Joe Paterno Is The Winningest I-A Football Coach Ever

Will Harris:

The winningest college football coach of all time is John Gagliardi. Entering this year — his 59th as a head coach and 55th with his current school — Gagliardi had won a whopping 443 games, 419 at St. John’s University in Minnesota.

What’s that? Only Division I games count? OK, then your leader is Eddie Robinson, who won 408 games at Grambling.

Oh, Division I-AA games don’t count either? Well, that rules out Robinson. It also rules out Bowden and his 31 I-AA wins and leaves us with Paterno and his 366 I-A victories.

This is really simple. Either we’re counting only I-A wins or we’re not. If not, then Paterno is way ahead of Bowden. If we are, then your leader is either Gagliardi or Robinson, depending on whether we’re recognizing anything below I-AA.

The only title Bobby Bowden holds is that of “Coach with most total wins who has at some point in his career coached a Division I-A team.”

# 2007 Sep 19