This week’s top 10 counts down the best coaches in the 125-year history of Georgia football.
Related Story: What's next for Georgia basketball
The University of Georgia has fielded football teams since 1892 and in that time, many coaches have led Georgia football.
But from 1939-to-2015, the job was held mostly by just three coaches. That makes choosing 10 above all others difficult. But the bulldogs do have several coaches besides Mark Richt, Vince Dooley and Wally Butts who are considered among the programs best.
From Dr. Charles Herty all the way to Kirby Smart, here is Dawn of the Dawg’s top 10 coaches in Georgia football history.
Honorable Mention: Dr. Charles Herty
he only coached Georgia football for one year but it’s a pretty important year. Herty brought football to the University of Georgia and on January 30th of that year, they played their first game against Mercer. Georgia won that game 50-0.
Their last game of that year was on February 20th, in Atlanta, Georgia against Auburn, starting the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry. Georgia lost that game 10-0 to go 1-1 in their first official season.
Herty gave up head coaching duties afterwards but he’s forever known as the man who got Georgia playing the sport of football. 120-plus years of tradition begins with Herty.
10. Ray Goff
Goff is definetely more fondly remembered as the former quarterback who, alongside Matt Robinson and Kevin McLee, led Georgia to the 1976 SEC Championship.
But 13 years later, Goff was chosen by Vince Dooley to become the new head coach of Georgia football.
Goff only coached at Georgia for seven years before and was fired with a record of 46-34-1. The highlight of his time as head coach was the 1992 season when Georgia went 10-2 and running back Garrison Hearst won the Doak Walker award while finishing third in the voting for the Heisman Trophy.
Goff’s head coaching career ended after the 1995 season.
9. Glenn “Pop” Warner
Before Glenn “Pop” Warner became one of the most recognizable names in the sport, he spent two seasons as head coach of Georgia football in 1895 and 1896. In those two years he had a record of 7-4.
In 1895, Georgia defeated Wofford, Alabama and Sewanee, and they lost to Auburn, Vanderbilt and to North Carolina twice.
However, In 1896 Warner led Georgia to their first undefeated season in program history. The team not-yet-named the Bulldogs went 4-0, defeating Wofford, Sewanee, North Carolina and Auburn.
After leaving the University of Georgia, Warner coached at his alma mater Cornell for two seasons. He moved on to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School for five years after that but he returned to Cornell for another three years. His combined coaching record at Cornell was 36-13-3.
Warner went back to Carlisle in 1907 and stayed there until 1914. He coached Jim Thorpe, one of the first legends of American sports, and had five 10-win seasons during that second stint at Carlisle. His combined record there was 114-42-8.
The height of his coaching career was yet to come however. He left Carlisle, which closed down four years later, to begin coaching at Pittsburgh. He won National Championships in each of his first two years at Pittsburgh (1915 and 1916) and led them to a 10-0 season in 1917. Pittsburgh won another National title with Warner at the helm in 1918.
He was there for another five seasons and finished with a 60-12-4 record. He moved out west where college football was growing in popularity and became head coach at Stanford and led them to a National title in 1926. From 1924-32, Warner went 71-17-8 at Stanford.
His career ended back in Pennsylvania as head coach of Temple from 1933-38. His record at Temple was 31-18-9. He retired from coaching with a career record of 319-106-32.
He is one of the greatest head coaches in the history of college football. But having spent only two years in Athens, it’s hard to justify placing him higher up on the list of greatest head coaches in Georgia football history.
8. Harry Mehre
One of the most recognizable names in the early history of Georgia football is that of Harry Mehre who served as head coach of Georgia football from 1928-to-1937.
In college, Mehre played center in both football and basketball for Notre Dame. On the football team he was one of the blockers for Notre Dame’s famed “four horsemen” running backs.
He came to Georgia in 1924 as an assistant coach under George “Kid” Woodruff. When Woodruff stepped down after the 1927 season, Mehre was chosen as his replacement.
In his first two seasons, Georgia went a combined 10-11. But in 1930 he led the Bulldogs to a 7-2-1 season and an 8-2 season in 1931 with pairs of wins over Yale, New York, Auburn and Georgia Tech.
Then in the 1933, the first year of the SEC, Mehre led Georgia to an 8-2 record and 3-1 record in conference play. The Bulldogs finished third. Georgia never got closer to an SEC Championship under Mehre however.
He left Athens after the 1937 season to coach at Ole Miss, where he stayed until 1945. His record at Georgia was 59-34-6 and his career overall record was 98-60-7. After coaching, he was a football analyst for the Atlanta Journal. In 1986, the Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall opened and named in honor of him and Wally Butts.
6. Jim Donnan
After firing Ray Goff in 1995, Georgia needed a coach that could get the program back on the right track. They turned to Jim Donnan who had been head coach at Marshall since 1990. In six years at Marshall, Donnan went 54-21, led the Thundering Herd to four NCAA 1-AA National Championship Games and a national title in 1994.
Donnan appeared to be a great hire but in his first year at Georgia (1996), the Bulldogs went 5-6. But they did beat Auburn in the SEC’s first overtime game 56-49.
In 1997, Donnan did what he was hired to do. From 1993-to-1996, Georgia didn’t win more than six games in any season, but in 1997 the Bulldogs went 10-2 and upset the defending National Champion Florida Gators 37-17. Georgia ended the year with a 33-6 win over Wisconsin in the Outback Bowl.
In 1998, Georgia took a step backwards with a 9-3 finish and their first loss to Georgia Tech since 1990. Georgia did defeat Virginia in the Peach Bowl however. In 1999, the Bulldogs took another step in the wrong direction with an 8-4 finish and another loss to Georgia Tech. The Bulldogs salvaged their season with a 28-25 comeback victory over Purdue in the Outback Bowl.
Donnan was fired after the 2000 season when Georgia finished 8-4 again. He did remain undefeated in bowl games with a 37-14 win over Virginia in the O’ahu Bowl.
His record in Athens wasn’t awful, in five years he went 40-19 and 25-15 in the SEC. But he lost to the wrong teams. Under Donnan, Georgia went 1-4 against Florida and Tennessee, and 2-3 against Georgia Tech and Auburn.
His career head coaching record was 104-40 with a Division 1-AA national title. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2009.
6. H.J. Stegeman
Herman James Stegeman may be most known for his time at Georgia as a basketball coach, but he was pretty good in three seasons as head coach of Georgia football.
Stegeman came to Georgia in 1919 to coach Georgia basketball, and he was a football assistant coach under W. A. Cunningham. he led the basketball team to a 9-7 record in 1919 while the football team went 4-2-3 in Cunningham’s last season.
In 1920 he assumed the head coaching role for Georgia football and led the team to their best season in their short history. Georgia went 8-0-1 and won the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association Championship. Meanwhile, Stegeman led the basketball team to a 13-4 season and also became head coach of Georgia’s baseball and track teams.
In 1921, the Bulldogs went 7-2-1 and finished in a tie for first place in the SIAA. and the basketball team went 10-5. In his last season as head football coach, the team went 5-4-1. Stegeman became athletic director after the 1920 football season and rained head coach of the basketball team until 1931 and of the track and field team until 1937.
His best season as basketball coach was his last in 1931. The Bulldogs went 23-2 that year. In 1936, he was the personal track coach for Forrest “Spec” Towns in the Olympics. Towns went on to win a gold medal in the 110 meter hurdles. In 1937, Towns and Stegeman led Georgia to an SEC Championship.
Stegeman’s record as head football coach in three years was 20-6-3 while his basketball record was 170-78. And of course, Stegeman Coliseum is named after coach Stegeman.
5. W.A. Cunningham
Today we know Georgia football has one of the best and most respected programs in the country. The Bulldogs have won two consensus national titles and a share of three more. They’ve won 12 SEC Championships and 13 conference titles overall.
Two Heisman winners have played for Georgia, numerous other award winners, hall of famers and All-American’s.
But for the first 18 years of Georgia football, the program was anything but successful. Between 1892-and-1909, Georgia had 13 different head coaches and a record of 47-52-10.
But Georgia’s fortune changed in 1910 when William Alexander Cunningham became head coach in 1910. . The effects were felt immediately. Before then, Georgia had never won more than five games in a season, that year the Bulldogs finished 6-2-1. That team also outscored opponents 281-52 with five shutouts.
Things got better in 1911 when the team captained by “Kid” Woodruff finished 7-1-1 and outscored teams 147-28, shutting-out five of them.
Their domination of southern college football continued for two more seasons. They finished 6-1-1 in 1912 and outscored opponents 151-80. The 1913 squad, captained by Georgia’s first All-American Bob McWhorter, finished 6-2 and had outscored teams 243-55.
The only blemish on Georgia’s record in those first four years was the 0-3 record against Vanderbilt who, in that same span of time, had a record of 29-5-2.
Georgia fell to 3-5-1 in 1914 before going 5-2-2 in 1915 and 6-3 in 1916. Georgia didn’t play football in 1917 and 1918 while America fought in World War I. Cunningham joined the Army during the time of war.
He and Georgia football returned in 1919 and they finished that season 4-2-3. Cunningham left after that season to rejoin the Army where he eventually achieved the rank of general.
In eight seasons as head coach at Georgia, Cunningham went 43-18-9 and he only had one losing season. Beyond that, Georgia won 36 games by shutout and a total of 48 games where they held opponents to under 10 points.
4. George Woodruff
From 1910-22, Cunningham and Stegeman had turned Georgia football into one of the top programs in the south. So in 1923, when former team captain Georgia “Kid” Woodruff became head coach, he had big shoes to fill.
But that didn’t seem to be a problem for Woodruff who at the end of his five years as head coach led Georgia to their first national championship.
In 1923, Woodruff led Georgia to a 5-3-1 record and in 1924 they finished 7-3. After finished 4-5 and 5-4 in 1925 and 1926 respectively, Georgia became a championship program with a 9-1 season in 1927.
Their only blemish that year was a 12-0 loss to Georgia Tech that snapped a nine-game win streak and ruined their shot at a consensus national title. But two national polls (Poling and Boand) recognized Georgia as National Champions.
He retired as head coach after 1927 to focus on his insurance business.
His career record at Georgia was 30-16-1 and he left one of the biggest legacies of anyone in Georgia football history. The basketball arena Georgia played in for many years was named Woodruff Hall in honor of him and his brother, Harry “Big Kid” Woodruff. Georgia’s outdoor practice field is also named in his honor.
Despite only coaching for five seasons, he had a pretty prestigious coaching tree. To run the Notre Dame Box offense at Georgia, he hired Harry Mehre, Frank Thomas and Jim Crowley as assistant coaches.
Mehre went on to become head coach at Georgia (where he came in at no. 8 on this list). Thomas spent 16 seasons as head coach at Alabama and won four SEC Championships and two national championships. Crowley went on to coach at Michigan State, Fordham and North Carolina Pre-Flight where we accumulated a career record of 86-23-11.
3. Wally Butts
Throughout the 1910’s, 20’s and 30’s, the Georgia football program continued to progress. They went from a losing program in their first 18 years, to a program with a conference title and a share of a national title in their following 30.
But then came a coach who took Georgia to an even higher level in 1939. Wally Butts came to Athens in 1938 as an assistant to Joel Hunt after 10 years as a high school head coach in Georgia. He became head coach in 1939 when Hunt left to become head coach of Wyoming.
Butts’s first year at Georgia was a rough 5-6 campaign and they weren’t much better in 1940, finishing 5-4-1. But in 1941 Georgia began moving in the right direction with a 9-1-1 season, their only loss that year was to Alabama.
In 1942, 50 years after the Georgia football program was established, Wally Butts led Georgia to their first consensus national championship. That team featured Heisman winner Frank Sinkwich and future Maxwell Award winner Charlie Trippi (who were both ranked third and second respectively on DotD’s Top 10 running back’s list).
They also defeated UCLA 9-0 in Georgia’s only appearance in the Rose Bowl.
The team was mostly dismantled after 1942 because of World War II. In 1943, the Bulldogs finished 6-4 and 0-3 in the SEC. They improved in 1944 and finished 7-3.
By the end of 1945 the Bulldogs were back in their pre-WWII form. The Bulldogs went 9-2 that year and shutout rivals Georgia Tech, Florida, Clemson and Auburn. Trippi returned halfway through the year to join freshman quarterback Johnny Rauch.
In 1946, Georgia had arguably their best season in program history to that point. They finished the year 11-0. They were named national champions by the Williamson poll and Trippi won the Maxwell Award while finished second in the Heisman voting.
Two years later, the Bulldogs won their third SEC title in seven years by going 9-2 and a perfect 6-0 in SEC play.
The next decade was mostly hit or miss for the Bulldogs. From 1949-to-58, Georgia never won the SEC Championship. Their best years were a 7-4 season in 1952 and a 6-3-1 season in 1953.
Butts had one last great season in 1959. Led by captain running back Dan Soberdash and quarterbacks Charley Britt and Fran Tarkenton, the Bulldogs finished 10-1 and won the SEC Championship. An early season loss to South Carolina kept Georgia from playing for a national title.
Butts retired after the 1960 season with a record of 140-86-9, all at Georgia. He led the Bulldogs to four SEC titles and two national titles (one consensus and one shared). He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1997.
2. Mark Richt
While Georgia had climbed out of mediocrity under Jim Donnan, the Bulldogs weren’t considered championship contenders. In the SEC East, they were behind Florida and Tennessee. At the time the Bulldogs were also having problems defeating their rivals.
So when Athletic Director Vince Dooley needed someone to bring the program back to its former glory, he hired Mark Richt who had been the offensive coordinator of Florida State. Richt coached two Heisman winning quarterbacks at Florida State and the Seminoles won two national titles in the 1990’s.
The impact of Richt coming to Athens was immediate. The Bulldogs went 8-4 in 2001, no better than previous years, but Georgia did defeat a top-5 Tennessee team in Knoxville on a last-minute drive by David Greene that produced one of the Bulldog Nation’s favorite radio calls from Larry Munson.
But 2002 signalled the resurrection of the Georgia football program. They finished the year 13-1, won their first SEC Championship Game, winning their first conference title since 1982. The 2002 season also so the rise of David Pollack who earned All-American honors as a sophomore. By his senior year, he had become Georgia’s second three-time All-American.
Georgia returned to the SEC Championship game a year later in a losing effort to LSU to finish the year 10-3.
An upset loss to Tennessee early in the 2004 season kept Georgia from playing for that years SEC title, but Georgia returned to Atlanta in 2005 and defeated LSU to win their second SEC Championship in four years.
Georgia struggled in the middle of the 2006 season which was plagued by quarterback issues. And things were beginning to look bad in 2007 when Georgia began the year 4-2. But with quarterback Matthew Stafford and running back Knowshon Moreno, Richt righted the ship. Georgia finished the regular season 10-2, but early SEC losses kept them out of the SEC title game.
After an upset heavy championship weekend, Richt’s Dawgs looked to have a shot at playing for a national title. But the BCS chose 11-2 LSU instead (who had ended the regular season 4-2), despite winning conference title games not being a prerequisite for going to the national title before that year.
The following three years were a rough patch for Richt’s time at Georgia. In 2008, Georgia started the year at no. 1, but they lost three games that year and ended up 10-3. In 2009, Georgia finished 8-5 and in 2010 Georgia fell to 6-7. At that point Coach Richt was considered to be on the hotseat.
That seat got hotter after starting the 2011 season 0-2 with losses to South Carolina and Boise State. But Georgia, led by quarterback Aaron Murray won 10-straight games to return to the SEC Championship game. Georgia lost that game and their subsequent bowl game to end the year 10-4, but it was a vast improvement from 6-7.
The 2012 team was Georgia’s last to get close to a national championship. After an 11-1 regular season, Georgia lost to Alabama after Murray’s pass was deflected to receiver Chris Conley as time expired. Georgia ended the year with a win in the Capital One Bowl to end the season 12-2.
An injury riddled 2013 finished the season 8-5, but the Bulldogs managed to win 10 games in each of their last two seasons under Richt. However, Athletic Director Greg McGarity elected to fire Richt after the end of the 2015 season.
In 2016, Richt returned to his alma mater Miami to fill their head coaching vacancy.
In 15 years in Athens, Richt went 145-51 overall and 83-37 in the SEC. Georgia also won two SEC Championships, six SEC Eastern Division Championships and he had 9-5 record in Bowl games. After one year at Miani, his record is 154-55 and 10-5 in bowl games.
1. Vince Dooley
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Who else was going to be no. 1 on this list? Vince Dooley spent 40 years at the University of Georgia and 25 seasons as head coach. While is biggest impact was felt on the football field, he had a major impact on every sport at Georgia as athletic director.
Dooley was hired as head coach in 1964 after Johnny Griffith stepped down with a record of 10-16-3 in three seasons. In his first season, the Bulldogs finished 7-4. By 1966, the Bulldogs were SEC Champions again with a 10-1 record with a 6-0 record in SEC play.
He led Georgia to another SEC crown in 1968 with an 8-1-2 team. The Litkenhouse poll named Georgia as national champions after the season. The next two seasons were rough for Dooley’s Dawgs but in 1971, they finished 11-1 with their only loss coming to Auburn who was led by heisman winner Pat Sullivan.
Georgia won their third SEC title in 11 season in 1976. That team, led by Georgia’s first 1,000-yard rusher Kevin McLee and quarterbacks Matt Robinson and Ray Goff, finished the year 10-2, but a Sugar Bowl loss to Pittsburgh ended Georgia’s national title hopes.
The height of Vince Dooley’s career in Athens was from 1980-to-1983. Georgia had a record of 43-4-1 in those four years. They won three straight SEC Championships from 1980-to1982. Their best year was 1980, led by freshman Herschel Walker. The Bulldogs won their second consensus national title and ended the year 12-0. Walker went on to win the Heisman trophy in 1982.
In his last five years as head coach, Dooley never got closer to an SEC or national title. He retired after defeating Michigan State in the 1989 Gator Bowl. He had a career record of 201-77-10 with a 104-42-4 record in SEC play and a 8-10-2 bowl record. His Bulldogs won six SEC Championships and two national championships (one consensus and one shared).
The College Football Hall of Fame inducted Vince Dooley in 1994.