentage is second only to Rockne among major college coaches, and his four national titles don't even include three other unbeaten campaigns.

Of Leahy's 13 seasons on the sidelines, seven produced no defeats, one at Boston College (which he took to a No. 5 final ranking in 1940 with an 11-0 mark) and six at Notre Dame.

A case could be made for him to be among the top 5, but we suspect the lesser number of years coached contributed to not ranking as high as most of the people in front of him. Rockne also had 13 years, but his end came via a premature death in a plane crash, whereas Leahy’s retirement from football coaching was voluntary at the tender age of 45.

Ara Parseghian (1964-74) came in at No. 15, which sounds about right, especially with main nemesis John McKay of USC (1960-75) at No. 12.

Call us biased, but we also believe that Ohio State’s Woody Hayes at No. 9 should not be ahead of Parseghian for numerous reasons.

First, Parseghian succeeded Hayes as the head coach at Miami (Ohio) and did marvelous work with a 39-6-1 mark, even out-doing Hayes.

Second, when he went to moribund Northwestern, Parseghian was 3-3 versus Hayes’ Ohio State juggernaut, and 3-1 in the last four meetings. That’s akin to a Honda Civic beating a souped-up Ferrari in a drag race.

• Finally, we don’t like the selective references to national titles. Hayes is credited with having five national titles while Parseghian is given credit for two.

What is not mentioned is that two of Hayes titles were not from wire services but from two other NCAA-recognized branches. One was the Football Writers Association in 1961 with an 8-0-1 mark, even though Alabama received the vote in the AP, UPI, plus the MacArthur Bowl. (The OSU administration voted to turn down the Rose Bowl because of the overemphasis on football.)

The other was Ohio State receiving the MacArthur Bowl in 1970 with Texas — even though Ohio State would then lose to 8-3 Stanford in the Rose Bowl, 27-17, while Notre Dame that same day snapped No. 1 Texas’ 30-game winning streak in the Cotton Bowl.

Meanwhile, no recognition is given to Parseghian for getting awarded the MacArthur Bowl in 1964, in addition to the consensus titles in 1966 and 1973.

• Rounding out the Top 25 among Fighting Irish coaches was Lou Holtz (1986-96) at No. 23 — although we specifically have a problem with Michigan’s Bo Schembechler ranked ahead of him at No. 20.

Holtz was 3-1 versus Schembechler while at Notre Dame, won a national title, and had 23- and 17-game winning streaks, the former a school record, with seven of those 23 wins coming against teams that finished in the Top 10.

Meanwhile, Schembechler in 20 years never won a national title at a blue-blood program, his longest winning streak while with the Wolverines was 11 and his bowl record (the ones he actually coached in because in two he had to sit out for health reasons) was 4-11.

And above all, in what universe can one justify Urban Meyer at No. 46 and Schembechler at No. 20? When it comes to on-the-field achievement alone (which is what this is about), Meyer is Top-10 worthy, maybe even Top 5.

Meyer won three national titles at two different schools, and was 12-0 two other times, one of them at Utah. His career record of 187-32 is good for a .854 winning percentage — third on the all-time list behind Rockne and Leahy among major college coaches. He also was 11-3 in bowl games.

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THE OTHER FOUR


In addition to four former Notre Dame coaches ranking among the Top 25, four others made the Top 150.

• No. 88 was Dan Devine (1975-80).

Not to pick on Schembechler alone — who was an outstanding coach in his own right, certainly top 40 caliber — but why such the disparity between him and Devine when a case can be made that Devine was overall more accomplished?

Devine was 3-1 versus Schembechler, 2-1 at Notre Dame and 1-0 at Missouri.

Devine put Arizona State on the college football map in the 1950s with a 27-3-1 mark, which led to the construction of Sun Devil Stadium and the Fiesta Bowl.

He then guided Missouri to four Top 10 finishes (something it has achieved only twice since his departure after the 1970 campaign) and won a national title with the Fighting Irish (1977). As a footnote, he also was 3-0 versus Bear Bryant, 1-0 at Missouri and 2-0 at Notre Dame. He also was 7-3 in bowl outings.

• Right behind Devine is current boss Brian Kelly. Also taken into account are his two Division II national titles at Grand Valley State, a MAC championship at Central Michigan and two Big East titles in three years at Cincinnati, highlighted by the 12-0 regular season mark in 2009 before getting hired at Notre Dame.

Kelly has had two more 12-0 regular season outputs with the Irish.

Among active coaches at the Football Bowl Subdivision level, the only four ranked ahead of Kelly are Saban (No. 2), Clemson’s Dabo Swinney (31), North Carolina’s Mack Brown (59), and TCU’s Gary Patterson (No. 74).

Interestingly, a couple of former FBS national champs are behind Kelly: Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher (110) and Kansas’ Les Miles (140). Fisher won his title at Florida State in 2013, while Miles did so at LSU in 2006.

• At No. 95 is Elmer Layden (1934-40), better known as one of the Four Horsemen. He had previous coaching success at Loras and Duquesne, and his career .770 winning percentage at Notre Dame (47-13-3) actually tops Holtz (.765) and Devine (.764).

Several times we’ve compared the current Kelly regime to that of Layden’s in that some prosperity has been tasted, but there is still a frustration of not quite reaching the Promised Land. Layden had a couple of opportunities in 1935 and 1938, as did Kelly in 2012 and 2018.

• Finally, it was good to see Jesse Harper (1913-17) at No. 131 receive recognition for his 34-5-1 mark at Notre Dame, after previously serving at Alma and Wabash. It was Harper who was the table-setter for the Rockne era by creating a national schedule to earn recognition for the school, but then also defeating top schools such as Army, Texas, Penn State and Nebraska.

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