In honor of bowl season.... coaches with the most bowl wins

[bdgan]

24 Paterno
22 Bowden (the Orange bowl win turned out to be pretty big)

15 Bryant
12 Holtz
11 Beamer (media made a big deal about 11 this week)
11 Spurrier
8 Myer
8 Saban
6 Carr
6 Fernetz
6 Tressel
5 Dantonio
5 Hayes
5 Schembechler
5 Schiano

They say records are meant to be broken but this has about as much chance as somebody beating Cy Young's 749 complete games.

 

[john4psu]

There was a period of time not that long ago, that Joe had more bowl wins than Ohio State and Michigan COMBINED.

 

[fairgambit]

24 Paterno
22 Bowden (the Orange bowl win turned out to be pretty big)

15 Bryant
12 Holtz
11 Beamer (media made a big deal about 11 this week)
11 Spurrier
8 Myer
8 Saban
6 Carr
6 Fernetz
6 Tressel
5 Dantonio
5 Hayes
5 Schembechler
5 Schiano

They say records are meant to be broken but this has about as much chance as somebody beating Cy Young's 749 complete games.

Who it that 1st guy? Paterno? At one time I would travel up to Penn State quite frequently and I saw his name everywhere on campus, even on the Library. I figured he was a famous professor or something. I was up there recently and his name was mostly gone. You mean he was a football coach besides an educator, or are you talking about another Paterno? If it's the same guy, and he was an educator and a great football coach, he should have a place of honor at Penn State, shouldn't he???

 

[psuro]

Paterno? You mean the ice cream guy?

 

[fairgambit]

Paterno? You mean the ice cream guy?

I think it's the beer guy.

 

[MICH.Nit Fan]

And no one, in my lifetime, will ever come close. Most wins, most bowl wins, and all done running a "big time" program better than anyone else ever did. I miss Joe very much. Something that is never brought up as to why attendance is down, is the absence of Joe. I know that all teams have seen a drop, but Joe was an attraction. Had none of the mess happened, I still hold that we would have seen a drop after a Joe retirement. He was a big part of the appeal.

 

[bdgan]

And no one, in my lifetime, will ever come close. Most wins, most bowl wins, and all done running a "big time" program better than anyone else ever did. I miss Joe very much. Something that is never brought up as to why attendance is down, is the absence of Joe. I know that all teams have seen a drop, but Joe was an attraction. Had none of the mess happened, I still hold that we would have seen a drop after a Joe retirement. He was a big part of the appeal.

If PSU ever has a day to honor Joe the attendance will be 110,000.

 

[marshall23]

Don't you just scratch your head when you read the criticisms of JVP on this board and others? He never had an assistant coach with any new ideas, or who wasn't a yes man or............his idiot son who couldn't coach junior high. He couldn't recruit for squat. Up the middle three times and punt? If these idiots had 5 lifetimes they would never see another coach his equal.

 

[Franklin_Restores_TheTradition]

24 Paterno
22 Bowden (the Orange bowl win turned out to be pretty big)

15 Bryant
12 Holtz
11 Beamer (media made a big deal about 11 this week)
11 Spurrier
8 Myer
8 Saban
6 Carr
6 Fernetz
6 Tressel
5 Dantonio
5 Hayes
5 Schembechler
5 Schiano

They say records are meant to be broken but this has about as much chance as somebody beating Cy Young's 749 complete games.

One of the most impressive things about the top of that pack is their bowl winning pct -- IOW, it isn't that they played in a lot more bowls than the others, it's that they won a lot more of the bowls they played. BTW, they are missing Osborne who won 12 bowls. Here is how the full statistics shake out with the first number listed being the total number of bowls followed by the coaches overall bowl record and then winning pct:

1. Paterno 37 bowls, 24-12-1, .662 winning pct
2. Bowden 33, 22-10-1, .682
3. Bryant 29, 15-12-2, .552
4. Brown 21, 13-8, .619
5. Holtz 22, 12-8-2, .591
6. Osborne 25, 12-13, .480
7. Spurrier 21, 11-10, .524
8. Beamer 23, 11-12, .478
9. James 15, 10-5, .667
10 Vaught 18, 10-8, .556

Not only did the top guys play in a lot of bowls, but just impressively is the high rate at which they won the bowls they played. Beamer imho is one of the most over-rated "legendary", (actually media created) coaches ever. He lost most of the biggest games he ever played, never won a Championship of any kind (in fact, lost convincingly whenever in the hunt) and had a bad overall bowl record especially in the best bowls VoTech played in. On the other end of the spectrum is Don James (U-Dub) imho - did not have an inordinately long coaching career, but had a very productive coaching career and tremendous bowl / big game record.

 

[marshall23]

If PSU ever has a day to honor Joe the attendance will be 110,000.

I couldn't agree more....but if they pushed John Surma to midfield we'd have 250,000.pos

 

[NittPicker]

5 Hayes
5 Schembechler

In defense of Hayes and Schembechler, the Big Ten had a Rose Bowl or nothing policy until 1975. Schembechler didn't become the Michigan head coach until 1969 so he missed a few opportunities to pick up some more wins. Hayes became the OSU head coach in 1951 and therefore missed out on MANY more chances to boost his bowl win record which he certainly would have done. Besides all that, at one time the Big Ten had a policy of not sending the same team to the Rose Bowl in consecutive years. So if a team was undefeated but went to the Rose Bowl after the prior season they'd be sitting at home on New Year's Day without the chance to win a bowl game. It would have been interesting to see what Hayes' bowl record would have been if he had the opportunity to coach in more of them.

 

[fairgambit]

If PSU ever has a day to honor Joe the attendance will be 110,000.

I think it could set an all time record, provided it was a meaningful honoring. I would expect, at minimum, the game ticket to have Joe's picture. The game program to have Joe on the cover along with a substantial section about him inside. Videos of Joe on the Scoreboard before, during, and after the game. Blue Band halftime show dedicated to Joe, along with Sue and family down on the field at halftime to accept some physical tribute. Cheerleaders with JoePa cheers during the game. I'm sure lots more could be done.

 

[Franklin_Restores_TheTradition]

In defense of Hayes and Schembechler, the Big Ten had a Rose Bowl or nothing policy until 1975. Schembechler didn't become the Michigan head coach until 1969 so he missed a few opportunities to pick up some more wins. Hayes became the OSU head coach in 1951 and therefore missed out on MANY more chances to boost his bowl win record which he certainly would have done. Besides all that, at one time the Big Ten had a policy of not sending the same team to the Rose Bowl in consecutive years. So if a team was undefeated but went to the Rose Bowl after the prior season they'd be sitting at home on New Year's Day without the chance to win a bowl game. It would have been interesting to see what Hayes' bowl record would have been if he had the opportunity to coach in more of them.

Umm, not really, Bo Schembeckler played in 17 Bowls (which is well up the list for most bowls played in) and his record in those 17 bowls was a ridiculously bad 5-12 (.294 winning pct). Give me a break that the reason these guys aren't way up the list is "opportunities"......

 

[BBrown]

I couldn't agree more....but if they pushed John Surma to midfield we'd have 250,000.pos

and if they set him on fire there would be 300,000.

 

[NittPicker]

Umm, not really, Bo Schembeckler played in 17 Bowls (which is well up the list for most bowls played in) and his record in those 17 bowls was a ridiculously bad 5-12 (.294 winning pct). Give me a break that the reason these guys aren't way up the list is "opportunities"......

Umm, not really. If you read my post and do the math you'll see Schembechler was only limited for six years but it was still six years he could have had a couple more bowl wins however there is no doubt his bowl record would suck either way. You obviously didn't dispute Hayes' bowl record was impacted but I'll be happy to concede the point if you can give me facts. His bowl record was 5-6 with most of those being in the Rose Bowl against the PAC champion. To claim he wouldn't have coached and won a few more bowl games if allowed to do so is just dumb.

 

[Franklin_Restores_TheTradition]

Umm, not really. If you read my post and do the math you'll see Schembechler was only limited for six years but it was still six years he could have had a couple more bowl wins however there is no doubt his bowl record would suck either way. You obviously didn't dispute Hayes' bowl record was impacted but I'll be happy to concede the point if you can give me facts. His bowl record was 5-6 with most of those being in the Rose Bowl against the PAC champion. To claim he wouldn't have coached and won a few more bowl games if allowed to do so is just dumb.

To claim that he would not have coached and lost a few more is equally as dumb (e.g., that he would have only won additional bowls is a ridiculous proposition - Bo's, Woody's and the entire "traditional tiny tens" overall bowl record sucks for a reason and the reason is not that they didn't play in enough bowls....it's because their out of conference record in big games, including bowls, sucks.)..