College Football's Best Coach

A number of names could plausibly be put forward in response to the question "who is college football's best coach?" Pete Carroll has turned a moribund USC program into the juggernaut that it was back in the 1960s and 1970s. In only his second year on the job, Jim Tressel won the National Championship that the Buckeyes sought for 35 years, and has kept Ohio State near the top of the rankings ever since. Bobby Bowden, Joe Paterno and Steve Spurrier are all living legends, and in his first year, Charlie Weiss has delighted the Irish faithful with the kind of offensive football that hasn't been seen in South Bend in decades.

All of these guys are worthy candidates, but to me, you've got to give the nod to a man whose team got thumped, 42-21, by my beloved Fighting Irish yesterday afternoon. That's right, Paul Johnson, head coach of the United States Naval Academy, gets my vote for the best coach in college football. What's he done? Well, he took a team that went 1-20 during the two seasons before his arrival, and after a 2-10 start, posted records of 8-5 and 10-2. This year, he's 5-4, one win away from bowl eligibility, and one victory over a pathetic Army team away from his third straight Commander-in-Chief's Trophy.

He's also led the Midshipmen to two straight bowl appearances, winning last year's Emerald Bowl in San Francisco 34-19 over New Mexico. That victory was highlighted by one of the greatest drives in college football history, a 26 play epic that began on Navy's one yard line late in the 3rd quarter, consumed 14:26 and culminated in a field goal that stabbed a knife into New Mexico's hopes and catapulted the Midshipmen to a #24 ranking in the final AP poll for last season.

Johnson's not the only service academy coach to go toe-to-toe with the big boys. Fisher DeBerry's Air Force Academy squads have been putting the fear of God into football factories for a long time, and along the way, Air Force has chopped down some mighty tall trees, including three wins against Notre Dame and a Liberty Bowl victory over Ohio State. Still, the Air Force program was in great shape when DeBerry took over in 1983, when coach Ken Hatfield took the head coaching position at Arkansas and left DeBerry with a squad that had gone 10-2 the previous year.

While DeBerry's accomplishments since becoming head coach are impressive, Johnson's accomplishments during his tenure are nothing short of miraculous. What's even more amazing is, the guy's done it twice.

Paul Johnson's last coaching stop was Georgia Southern, a one-time Division I-AA powerhouse that had fallen on hard times. Georgia Southern finished 4-7 in 1996, the year before he took over. In 1997, they went 10-3; the next year, they went 14-1, losing only in the National Championship game. That apparently left a bad taste in Johnson's mouth, which he washed out by posting back-to-back National Championships the following two seasons. After one more 12-2 season, it was off to Annapolis.

Johnson's career shows that one of the things that has made football such a great sport over the years is still true today: the race is not always to the swift, and the fight is not always to the strong. When discipline, execution and heart are combined with a game plan designed to put a team in a position to win, they can not only make a team like Navy competitive, but a team to be feared.