25 best college football coaches never to win a national title
- Head Coaching Record: 170-151-8 at McMurry 1960-65, Angelo State 1969-71, and Baylor 1972-92
- Closest He’s Come to Winning a National Championship: 1986; 9-3 Bluebonnet Bowl Champions, No. 12 final ranking
- Notable: 1974 and 1980 Southwest Conference Champions, 1974 AFCA Coach of the Year Award, College Football Hall of Fame (2001), Executive Director of the American Football Coaches Association since 1994
Believe it or not, there was football success at Baylor before Art Briles came along. There just hadn’t been very much since Grant Teaff retired following the 1992 season.
Under Teaff’s direction, Baylor went 128-105-6 over a 21-year period – an average of 6.1 wins per season – and captured the Southwest Conference Championship in both 1974 and 1980. The 1980 team was arguably Teaff’s best, and finished with a 10-2 overall record, including a perfect 8-0 record in conference play. The Bears finished No. 14 in the final AP Top 20 poll for the third time in seven seasons.
Baylor also ended the season with a spot in the national rankings during back-to-back nine-win seasons in 1985 and 1986. The Bears No. 12 final ranking in ’86 was the highest of Teaff’s tenure, and the highest for the program until 2014. Teaff guided Baylor to eight bowl games during his tenure. The Bears would make it to the post-season just one more time (1994) before Briles ended the 16-year drought with a Texas Bowl appearance in 2010. Since 1994,
Teaff has served as the executive director of the American Football Coaches Association, where he remains one of the most respected and influential members of the college football coaching fraternity.
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