It's been two years since we last updated the list of coaches climbing their school's all-time wins list. In that time we've said goodbye to record-holders Bill Snyder and Bob Stoops, but we've welcomed a whole lot more. Close to 40 coaches made the list in some form or fashion, so let's get right to it.
Without further ado, here is the rundown:
THE RECORD HOLDERS
IOWA
1. Kirk Ferentz - 152 wins
2. Hayden Fry - 143 wins
Fry needed 19 seasons to set Iowa's all-time wins mark. Ferentz needed 19 -- exactly -- to tie him.
NAVY
1. Ken Niumatalolo - 87 wins
2. George Welsh - 55 wins
Navy has a long history of great coaches, but Kenny stands above them all. He's the only coach to stay at the Academy longer than nine season (2019 will be Season 13) and the only coach to take Navy to more than four bowl games (he's been to 10). He's also the only Navy coach to beat Army nine times.
NORTHWESTERN
1. Pat Fitzgerald - 96 wins
2. Lynn Waldorf - 49 wins
Fitzgerald will double up his next closest competitor in 2019. He's also the best player in Northwestern history, so go ahead and call him Mr. Wildcat.
SAN DIEGO STATE
1. Rocky Long - 71 wins
2. Claude Gilbert - 61 wins
Long is also the all-time winningest coach in New Mexico history.
STANFORD
1. David Shaw - 82 wins
2. Pop Warner - 71
When you're the all-time wins leader at a school that employed the likes of Pop Warner, Bill Walsh, Dennis Green and Jim Harbaugh, you're doing something right.
OKLAHOMA STATE
1. Mike Gundy - 121 wins
2. Pat Jones - 62 wins
With three wins in 2019, Gundy will double the second most successful Oklahoma State coach. Such a dominant figure in Cowboy history is Gundy that he was the best quarterback in Oklahoma State history until his success as a coach allowed him to find and develop two or three signal callers better than he was.
TCU
1. Gary Patterson - 167 wins
2. Dutch Meyer - 109 wins
The countdown to win No. 200 is officially on.
ON (OR CLOSE TO) THE MEDAL STAND
AIR FORCE
1. Fisher DeBerry - 169 wins
2. Ben Martin - 96 wins
3. Troy Calhoun - 87 wins
Since 1958, Air Force has employed all of five head coaches. Martin spent 20 seasons at the Academy, Berry spent 23, and Calhoun is heading into Year 13. Ken Hatfield lasted five seasons before leaving for Arkansas. The fifth coach of these six decades? Bill Parcells. The 37-year-old went 3-8 in his one season with the Falcons before his eventual ascension to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
ALABAMA
1. Bear Bryant - 232 wins
2. Nick Saban - 141 wins
In the 4-year College Football Playoff era, Saban's Tide has averaged 13.75 wins a year. That means, with a 91-win deficit, Saban at his current pace would pass the Bear in the 2025 season, some time around his 74th birthday. Likely? No. Possible? Well, are you going to doubt the man?
ARKANSAS STATE
1. Steve Roberts - 45 wins
2. Blake Anderson - 39 wins
After cycling through three coaches in as many years, Arkansas State wanted Anderson to stick around a while. He's now about to become the winningest coach in school history.
BOISE STATE
1. Chris Petersen - 92 wins
2. Dan Hawkins - 53 wins
3. Bryan Harsin - 52 wins
Here's how ridiculously good Boise State has been this century: Harsin's .776 winning percentage (52-15) trails both Petersen (.885) and Hawkins (.828). The trio has led Boise State to an absolutely ridiculous 197-38 (.838) record since 2001.
CLEMSON
1. Frank Howard - 165 wins
2. Dabo Swinney - 116 wins
Dabo's place in the College Football Hall of Fame is already cemented. At just 49 and with only 49 wins to go, he's also a near lock to end his career as Clemson's all-time winningest coach.
DUKE
1. Wallace Wade - 110 wins
2. Bill Murray - 93 wins
3. David Cutcliffe - 67 wins
Add in his 44 wins at Ole Miss and Cutcliffe has 111 career victories.
FRESNO STATE
1. Jim Sweeney - 143 wins
2. Pat Hill - 112 wins
3. Tim DeRuyter - 30 wins
4. Darryl Rogers - 26 wins
5. Jeff Tedford - 22 wins
DeRuyter needed five seasons to hit 30 wins. Tedford should get there in three.
KENTUCKY
1. Bear Bryant - 60 wins
2. Frank Curci - 46 wins
3. Blanton Collier - 41 wins
3. Jerry Claiborne - 41 wins
5. Rich Brooks - 39 wins
6. Mark Stoops - 36 wins
Stoops guided Kentucky to its first 10-win season since 1977 in 2018. Another would put him tied for second in Big Blue history.
MARSHALL
1. Bob Pruett - 79 wins
2. Doc Holliday - 70 wins
I don't know if they have a West Virginia Football Hall of Fame, but if they do, the good Doc should get his own wing. The 61-year-old has spent all but eight years of his adult life associated with one of the state's two major programs. The one-time Mountaineer linebacker immediately took a job on WVU's staff in 1979, remained for the next two decades, returned in 2008 after stints at NC State and Florida, and left a second time to become the all-time winningest coach at Marshall.
MEMPHIS
1. Billy Murphy - 81 wins
2. Tommy West - 49 wins
3. Richard Williamson - 31 wins
4. Chuck Stobart - 29 wins
5. Justin Fuente - 26 wins
5. Mike Norvell - 26 wins
Reminder: Norvell won't turn 38 until October.
MICHIGAN STATE
1. Duffy Daugherty - 109 wins
2. Mark Dantonio - 107 wins
If Sparty plays as Sparty can, the record will fall in Spartan Stadium on Sept. 14 versus Arizona State.
MIDDLE TENNESSEE
1. Charles Murphy - 155 wins
2. Boots Donnelly - 140 wins
3. Rick Stockstill - 87 wins
Raise your hand if you knew before today that Middle Tennessee had two more 140+ win coaches than Michigan State.
NEW MEXICO
1. Rocky Long - 65 wins
2. Bill Weeks - 40 wins
3. Bob Davie - 33 wins
3. Dennis Franchione - 33 wins
Eighteen men have coached at least 20 games in New Mexico history. Five left the school with winning records, most recently Joe Morrison, who went 18-15-1 from 1980-82.
NORTH CAROLINA
1. Dick Crum - 72 wins
2. Mack Brown - 69 wins
Mack came nine wins short of catching Darrell Royal at Texas. He'll have no such trouble at UNC.
NC STATE
1. Earle Edwards - 77 wins
2. Dick Sheridan - 52 wins
3. Chuck Amato - 49 wins
4. Dave Doeren - 43 wins
Doeren led NC State to 9-4 records in 2017 and '18. Another would give him career win No. 75 in 2019.
OHIO
1. Don Peden - 129 wins
2. Bill Hess - 108 wins
3. Frank Solich - 106 wins
Now that Bill Snyder is retired, Frank Solich can get some much-deserved spotlight for his late-in-life success. He's set to become No. 2 in Ohio history this season, which is impressive in and of itself, but even more impressive when you realize he didn't take the job until age 60.
UTAH
1. Ike Armstrong - 141 wins
2. Kyle Whittingham - 120 wins
The youngest 59-year-old you'll ever meet, Whittingham should pass Armstrong early next decade.
WAKE FOREST
1. D.C. Walker - 77 wins
1. Jim Grobe - 77 wins
3. Bill Dooley - 29 wins
4. Dave Clawson - 28 wins
Clawson has already coached 233 career games as a head coach, spread across four separate universities. He is 51.
WASHINGTON STATE
1. O.E. Hollingbery - 93 wins
2. Mike Price - 83 wins
3. Mike Leach - 49 wins
Remember, Leach is also the winningest coach in Texas Tech's history. Also, is there a more pre-War football coach name than O.E. Hollingbery? That sounds like the name of a guy who coached the football, basketball, hockey, baseball and tennis teams, drove the bus and also ran the town pharmacy.
THE ASTERISKS
Coaches at young programs that, while they don't meet the spirit of this exercise, they do fall in line with the letter of it, so we gave them their own section.
BUFFALO
1. Lance Leipold - 23 wins
2. Turner Gill - 20 wins
2. Dick Offenhamer - 20 wins
A reminder that Leipold went 109-6 in eight seasons at Wisconsin-Whitewater.
COASTAL CAROLINA
1. David Bennett - 63 wins
2. Joe Moglia - 56 wins
3. Jamey Chadwell - 3 wins
Hey, we're leaving no stone unturned here.
CONNECTICUT
1. Randy Edsall - 79 wins
2. Bob Diaco - 11 wins
You know you don't have much football history -- UConn started playing in 1979 -- when an interim coach TJ Weist (3-5 in 2013) is No. 4 on your all-time wins list.
EASTERN MICHIGAN
1. Jim Harkema - 41 wins
2. Chris Creighton - 22 wins
Creighton is 22-40 in five seasons, which admittedly doesn't look great on paper. Now consider EMU's history: you have to count back a full 100 games -- taking you all the way to 2005 -- to find the 22 most recent pre-Creighton wins.
FLORIDA ATLANTIC
1. Howard Schnellenberger - 41 wins
2. Lane Kiffin - 16 wins
FAU doesn't have the history of other programs, but can you imagine a more entertaining hang among any school's two winningest coaches than Schnellenberger and the Lane Train?
FIU
1. Mario Cristobal - 27 wins
2. Butch Davis - 17 wins
Much like Lane Kiffin, Butch Davis's career trajectory makes more sense if you view it in reverse: FIU, to North Carolina, to the Cleveland Browns, to The U.
GEORGIA STATE
1. Bill Curry - 10 wins
2. Shawn Elliott - 9 wins
2. Trent Miles - 9 wins
Those 28 wins you see are all 28 wins in Georgia State's history.
MASSACHUSETTS
1. Mark Whipple - 16 wins
2. James Halligan - 15 wins
Halligan went 15-8-2 as head coach of the Minutemen from 1901-03. Whipple is 16-44.
OLD DOMINION
1. Bobby Wilder - 76 wins
2. Tommy Scott - 42 wins
Wilder revived the ODU program in 2007. The first iteration of Monarch football was the epitome of pre-World War II football. Check out this Wikipedia entry:
According to sports historian Peter Stewart, in September 1930 a reporter asked Coach Tommy Scott whether the Norfolk Division of the College of William & Mary should have a football team. Scott answered that he had not thought of having one, but within two days a team was "put together hurriedly" and began playing other small colleges. In late December 1932 the team played the University of Miami Hurricanes in Miami, after the four-year college sent an invitation to William & Mary which the two-year Norfolk Division accidentally received. The college played football for eleven seasons (1930–1940), with a record of 42–36–4. The program was discontinued due to a rule against freshman players, a $10,000 debt, and accreditation issues. The team lost every game in its last season, attendance was small, and Stewart believes that World War II would likely have forced the program to end regardless of other reasons.
SOUTH FLORIDA
1. Jim Leavitt - 75 wins
2. Willie Taggart - 24 wins
3. Charlie Strong - 17 wins
Strong could pass Taggart's 24-win mark in one less season than it took Taggart to get there.
UAB
1. Watson Brown - 57 wins
2. Bill Clark - 25 wins
At 25-14, Clark is the only UAB coach to hold a winning record at the school.
UCF
1. George O'Leary - 81 wins
2. Mike Kruczek - 36 wins
3. Scott Frost - 19 wins
4. Josh Heupel - 12 wins
Which of Mike Kruczek's 36 wins was your favorite?
UTSA
1. Larry Coker - 26 wins
2. Frank Wilson - 15 wins
Those 41 combined wins are all 41 wins in UTSA history.