30 best college football coaches of all time, ranked

23. John McKay, USC 1960-1975

John McKay is one of the great coaches in the NCAA who just made the wrong move to go to the NFL. This isn’t an opinion, McKay would have told you himself. He was a star coach for the USC Trojans after taking over for Don Clark in 1960. In his 16 years as the Trojans head coach, he won 127 games. He won nine conference championships and four national championships. It was a dominant run that put West Coast football on the map.

It started off slow, as USC was dealing with some issues with the NCAA and had trouble getting immediate impact from its stars. Then, all of a sudden, they went undefeated in their third season and won the national championship. Boosters were calling for him to be fired in his second year, and he won it all in his third. Patience is a virtue, as the saying goes.

Despite his short run, McKay is still the winningest head coach in Trojans history. There was a lot about his coaching style that is still in the league today. That I-Formation was all John McKay. He had such a great running game, he had two different running backs win the Heisman Trophy (O.J. Simpson and Mike Garrett). McKay made all the right moves in college. It was his move to the NFL that was a mistake.

McKay had one of the most dominant runs in college football history. Because of said dominance, NFL teams kept calling for him. He turned down multiple job offers before one finally intrigued him. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were going to be a new team in 1976. McKay could build it from the ground up. Well, he ended up losing the first 26 games of his NFL career. He would bounce back, and he even took the Bucs to the NFC Championship Game, but it wasn’t enough. He will always be known for that losing streak, and it will be a footnote on his college career. If he stayed in college, USC might be the most successful program ever, and he could be at the top of this list.