30 best college football coaches of all time, ranked

19. Ara Parseghian, Northwestern 1956-1963, Notre Dame 1964-1974

Here’s another coach who was known because he took the Notre Dame Fighting Irish out of obscurity and back into the national spotlight. Seems to be a theme, huh. Ara Parseghian started his coaching career with Miami of Ohio, his alma mater. After two years playing for the Cleveland Browns, he returned to become an assistant. It took him one year to become the head coach.

He then went to Northwestern in 1956. He was just 32 years old when he took the job, the youngest coach in the Big Ten. It took a while to get the Wildcats out of the doldrums, but he put together an All-Star coaching staff that included Bo Schembechler. They finally got the ball rolling in 1958 when they put together their first winning season under Parseghian, including wins over Ohio State and Michigan.

The next season, the Wildcats beat Oklahoma, at the time the top team in the country. They continued winning, beating teams like Michigan and Notre Dame that season. He regularly got Northwestern into the top ten, a program with a much smaller budget than many of the other teams in the top ten at the time. He eventually propelled himself to Notre Dame, what some consider the top coaching job in the country.

Parseghian was known as a master motivator. He got his talent to play higher than they thought possible. He was able to pinpoint where the talent was on his team and make that the center of the offense and defense. This would work out well at Notre Dame, where he immediately turned things around. After winning two games the previous season, the Irish won nine in Parseghian’s first season. He won the national championship twice before leaving the coaching ranked just 11 years into his tenure. He never returned to coaching and instead went into broadcasting. He still finished his career only trailing Knute Rockne for wins.