5 best college football coaches that never won a national championship

The best college football coaches that didn’t win a national championship.

When you think of some of the greatest head coaches in the history of college football. The immediate names that come to mind are the ones that have won a lot of championships. Nick Saban, Woody Hayes, Paul “Bear” Bryant, John McKay.

While these are unarguably some of the greatest head coaches that college football has ever seen, what about the ones that weren’t ever able to hold the grand prize at season’s end? There have been plenty of these coaches whose teams have been elite in multiple years but just weren’t able to reach the top of the pack.

These coaches are still mentioned as the best of the best in their profession, but they never achieved the ultimate goal. The reason for this is that they won, a lot, but was just never able to get that big win in the end.

The awards and accomplishments for these coaches are unending, the wins seemed to come in bunches every single season, but they are just missing one accomplishment on the long list.

Let’s get into the top five college football head coaches that never won a national championship.

Pat Dye is a certified Auburn legend.

Pat Dye, who sadly passed on June 1 of this year, left an unquestionable legacy on the game of college football. He was never able to achieve the ultimate goal of winning a national championship, but his accomplishments throughout his 18-year head coaching tenure speak for themselves.

Dye started out as a player where he attended Georgia as an offensive lineman from 1957-1960. He would be named an All-American twice, to the first-team All-SEC squad in 1960, and the SEC Lineman of the Year also in 1960. He would play for three years in the CFL before latching on as the linebackers coach at Alabama in 1965.

He would find his first head coaching job at East Carolina in 1974, coaching for the Pirates for six seasons. In those seasons he would win the Southern Conference title once in 1976, going 48-18-1. He would take a one-year stop at Wyoming before heading to Auburn in 1981 where his legacy is most known.

Getting Bo Jackson to come to Auburn in 1982 would be one of Dye’s best accomplishments as it would set Auburn up for four years as well as in the years to follow. Jackson of course would go on to win the Heisman Trophy in 1985, and in the years that followed he would become one of the greatest athletic talents the world has ever seen.

But Jackson was just a part of what made Dye great at Auburn. His Tiger teams would win four SEC titles and Dye would be named coach of the year three times. The closest that Auburn would ever get to a national title would be in 1983 when the Tigers went 11-1, ending the year in a Sugar Bowl victory. They would finish just third in the AP poll.

Dye went 99-39-4 in his 12 years at Auburn, finishing in the top 10 in the AP poll five times. His tenure there would be cut short due to scandal, however, and Dye would finish with a head coaching record of 153-62-5 placing No. 59 on the all-time head coaching wins list. Arguably his best accomplishment at Auburn though was his 7-5 record against Alabama.

National title or not, Pat Dye’s short run of dominance at Auburn as well as some solid seasons at East Carolina land him on this list.