Inside D1 College Football's Longest Winning Streak

For sale: dusty real estate license.

Reason: No longer needed. Owner presently coaches the NCAA Division I football team with the sport’s longest winning streak.

Meet Steve Englehart, head coach at Presbyterian College and, with a committed, cohesive staff, architects of one of college football’s greatest turnarounds – this decade, century, you name it.

Consider: the Blue Hose own the nation’s longest NCAA Division I winning streak at nine consecutive victories.

After closing out the 2024 season on a four-game tear, Presbyterian has opened its 2025 campaign – its fourth with Englehart at the helm – as a winner in each of its five contests.

Most recently, the Hose avenged a 14-7 defeat at Morehead State last year with an 41-0 annihilation of their guests last Saturday at Bailey Memorial Stadium. Heady stuff for a program that has never won more than six games in its nearly two decades as a Football Championship Subdivision program.

Or, for a head coach who four short years ago was, well, not even coaching because the school for which he founded its football program, Florida Tech, imploded the team in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I had some friends in real estate, and I got my license and enjoyed and learned a lot from those things,” Englehart told FootballScoop. “Really, what I’ve learned I’ve tried to express [to the team] about other professions and it’s not all that different. I had a friend in insurance who hired me to do kind of wholesale corporate insurance for large businesses, airports, so I did that for about six months.

“Couple things I picked up from that: talk about what human nature does with success. Sometimes, you win and you’re happy, relieved, start to get complacent and lose attention to detail. But when you lose, a game or a big deal or the sale of a house, you come back around and you’re angry, pay more attention to details, you’re motivated and more focused. We’re trying to stay out of that cycle.”

The on-field performances suggest the off-field lessons are ingrained in the Presbyterian program.

Though the Blue Hose are Pioneer Football League residents and thus do not award athletics scholarships, they own wins this season against then-No. 11 Mercer, reigning Southern Conference champs, and also a dramatic, come-from-behind win against perennial SoCon contender Furman.

Defensive coordinator Dan Owen’s unit has held four of five foes to 14 or fewer points; it has not allowed a touchdown in its last nine quarters.

Offensive coordinator Jayson Martin’s explosive group has had eight different players snag a receiving touchdown – the only such unit in FCS to deploy such vicious balance.

And, despite no scholarships and in an unprecedented era of college transience, Presbyterian has 33 seniors who have remained committed to this D-1 build.

“When I first took over the program in 2022, it was just a program that was pretty disgruntled from a lot of different areas,” Englehart, a former Indiana State quarterback, said. “A program that didn’t have probably a lot of pride because of all the changes, going to D1, going from the Big South to the Pioneer League, and then firing a coach (Tommy Spangler) who a lot of the alumni really liked to hiring somebody unconventional (Kevin Kelley), and I give him credit for sticking to what he believed in.

“But we lost a lot of kids. We brought in around 70 freshmen in 2022, and those guys had to play a lot right away. I’d really say we’ve done this the old fashioned way, in regards to recruiting and developing over the years and then retention.”

How do Englehart & Co. retain in an era when D1 student-athletes routinely play for multiple schools, when more starting quarterbacks in the SEC are transfers than developed in-house?

Well, dudes play ball in Englehart’s program. The league necessitates some pretty compelling travel destinations – hello, San Diego; hello, Florida; hello, Indianapolis – and, scholarships or no, it is FCS football. The Blue Hose’s 33-man senior class is buoyed by freshman, sophomore and junior classes that each feature 30-plus members.

“We knew that the dynamics and change in college football was going to present some type of challenge here, particularly because we are non-scholarship,” Englehart said. “We committed that we were going to recruit really well and recruit kids that fit what we’re doing here and develop them  along the way, and give them things they’ve never had before.

“So, we might not have scholarships but we sure in heck do lot of other things that show we care about them and take care of them and develop them, and I think that’s how you retain them. This is a team that really cares about one another, from the top down. All the offensive and defensive staff get along great, are great colleagues and great friends.”

And, so, the Blue Hose have the following since Englehart’s arrival less than four years ago:

↳ A new weight room

↳ Renovated meeting spaces

↳ Increased financial commitment to nutrition, as well as access to a nutritionist and sports psychologist

All Englehart asks? Pull the rope.

“Every day, you wake up and put two feet on the ground and you’re in a tug-of-war with life,” he said. “You got dreams, goals and aspirations on one side of the rope, and all the things trying to deny those goals and dreams on the other side.

“You have choices every single day, and we want to make three choices: give great effort, be disciplined and have perseverance. You can start a program with those three things of pulling the rope. And those three lead to: trust in one another, discipline equals respect for each other and the game; perseverance and tough times yield love for one another.”

Englehart’s vision is making the Blue Hose tug-of-war winners. Their 42.6-point scoring average is almost three times the 15.7 it was in 2022; Owen’s unit has put the defense on Ozempic with a 13 ppg average – down from 42.6 in ’22.

Thus, now is not the time for reflection. Presbyterian’s rope on the 2025 season has at least seven remaining games, all of this Pioneer League opponents.

“The most successful never relax,” said Englehart, citing his insurance and real estate sabbatical. “They go back to the grind and are motivated and stay focused with their attention to detail.

“Nothing in the world you can do can replace a Saturday afternoon with a bunch of guys you’ve worked really hard with to share the joy of victory in a locker room, or the grief of defeat.”

See the nation’s longest Division I winning streak, but watch for the rope. It’s still being pulled.