The best college football coach of all-time before former Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban took the title was Nebraska Cornhuskers head coach Tom Osborne

Tom Osborne, the head coach of the Nebraska Cornhuskers, was regarded by many as the greatest college football coach of all time before Saban won the title. He was the only coach to win three national titles in four years prior to Saban.

Osborne finished 255–49–3 at Nebraska, and it was renowned that it was hard to live up to his legacy. After six seasons, Frank Solich, the man he had appointed to succeed him, was sacked in 2003 after going 9-3. The Cornhuskers programme hasn’t even come close to reaching its peak in the 1990s since Solich was fired.

Since Solich’s dismissal, Nebraska has not been in the top ten wins and has not finished ranked in nine seasons. The Huskers didn’t finish with more than five victories since 2016. Bo Pelini led the Huskers to nine victories every season while he was head coach, but he was sacked after seven years.

Filling the shoes of legendary head coaches is an extremely difficult task, and the two decades of mediocrity that the Nebraska Cornhuskers endured is the epitome of this concept.

Several other head coaches have struggled to follow legendary head coaches like Nick Saban of the Alabama Crimson Tide

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish under Lou Holtz is another example of a programme that struggled when a famous head coach left. While Holtz did not achieve the same level of success as Nick Saban at Alabama, he did win a national championship and end with a record of 100-30-2.