There are no two positions in all of college football more important than the head coach and the starting quarterback, and when a team has a star at both positions, it is often in a position to contend for a championship.

With that in mind, here are the most legendary coach-quarterback combinations in the history of the SEC:

Urban Meyer & Tim Tebow

Years: Three (2007-09)

Record: 35-6 (including 2008 SEC and BCS championships)

Breakdown: Meyer and Tebow’s tandem at Florida actually spanned four seasons, beginning with the Gators BCS championship season in 2006. Tebow was a key role player on that team, but Chris Leak was the starting quarterback, which is why we begin measuring the Meyer-Tebow duo in 2007, Tebow’s first year as the starter. In three years Meyer and Tebow led Florida to another BCS title in 2008, the ’08 SEC title and the ’09 SEC East crown. Meyer, who has worked with his fair share of star quarterbacks at Utah, Florida and now Ohio State, helped Tebow win the 2007 Heisman Trophy, and together they formed the SEC East’s last great dynasty before the power swung to Alabama and the SEC West beginning in 2009.

Steve Spurrier & Danny Wuerffel

Years: Four (1993-96)

Record: 45-6-1 (including four straight SEC titles and the 1996 national championship)

Breakdown: Wuerffel was a four-year starter for the Gators in the mid-1990s, and many consider him the best in a long line of Steve Spurrier quarterbacks through the years. Wuerffel and Spurrier led Florida to four straight SEC championships during Wuerffel’s four years as the starter, which should indicate just how dominant this tandem was in its heyday. They also won the 1996 national championship, the only national title of Spurrier’s illustrious coaching career. The Spurrier-Wuerffel Florida teams never lost more than twice in any one season and they won at least 10 games all four seasons. Wuerffel still ranks in the top 3 in Florida history in attempts, completions and yards, and he still maintains the school record for career touchdown passes with 114 (Leak is the next closest with 88). They may have only won one title, but the Spurrier-Wuerffel era remains one of the best in Gators history.

Paul “Bear” Bryant & Joe Namath

Years: Three (1962-64)

Record: 29-4 (including 1964 SEC and national championships)

Breakdown: Before he was Broadway Joe, earning fame for guaranteeing and then winning Super Bowls against fellow Hall of Fame quarterbacks, Joe Namath was a star quarterback at Alabama. He remains, in the eyes of many, the best quarterback Bear Bryant ever coached, and if you’re familiar with Bryant’s legacy it’s not hard to understand how prestigious an honor that truly is. Namath led Alabama’s 1964 squad to conference and national titles, and while his numbers from the 1960s won’t look impressive by today’s standards (2,713 career passing yards, 24 touchdowns and 20 interceptions) they were phenomenal for that time period. Namath’s years are just another chapter in Bryant’s enormous championship-laden legacy, but it is one of the best chapters, if not the best, in the book.

Nick Saban & A.J. McCarron

Years: Three (2011-13)

Record: 36-4 (including 2011 and 2012 BCS championships and 2012 SEC championship)

Breakdown: McCarron was never the most popular quarterback in college football, and his legacy as a quarterback was never held with the same high regard as Saban’s coaching legacy in the SEC. Still, McCarron took over as the Tide’s starter two years removed from Saban’s first national title in Tuscaloosa, and together he and Saban formed a dynamic duo that dominated the national landscape of college football for a three-year stretch. They lost once in 2011 to a historically good LSU defense, costing Alabama a shot at an SEC title, but Saban and McCarron avenged the loss by beating LSU in the BCS title game. The Tide repeated as champions (and won the 2012 SEC title) a year later, and it took a miraculous Kick Six in the 2013 Iron Bowl to keep Alabama from playing for a three-peat. McCarron would go on to win the Maxwell Award and finish as the 2013 Heisman runner-up, thanks in large part to Saban and the team he put together for McCarron to lead. Together, they worked in harmony and the results are tough to argue with. As far as dynasties go, Alabama’s has been the nation’s most recent, and also one of its best ever.

Kevin Sumlin & Johnny Manziel

Years: Two (2012-13)

Record: 20-6

Breakdown: Aside from handing Alabama its only loss of the 2012 season (in Tuscaloosa no less, which was an amazing feat), the tandem of Manziel and Sumlin never won much more than Manziel’s 2012 Heisman Trophy, marking the first time a freshman has ever won the award. Manziel has assumed the reputation of a party boy off the field, and to this point in his post-high school football career only Sumlin has been able to strike a balance with Manziel regarding work on the field and fun off it. The Aggies head coach found out just how long a leash to give Manziel, and by the end of their time together they were working in harmony in a manner reminiscent of the relationship between Allen Iverson and Larry Brown, for those NBA fans reading this. Sumlin made so much of Manziel’s college career possible, and that career entailed the Heisman and the win in Tuscaloosa, one of the great SEC victories in recent memory.

Mark Richt & David Greene

Years: Four (2001-04)

Record: 42-10 (including 2002 SEC championship)

Breakdown: Greene assumed the Bulldogs’ starting job as a freshman in 2001, the same year Richt debuted as the Dawgs’ head coach. Together the tandem began laying the foundation for the Richt era at Georgia, an era that has now resulted in the SEC’s longest active tenure by one coach at one school (14 years). Greene threw for at least 2,500 yards and at least 13 touchdowns in each of his four seasons, leaving Georgia with more than 11,000 yards and 72 touchdowns against only 32 interceptions. Greene is now second in Georgia history in attempts, completions, yards and touchdowns, trailing only Aaron Murray in all three categories, but unlike Murray, Greene was able to win Richt his first SEC title in 2002. So much of what Richt did for Greene led to his years with the likes of Murray and Matthew Stafford, and those four years of Richt and Greene are still remembered fondly in Athens.

David Cutcliffe & Peyton and Eli Manning

Years: With Peyton: 3 1/2 (1994-97 — Peyton assumed the starting role midway through the ’94 season due to injuries); With Eli: Three (2001-03)

Record: With Peyton: 40-9 (including 1997 SEC championship); With Eli: 24-13

Breakdown: David Cutcliffe had the unique honor of working with both Manning brothers at the college level. He was Phillip Fulmer’s offensive coordinator during Peyton’s years at Tennessee, and it was Cutcliffe who helped ease Manning into the SEC after he was forced into the lineup due to injuries as a true freshman in 1994. By the end of his career he was the Maxwell Award winner, the Heisman runner-up and the No. 1 draft prospect in all of college football. To this day he still spends time in the offseason working out with NFL teammates at Duke’s practice facility, where Cutcliffe currently serves as head coach. The Vols’ former OC left Knoxville to take over as the head coach at Ole Miss after Peyton left for the NFL, and he had the good fortune of employing Eli Manning as his starter for three seasons, the last of which was Ole Miss’ last 10-win season. Like Peyton, Eli went on to be the top pick in the NFL Draft, and both brothers owe Cutcliffe for much of their success in college and the NFL alike.

Hal Mumme & Tim Couch

Years: Two (1997-98)

Record: 12-11

Breakdown: Kentucky has produced plenty of No. 1 overall draft picks in its history, it’s just that most of those guys play basketball. Couch remains the lone exception, going No. 1 overall in the 1999 draft thanks to his prolific two-year career as a starter in Hal Mumme’s Air Raid offense. When Mumme debuted the offense in 1997, Couch’s first year as a starter, running the ball was still the means to success at the college level, and the option was as prolific as ever, even at title-contending powerhouse schools like Nebraska. Most figured there wasn’t enough talent at the quarterback position in college to sustain that offense, but Mumme and Couch proved those doubters wrong in two seasons together. In only 23 games under Mumme’s tutelage Couch threw for more than 8,100 yards and 73 touchdowns. Just dwell on those numbers for a moment, and you’ll realize why Couch and Mumme deserve to be on this list despite a 12-11 record together. Mumme was a pioneer through the air, and Couch was the man to prove throwing the ball often could work at the college level. You can still see the impact those two made in games played today.

Ralph Jordan & Pat Sullivan

Years: Three (1969-71)

Record: 26-7

Breakdown: To this day, no coach in Auburn history has coached or won more games at AU than Jordan, who coached for 25 seasons from 1951-75. He only won one national title and one SEC title in that time, both coming in 1957 when Auburn closed the season a perfect 10-0, but the best multi-year stretch of his career came when Pat Sullivan took over as his starting quarterback. Sullivan was Auburn’s first Heisman winner, and he was regarded as the Tigers’ greatest quarterback ever before Cam Newton led Auburn to a BCS title in 2010. Still, Sullivan was Jordan’s best player in 25 seasons on the plains, and together they won 26 of 33 games (a .788 win percentage), which was a much greater rate of success than the .660 win percentage Jordan posted for his career.

Wally Butts & John Rauch

Years: Four (1945-48)

Record: 36-8-1 (including 1946 national championship [unofficial] and 1946 and ’48 SEC championships)

Breakdown: Rauch was a four-year starter at Georgia following the conclusion of World War II, and he set what was then an NCAA record with more than 4,000 passing yards by the end of his career. He and Butts, who remains second in UGA history in wins behind only Vince Dooley, won two conference titles and claim an unofficial national title in 1946, marking one of the most successful stretches in the illustrious history of Georgia football. The tandem of Butts and Rauch won 75 percent of its games, and it wasn’t until the arrival of Herschel Walker in the 1980s that Georgia won more games in a four-year stretch.

Steve Spurrier & Connor Shaw

Years: Three (2011-13)

Record: 33-6

Breakdown: Better known for his career at Florida, Spurrier has done a marvelous job in establishing a proud football tradition at South Carolina, a school that lacked such tradition before the arrival of Lou Holtz in the late 1990s and then Spurrier in his place in 2005. Shaw remains far and away Spurrier’s best quarterback at South Carolina to this point, and in three years as a starter he and Spurrier posted three straight identical 11-2 records. The Gamecocks never appeared in an SEC championship game in that time, even at the end of a year in which it went a perfect 6-0 against its fellow East foes, but Shaw remains the winningest quarterback in school history, and his perfect 18-0 record at home is the stuff of legends. Shaw has Spurrier to thank for much of his accomplishments, and together the two turned South Carolina into one of the most respect programs in the SEC.

Gus Malzahn & Cam Newton

Years: One (2010)

Record: 14-0 (including 2010 SEC and BCS championships)

Breakdown: We now know of Malzahn’s offensive genius since he assumed the head coaching job at Auburn in 2013, but before that he was once the lesser-known offensive coordinator on Auburn’s coaching staff during Gene Chizik’s days as head man. Malzahn blossomed into one of the nation’s best coaches in 2010 when he was granted one magical year with Cam Newton, perhaps the most physically gifted quarterback the SEC has seen in a generation (save for Tebow). Operating Malzahn’s spread offense, Newton managed to throw for more than 2,800 yards and run for more than 1,400 yards, posting 52 total touchdowns with his arm and his legs on the year. Auburn never lost on its way to a BCS title, Newton went on to win the Heisman and become the No. 1 pick in the 2011 NFL Draft, and Malzahn is now one of the hottest coaching names in the country. Their one-year marriage certainly paid dividends for both parties, wouldn’t you say?