The University of Michigan has certainly had its fair share of great head football coaches. That’s what happens when you have more wins than any other program in the history of the sport. Deciding who the best five are is no easy task but here we go.
Greatest Coaches in Michigan Wolverines Football History
Fielding Yost
It would be very unwise to allow any amount of recency bias to impact our choices of the greatest coaches in Michigan football history. And any list must include Fielding Yost who we consider the best of the best.
Yost compiled a ridiculous record of 165-29-10 during his two tenures in Ann Arbor. His teams won four consecutive national championships between 1901-1904 and during one stretch outscored their opponents by 550-0. His teams were also responsible for winning ten conference championships. Yost is even responsible for the creation of the Little Brown Jug game played between Michigan and Minnesota.
Bo Schembechler
Putting Bo Schembechler near the top of the list will certainly be cause for some debate because he never won a national championship while at Michigan. He does however have more wins than any other coach in Michigan football history. Fans will also never forget the 24-12 victory in 1969 against undefeated and number one ranked Ohio State.
On top of that, Bo won the Ten-Year War against Woody Hayes and the Ohio State Buckeyes 5-4-1. Bo is also responsible for bringing Michigan football back to relevance after a fairly long down period. Bo also made sure that the team came before anything else and was without question the largest personality to ever man the sidelines in Ann Arbor.
Jim Harbaugh
Some will also debate whether Jim Harbaugh has a personality even larger than Bo, but we’re giving the nod to Schembechler because he was the original larger-than-life personality in Ann Arbor.
Harbaugh does come in at number two because he took over the program when it was down after the Brady Hoke years. Immediately the team improved and would have played for a national championship if not for a questionable call in overtime against the Buckeyes in 2016.
What really makes Harbaugh stand out is that after the COVID year, a lot of people wanted to run him out of town. He then changed his approach by looking in the mirror and made changes to his coaching staff. These changes led to two consecutive playoff appearances and although both resulted in losses, the Wolverines kept chipping away and finally won the natty in Harbaugh’s last year.
Lloyd Carr
After taking over on an interim basis for former coach Gary Moeller who resigned in disgrace after an off-the-field incident that involved alcohol and bad behavior, Lloyd Carr wasn’t even in consideration to be the next head coach by the current athletic director. But stay he did and enjoyed a 13 career as the head man at Michigan.
His teams won or shared five conference championships and his 1997 team went unbeaten and shared the national championship with Nebraska. Carr is also only one of three Michigan coaches to win his first three games against the hated Ohio State Buckeyes. While he didn’t have a larger-than-life personality like Schembechler or Harbaugh, Carr is undoubtedly one of the best coaches ever at Michigan.
Fritz Crisler
We can’t conclude our list of the greatest coaches in school history without talking about Fritz Crisler.
Not only did Crisler finish with an impressive 71-16-3 record as head coach, but he is also the man responsible for bringing the iconic winged helmet to Michigan.
Crisler’s undefeated 1947 national championship team was called the “Magic Magicians” because of their propensity to score a lot of points. He also served as AD after his coaching career (as others on our list have done) and he has the basketball arena named after him.
