30 best college football coaches of all time, ranked

28. Bobby Dodd, Georgia Tech 1945-1966

Bobby Dodd is one of the rare star players who turned into a star football coach. For the Tennessee Volunteers, he played quarterback and tailback as the team lost one game with him starting in the 1920s. He made the College Football Hall of Fame as a player. Then, he started coaching in 1931. He was an assistant for more than a decade before he took the head coaching job at Georgia Tech.

Dodd took over as head coach in 1945 and didn’t relinquish the job until 1966. Dodd had a different philosophy from others during the era. Instead of trying to drive players into the ground, he grew their character by taking his foot off the gas a little bit. He wasn’t going to run them to death at practice to prove a point. He allowed them to focus on the specifics of the game, and it clearly worked.

At the time of his coaching tenure, Georgia Tech football became the one ticket you wanted in town. Atlanta didn’t have professional sports teams at the time, since the Braves didn’t move there until 1966. Tickets would be hard to come by for Yellow Jackets games. That’s one thing that isn’t talked about. If teams have a good coach, it brings an immense economic impact for at least six weeks a year.

Dodd was a great coach, but he was also known as a lucky one. “Dodd’s luck” became a well-known thing in the Atlanta area. Obviously, it was a lot more than that. Dodd rarely had the better team on paper, but he had such an understanding of the game, that he could outwit his opponents. His players were smarter on the field because of how the coach was teaching the game. How much better can a coach be than that?