LSU football coaches history: Top 5 coaches who made significant contributions to Tigers' football program

The LSU Tigers are one of the most historic college football programs in the nation, and in their history, they have had plenty of high-level coaches. But five have stood out for having the greatest impact on the program.

LSU has won four claimed national championships and as many unclaimed national titles. However, they haven't won since 2019, and the Tigers don't appear to be close right now either.

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Top five LSU coaches

#5 Charles McClendon

Charles McClendon was the coach of the LSU Tigers from 1962 to 1979. Although he's one of the top coaches in LSU's history, he's No. 5 because he never won a national championship with the program.

McClendon went 137-59-7 over 18 years but had just one conference title and zero national championships. Although LSU was a solid team every year he was the coach, the knock on him was not winning a championship.

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#4 Ed Orgeron

Ed Orgeron won the national title in 2019.

Ed Orgeron coaches LSU from 2016 until 2021 and was the coach of the 2019 team, which was the last time the Tigers won the national championship.

Orgeron never had a losing season at LSU, although he did have two .500 seasons on the dot, he was never below it. In his coaching career at LSU, he was able to recruit and land the likes of Joe Burrow, Ja'Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson, who all put LSU back on the map.

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#3 Paul Dietzel

Paul Dietzel was the coach of LSU from 1955 until 1961 and led the Tigers to a national championship in 1958.

Dietzel had his struggles early on, as he went 3-5-2, then 3-7 and then 5-5 in his first three years before an 11-0 season to win the national championship. He had to completely rebuild LSU and turned them into a national champion in just four years.

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#2 Nick Saban

Nick Saban is most known for his career at Alabama, but he had a legendary five-year run at LSU.

Saban was the coach of the Tigers from 2000 until 2004 and led the school to a national championship in 2003 and a conference title in 2001. In his career, he went 48-16 but Saban isn't No. 1 because his time at LSU was short-lived.

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#1 Les Miles

Les Miles had seven seasons, winning 10+ games, including winning a national championship in 2007.

Although the ending of Miles' tenure wasn't the best due to the vacated wins, he still had a solid career with the Tigers. During his time in LSU, he appeared in 12 bowl games and won eight and never had a season where he lasted under eight games.