The 11 College Football Coaches With The Most Wins Who Never Won A National Championship

You’re not going to end up near the top of the list of the college football coaches with the most career wins if you don’t know what you’re doing, and every single person who’s ended up in the Top 10 on that front managed to lead a team to at least one national championship by the time they called it quits. However, there are some other very notable names who never added that achievement to their résumé.

These college football coaches racked up the most wins without winning a national championship

You don’t need to have won a national championship as a head coach to earn a spot in the College Football Hall of Fame, but it certainly never hurts. All of the guys on this list have either been enshrined there or will be once they hang up their headset, but that’s the biggest achievement that managed to elude them during otherwise impressive careers.

11. George Welsh

Wins: 189

We’re kicking things off with George Welsh, who got his first head coaching gig at Navy in 1973 before heading to the University of Virginia in 1982.

Welsh never came close to leading the Midshipmen to a national championship, and that was also the case during the 19 years he spent leading the Cavaliers. However, he did help UVA win a couple of ACC championships, and his ability to consistently post a winning record led to him sticking around in Charlottesville for almost two decades.

10. Gary Pinkel

Wins: 191*

Gary Pinkel got his start as the head coach at Toledo in 1991, and Missouri poached him in 2001 after the Rockets posted a 10-1 record the previous season.

The Tigers appeared in four conference title games (two in the Big 12 and two more in the SEC) during his 15 years in Columbia but lost every single time while being deprived of the chance to play for a national title.

*The NCAA officially credits Pinkel with 186 wins after Missouri was forced to vacate its six victories in 2015—his final season— due to players who had coursework completed by a tutor

9. John Cooper

Wins: 192

Ohio State has been home to a number of legendary head coaches who ended up winning a national championship, but John Cooper was never able to join their ranks during the 13 years he spent with the Buckeyes.

Cooper had previously coached at Tulane and Arizona State before heading to Columbus in 1988 after the nine-year run where Earle Bruce had tried (and largely failed) to fill the massive shoes of Woody Hayes. He was able to lead the Buckeyes to three Big Ten titles in the mid-1990s, but they weren’t able to get the national championship Jim Tressel secured just two years after he departed.

8. Brian Kelly

Wins: 195*

Brian Kelly, the first active coach on this list (and the one with the most realistic shot of winning a title), has technically won two national championships, as he led Grand Valley State to back-to-back DII titles after the Lakers posted a combined 28-1 record in 2002 and 2003. However, I’m only counting ones that were secured with an FBS team.

Kelly has led every team he’s coached at that level to at least one conference title—with the exception of Notre Dame, which wasn’t able to compete for one while he was in South Bend by virtue of its long-claimed independence.

He was at the helm when the Fighting Irish capped off the 2012 campaign by facing off against Alabama in the BCS championship, but the Crimson Tide earned a decisive 42-14 win.

*Only 173 are officially recognized by the NCAA due to an academic misconduct investigation that found a trainer had completed coursework for multiple players 

7. Dan McGugin

Wins: 197

Dan McGugin is really the only major throwback on this list, as his coaching career coincided with the invention of the airplane, World War I, and The Great Depression.

All of the 197 wins  McGugin had came during the 30 years he spent at Vanderbilt. The Commodores did have 11 conference championships during his tenure, but they never got a national title at a time when college football largely ran through the Ivy League.

6. Don Nehlen

Wins: 202

Don Nehlen spent nine largely unremarkable seasons as the head coach at Bowling Green before West Virginia brought him on in 1990.

He posted a respectable 149-93-4 record over the course of his 21 seasons with the Mountaineers, but they never had the chance to play for a title. They came close after starting the season 11-0 in 1993, but Florida State and Nebraska were ultimately tapped for the Orange Bowl that ended with the Seminoles being crowned national champions (WVU ended up losing to Florida in the Sugar Bowl).

5. Kirk Feretnz

Wins: 204

We’ve got our second (and final) appearance from an active coach thanks to Kirk Ferentz, who is also one of two Iowa skippers who is represented here.

The 2025 season marks Ferentz’s 27th with the Hawkeyes. They’ve secured a couple of Big 12 titles under his watch, but Iowa hasn’t had the chance to snap a national championship drought that stretches back to 1958  in the nearly three decades he’s been in charge.

4. Bill Snyder

Wins: 215

Kansas State had a fairly pathetic history when Bill Snyder took the reins in Manhattan ahead of the 1989 season, and there was really nowhere for the Wildcats to go but up when he took over.

They ended up doing that and then some, as Kansas State transformed into a force to be reckoned with by the end of the 1990s. The Wildcast never got the chance to play for a national championship during Snyder’s 27 seasons at the helm, but he did lead them to two Big 12 titles in 2002 and 2012 (although the second was shared with Oklahoma).

3. Hayden Fry

Wins: 233*

As promised, Iowa is making another appearance courtesy of Hayden Fry, the coach who had a lengthy career that began when he ushered in an 11-year stint at SMU in 1962.

He didn’t get a title with the Mustangs, and that was also the case during his six-year run with North Texas State. He capped off his coaching career by running the show at Iowa for two decades, and while the Hawkeyes made a bowl more often than not while tallying three Big Ten titles, they never got a championship while he was in Iowa City.

*Fry technically had 230 wins, but the NCAA credits him with 233 due to three victories Mississippi State vacated for having an ineligible player on the roster when they played Texas State between 1975 and 1977

2. Bo Schembechler

Wins: 234

Bo Schembechler kicked off his coaching career in 1963 with a six-year stint at Miami University. However, he’s best known for his time with Michigan, as the Wolverines had 194 wins during his 21 seasons in Ann Arbor between 1969 and 1989.

Michigan posted double-digit wins in more than half of those campaigns, but it was never enough to get the national championship that had eluded the team since 1948 before the nearly 50-year drought ended in 1998 under Lloyd Carr.

1. Frank Beamer

Wins: 238

No college football coach managed to get more victories without winning a national championship than Frank Beamer, the man who breathed new life into Virginia Tech after being hired in 1987 and led the Hokies to a bowl game 23 years in a row before retiring in 2015 to cap off a 29-year run in Blacksburg.

However, only one of those bowl games was for a national championship: the Sugar Bowl that capped off the 1999 season and ended with Florida State handing them a 46-29 loss.