Tale of the Coaching Tape: Nick Saban vs. Bo Schembechler

Even though he never won a national championship, Bo Schembechler deserves a mention among the all-time greats after being one of the sport’s icons during his 27 years as a head coach, mostly at Michigan.

After six years at his alma mater, Miami of Ohio, where the Redhawks went 40-17-3, he was hired away by Michigan to deal with one of his former bosses, Woody Hayes at Ohio State.

While their rivalry could only be described as “epic,” Schembechler had one of the best records in college football and only Joe Paterno and Tom Osborne reached 200 wins in fewer games (Division I).

While they weren’t able to hold on, Schembechler had four teams reach No. 1 in the Associated Press poll, and 16 finish in the top 10 including ten straight (1969-78).

The Wolverines also won 13 Big Ten titles, but the coach went 2-8 in the Rose Bowl against the Pac-10 champion.

Overall, he went 194-48-5 with the Wolverines (1969-89), 143-24-3 in conference play.

Nick Saban vs. Bo Schembechler

(Statistics through 2018 season)

Category Saban; Schembechler

Seasons 23 ; 27

Consensus national titles 6 ; 0

Top five finishes 9 ; 6

Top 25 finishes 16 ; 19

Overall record 232–62–1; 234-65-8

Percentage 78.5 ; 77.5

Losing seasons 0 ; 0

CFP/Bowl record 14-10 ; 5-12

Percentage 58.3 ; 29.4

Conference titles 9 ; 15

Conference record 138-42-1; 170-32-4

Consensus All-Americans 41 ; 25

First-round draft picks 34 ; 13

Record against ranked teams 82-40 ; 37-36-1

Percentage 67.20 ; 50.67

Record against top 10 teams 42-21 ; 16-22-1

Percentage 66.67 ; 42.31

Ratios/percentages

National title seasons One every 3.8 seasons; None

Consensus All-Americans 1.78 every season; .93

First-round draft picks 1.48 every season; .48

Average wins vs. ranked teams 3.57 each season; 1.37

Wins over top-10 teams per year 1.82 every season; .59

Some of the information in this report was also used in the book "Nick Saban vs. College Football."