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Most wins in college football history: Where Alabama, others rank among NCAA's biggest winners all time originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The future of college football is ever-changing in an era of conference realignment, NIL and booster money. The past, however, is vast and unchanging.
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From the earliest games in the late 19th century, to the development of the Heisman Trophy in 1935, to the BCS era, all the way through to the College Football Playoff era, a few prominent programs stand out among the rest in the win column.
Many of the winningest teams in college football are hardly a surprise, but a few offer a window into a much different part of the sport’s history.
Here’s a complete look at which programs have the most wins in college football history.
MORE: Everything to know about College Football Playoff format
Who has the most wins in college football history?
Michigan is the winningest team in the history of college football with 1,022 victories. The Wolverines’ all-time record as of the end of the 2025 regular season is 1,022-361-36, a winning percentage of .733.
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The Wolverines passed Yale to become college football’s winningest team in 2001, though they already held the record for most wins at the Division I-A (FBS) level.
Michigan founded its program in 1879 and, in 1896, was a founding member of the conference that would later become the Big Ten. The wins started piling up quickly for the Wolverines, as they went 112-9-3 from 1894 to 1905.
To this day, Michigan has only 17 losing seasons to its name, including just four since 1970.
MORE:Explaining the Sherrone Moore scandal at Michigan
Most wins in college football by school
Here are the top 15 teams on college football's all-time wins list:
Rank | School | Wins |
1 | Michigan | 1,022 |
2 | Ohio State | 990 |
3 | Alabama | 984 |
4 | Notre Dame | 972 |
5 | Texas | 970 |
6 | Oklahoma | 960 |
7 | Yale (FCS) | 952 |
8 | Penn State | 949 |
9 | Nebraska | 931 |
10 | Harvard (FCS) | 918 |
11 | Georgia | 904 |
12 | USC | 891 |
13 | Penn (FCS) | 888 |
14 | Tennessee | 883 |
15 | Mount Union (D-3) | 879 |
Michigan became the first team to reach 1,000 wins with a victory in 2023, but Ohio State and Alabama trail relatively close behind and are closing in on the 1,000 mark themselves.
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The all-time wins leaderboard includes three Ivy League schools now playing at the FCS level in Yale, Harvard and Penn, while Division III Mount Union cracks the top 15 with 879 wins.
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Who has won the most national championships in football?
Rounding up exact national championship totals can be tricky in college football because there are plenty of years in which multiple teams claimed a national title, but here is a look at the top 10 in the sport's history:
College | Championships | Years |
Yale | 18 | 1874, 1876, 1877, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1886, 1887, 1888, 1891, 1892, 1894, 1900, 1907, 1909, 1927 |
Alabama | 16 | 1925, 1926, 1930, 1961, 1964, 1965, 1978, 1979, 1992, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2017, 2020 |
Princeton | 15 | 1869, 1870, 1872, 1873, 1878, 1879, 1880, 1885, 1889, 1893, 1896, 1903, 1906, 1911, 1922 |
Notre Dame | 13 | 1919, 1924, 1929, 1930, 1943, 1946, 1947, 1949, 1964, 1966, 1973, 1977, 1988 |
Michigan | 10 | 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1918, 1923, 1933, 1948, 1997, 2023 |
USC | 10 | 1931, 1932, 1962, 1967, 1972, 1974, 1978, 2003, 2004 |
Ohio State | 10 | 1942, 1954, 1957, 1961, 1968, 1970, 2002, 2014, 2024 |
Harvard | 8 | 1875, 1890, 1898, 1899, 1910, 1912, 1913, 1919 |
Oklahoma | 7 | 1950, 1955, 1956, 1974, 1975, 1985, 2000 |
Minnesota | 6 | 1934, 1935, 1936, 1940, 1941, 1960 |
Yale leads the way with 18 national championships, but the Bulldogs last won in 1927 and now play at the FCS level. Alabama leads all current FBS programs with 16 titles, including six under Nick Saban.
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