30 best college football coaches of all time, ranked

25. Jim Tressel, Ohio State 2001-2010

Here’s another controversial coach, but his on-the-field accomplishments are impossible to deny. Jim Tressel was great as the leader of the Ohio State Buckeyes. This came after a long career as the best coach in Division I-AA. Tressel dominated the game while at Youngstown State University. He won four national championships there and was the runner-up two more times. He left for Ohio State after the 2000 season, seeing if his success could continue in the big league.

Tressel won the national championship with the Buckeyes in just his second season in Columbus. It was his only national championship, but he did win the Big Ten title six times in a row from 2005 to 2010 (yes, the 2010 season’s wins were vacated, but they still won the conference title at the time). He was dominating that conference when there were some great players on other teams.

His greatest accomplishment was his destruction of Michigan. In ten years at OSU, he lost to Michigan once. Let’s do some math on that. He beat Michigan nine times between 2001 and 2010. Ohio State also beat Michigan nine times between  1973 and 2000. Michigan had a stranglehold on the rivalry that was released by Tressel himself. Michigan never really got the rivalry back, winning just three times this century.

Tressel’s time with Ohio State ended with the controversy surrounding trading tattoos for Ohio State memorabilia. OSU president Gordon Gee was pretty adamant he didn’t want to let Tressel go over the violation, but it became more and more obvious Tressel was lying or withholding information on the matter. Eventually, they asked Tressel to resign, and he did. It was an unfortunate end that likely isn’t as big of a deal today with the NIL deal, but at the time it was a major violation.