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When determining college football's greatest programs of all time, a lot of attention goes toward national championship banners. Major programs often dominate these annual lists, but not all have found sustained success over multiple decades, including some that have only seen stretches of dominance under legendary coaches.

Some football programs were great in the early days of the sport, but then fell by the wayside as more teams around the country began to surge. In order to be on this list, a program must have piled up wins for more than just a handful of seasons several decades ago.

These teams do have plenty of national championships to their name, but they have also proven that they are built to last. Some legendary coaches are responsible for the hundreds of wins that make up this ranking.

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Based on all-time wins, here's a look at college football's top 10 programs within the Power Five ranks. Records have been determined using official NCAA statistics and cross-referenced using individual program numbers.

Tennessee has had some legendary head coaches who racked up wins throughout their tenure. Robert Neyland, Doug Dickey, Johnny Majors and Phillip Fulmer were all responsible for getting the Volunteers to this place on the list. However, since Fulmer left, Tennessee has had trouble piling up wins on a regular basis. Since 2009, the Volunteers have had five different head coaches and zero 10-win seasons. At this point, it’s up to Josh Heupel to make sure Tennessee can start climbing this list again.

Much like Tennessee, USC has gone through periods of incredible success. But the Trojans have fallen on some hard times of late. Coaches like Howard Jones, John McKay, John Robinson and Pete Carroll took the Trojans to championship heights and notched hundreds of wins for the program. While USC has reached the Pac-12 title game three times since Carroll left — and won it under Clay Helton in 2017 — that is not the bar that was set by those former coaches. To the Trojans’ credit, they made a big move in an attempt to reach that bar again by hiring Lincoln Riley after the 2021 season.

Nebraska has had five straight losing seasons, and it has fallen out of the national spotlight. However, there was a time when the Cornhuskers were a major power in college football. From 1969 to 2003, Nebraska reached a bowl game in 35 consecutive seasons and produced 21 double-digit win seasons. Between 1993 and 1997, the Cornhuskers lost a combined three games. They tripled that loss total in 2021 alone. Scott Frost was hired to lead Nebraska back to its glory days, but, so far, things haven’t worked out. The good news for the Huskers and the fans is that they know it has been done before.

Penn State really exploded as one of the great college football programs in the country after Joe Paterno took over in 1966. In his 46 seasons with the Nittany Lions, Paterno accounted for 409 wins to go along with a pair of national championships. In the 11 seasons since the Paterno era ended, Bill O’Brien and James Franklin have continued the program’s success. Penn State has had just one losing season in that stretch. In fact, Franklin has recorded 11 wins in three different seasons, and the Nittany Lions won a Big Ten Championship in 2016.

Texas is a blue blood program in college football, and the program really started to dominate the sport under head coach Darrell Royal from 1957 to 1976. He won 167 games as the head coach of the Longhorns, as well as three national titles, including back-to-back championships in 1969 and 1970. More recently, Mack Brown led Texas to nine seasons of 10 or more wins, and he won a BCS National Championship in 2005. The Longhorns haven’t been at that level for over a decade now, so the pressure is on Steve Sarkisian to make that happen.

Between Knute Rockne and Frank Leahy, Notre Dame won seven national championships from 1924 to 1949. Ara Parseghian, Dan Devine and Lou Holtz combined for four more national titles from 1966 to 1988. The Fighting Irish haven’t hoisted a national championship trophy since then, but they’ve done plenty of winning. Outside of 2016, Brian Kelly’s recent 12-year run with the program produced some fantastic results. With Kelly now at LSU, Marcus Freeman must keep Notre Dame rolling with the aim of winning college football’s ultimate prize.

Ever since Bob Stoops took over the program in 1999, Oklahoma has been racking up impressive win totals and climbing this list. The Sooners have won at least 10 games in 18 different seasons since 2000. That run also includes a national championship and four Heisman Trophy winners. Oklahoma has shown zero signs of slowing down, but the program does face a new challenge with Lincoln Riley going to USC. Brent Venables will be a first-year head coach in 2022, so it will be interesting to see what the Sooners look like under his leadership.

The Buckeyes have been winning a lot of games for over a century now, and Woody Hayes really set the foundation for the dominant program we know today. Hayes won 205 games and five national championships, and the Buckeyes have been a strong football program since that tenure. That brings us to today, with Ryan Day putting Ohio State in position to win another national championship, possibly as soon as the 2022 season. Between the Buckeyes’ recruiting efforts and their player development, they aren’t going to fall down this list anytime soon.

Alabama has national championships littered throughout its history, going all the way back to 1925, when Wallace Wade was the head coach. That said, the Crimson Tide aren’t here just because of their history. In Nick Saban’s 15 seasons as the head coach, Alabama has won 183 games and six national championships. It has been an impressive run that is unrivaled by any other programs in the modern era. Considering the fact that the Crimson Tide are an annual participant in the College Football Playoff, they won’t be slowing down as long as Saban is running things.

The Wolverines’ first national championship goes all the way back to 1918 under head coach Fielding Yost. Since then, four more coaches have won national championships, and that doesn’t even include the legendary Bo Schembechler, who won 194 games as the head coach at Michigan. The program hasn’t won a national title since 1997, when Lloyd Carr was the head coach, but perhaps it’s getting closer under Jim Harbaugh. Last fall, the Wolverines took a massive step forward by beating Ohio State, winning the Big Ten and getting to the College Football Playoff for the first time.

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