Nick Saban and Urban Meyer added to their totals of major bowl wins this bowl season, with Saban having another opportunity next week. Saban is now tied for 4th and Meyer is now all alone at #6 on the all-time list:

Here are the all-time records for most major bowl* wins by a coach:

1) Bear Bryant ....... 12

2) Joe Paterno ....... 11

3) Bobby Bowden ... 10

4) Tom Osbourne and Nick Saban ... 9

6) Urban Meyer ...... 8

7) Bob Stoops, Barry Switzer, Pete Carroll, Bud Wilkinson, Lou Holtz, John Vaught, Darrell Royal .... 6

14) Mack Brown, Don James, John Robinson, Woody Hayes, Jim Tressel ...... 5

For coaches whose careers took place largely before 1975, bowl opportunities were limited by conference rules that often forbade bowl participation for anyone but the conference champion.

* List counts "wins on the field" not adjusted for later vacates, and major bowls are Rose, Sugar, and Orange Bowls, Cotton Bowl before 1995 and since 2014, Fiesta Bowl from 1986 onwards, BCS title game from 2007 - 2012, CFP title game from 2014 onwards, and Peach Bowl since 2014.

Just to be clear, you are only counting the CFP title game and not the semi-final game?

(01-03-2018 12:33 PM)Wolfman Wrote:  Just to be clear, you are only counting the CFP title game and not the semi-final game?

No, I am counting both. So, e.g., last year, Dabo Swinney won two major bowl games when he won the Orange Bowl and then the title game. I just don't see how you can't count both, they are huge games vs top 4 teams, much tougher than many traditional major bowl matchups.

So there are more major bowls these days - 7 - than in days past, plus since 2014 the chance to win two in one year.

Very different from say Woody Hayes days in the 1950s and 1960s when there were just 4 major bowls, and many excellent teams were barred by conference rules from playing them. So one can definitely argue that comparing an Urban Meyer, whose whole career has been during a time when there were 5, and now 7, major bowls, and the last four years a chance to possibly win two in a year, is unfair to a Barry Switzer, whose career was when there were just 4 majors, and you could only win one per year.

That makes Bear Bryant's record particularly impressive, since the vast majority of his career was in that restricted environment.