Last season, Urban Meyer collected his third national championship. En route to that title, Meyer beat a coach who has won four national titles -- Nick Saban.
While Meyer and Saban have been able to secure multiple national titles, there are a good number of great coaches who have yet to capture the sport's biggest crown. With that in mind, who is the best active college football head coach to never win a national title?
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- Charles Davis NFL.com
Peterson, Dantonio are both worthy winners
I'm splitting my vote, and you can't stop me.
Washington's Chris Petersen: His accomplishments at Boise State, the incredible winning percentage, the huge regular-season wins, conference titles, and bowl wins deserve to be noted ... as well as understanding that Boise State never could play for a national title despite undefeated seasons (non-power conference program). He has that opportunity now at Washington.
Michigan State's Mark Dantonio: What he has done at Michigan State is to change and upgrade expectations ... and does not shy away from living up to them each year. His Spartans squad of 2013 would have been a strong contender for the CFB playoff if it had existed then. He will compile quality teams each year, and they won't back down to anyone in the Big Ten East or nationally.
My pick would be Frank Beamer. Last season, he beat the eventual national champion, Ohio State, in Columbus. He's been at Virginia Tech for 28 years (since 1987), and he's the longest-tenured and winningest active head coach in major college football (he ranked 11th on the all-time wins list among coaches).
Based in Blacksburg, Va., Virginia Tech is a hard place to recruit players from outside the area; what I mean is that it is hard to get players from places such as Florida or Ohio to go to Virginia Tech. Still, year in and year out Virginia Tech is among the contenders in the ACC. He just does a great job, taking Hokies to bowl games in 22 consecutive seasons. It's an amazing run that he's had at that place.
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- Daniel Jeremiah NFL.com
Snyder's K-State turnaround has been remarkable
This is an easy one. Kansas State head coach Bill Snyder does more with less than anyone else in the country. He took a disaster of a program and turned it into a perennial contender in the Big 12. He is a gifted teacher of the game and his team always plays with maximum effort.
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- Mike Huguenin College Football 24/7
Snyder would need a Manhattan miracle for his title
My top two candidates would be Kansas State's Bill Snyder and Virginia Tech's Frank Beamer. Each made his program nationally relevant, an extremely impressive feat considering each school's history. If you make me pick one, I'm going with Snyder. Virginia Tech had pockets of success before Beamer. Not so with K-State, whose football history was a vast wasteland before Snyder arrived.
Snyder was hired in 1989 to take over a program that had five winning seasons (and seven 10-loss seasons) in the preceding 54 years. (For those who need help in math, that's one winning season roughly every 11 years.) Snyder didn't have immediate success, going 1-10 in 1989 and 5-6 in 1990, but in his 23 seasons at the school, he has had just five losing seasons, including those first two; he also has had nine seasons with at least 10 victories. Barring some kind of Manhattan miracle, he's not going to win a national title. But that doesn't mean he's not a championship coach.
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- Chase Goodbread College Football 24/7
Dantonio's Spartans annually a Big Ten contender
Michigan State's Mark Dantonio gets the nod on this question, with TCU's Gary Patterson a close second. Under Dantonio, the Spartans have become a consistent contender in the Big Ten conference with an always-solid defense. His recruiting efforts, and perhaps more importantly, his ability to improve and develop players, have the program at the point where the offseason is more for reloading than rebuilding. The last two years combined, MSU is 24-3.
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- Bryan Fischer College Football 24/7
Patterson has built TCU into powerhouse
Frank Beamer comes to mind given he has the most wins of any active FBS coach and yet doesn't have a title ring to his name. But if you want to say best, I'd go with TCU's Gary Patterson, who has done a phenomenal job leading the Horned Frogs through multiple conferences and turned the program into a force to be reckoned with. Because he was often coaching in a smaller league, he didn't have any shot at winning a national championship, but Patterson certainly has TCU in the right position to take his name off this list going forward.
