You shouldn’t take greatness for granted when it’s right in front of you, which is exactly what we have with Penn State wrestling.

Cael Sanderson and Co. have reset the record books, taking a program that won one title prior to 2011 to winning 13 of the next 15, with two four-peats and an active five-peat that’s also seen a record-breaking match winning streak.

In wrestling history, it’s up there with the old-school dynasties of Oklahoma State and Iowa, who each had streaks of seven consecutive championships in the 1940s and 1980s, respectively. In a sport as old and as dominated by a select few schools, the discussion for best wrestling dynasty is an active debate.

But where does the decade-and-a-half dominance of the Nittany Lions stack up across all varsity sports? Some sports have more parity, but there are others that have set such an impressive bar that it would take several more years of Penn State dominance to keep up with.

Football

1934-41 Minnesota: There used to be a time when Minnesota was a football powerhouse. Under head coach Bernie Bierman, the Golden Gophers won five national championships between 1934 and 1941. The original three-peat, which happened from 1934-36, saw the team go 23-1 with a lone loss on the road to No. 3 Northwestern, who won the Big Ten and beat the consensus national champions head-to-head. After a few down years, Minnesota won back-to-back titles in 1940 and 1941.

Of Minnesota’s nine top-10 draft picks all time, seven played during their pre-World War II dynasty, including 1937 No. 4 overall pick Ed Widseth and 1941 No. 6 overall pick George Franck, both selected by the New York Giants.

2009-20 Alabama: For a modern-day dynasty, look no further than Nick Saban’s tenure at Alabama, which saw the Crimson Tide win six national championships in 12 years, the most dominant stretch a program has had in a long time. Even in the years between the titles, Alabama never finished worse than 10-3, missed a New Year’s Six bowl once, and played for the National Championship another three times.

Some of the NFL players to win a title in this time: Mark Ingram II, Julio Jones, Dont’a Hightower, Trent Richardson, Eddie Lacy, C.J. Mosley, Landon Collins, Amari Cooper, Derrick Henry, Eddie Jackson, Marlon Humphery, Alvin Kamara, Minkah Fitzpatrick, Quinnen Williams, Josh Jacobs, Xavier McKinney, Jalen Hurts, Tua Tagovailoa, DeVonta Smith, Patrick Surtain II, Mac Jones, Jaylen Waddle, and Landon Dickerson.

Men’s Basketball

1964-75 UCLA: There’s no other answer in a sport with such parity than John Wooden’s unstoppable buzzsaw that won 10 titles in 12 years. Four undefeated seasons and a 335-22 record across 12 seasons. The only two times the Bruins didn’t win it all were in 1966 and 1974. The first was a transition year after Gail Goodrich and Keith Erickson graduated, and rules at the time forbade freshmen from being on varsity, which kept Lew Alcindor off the team. The freshman team, led by Alcindor, defeated the varsity team in a preseason scrimmage.

Alcindor, who changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar after he graduated, led the Bruins to three straight national titles with an 88-2 record, and it kept going after he moved on until 1974, when a stacked roster led by Hall of Famer Bill Walton lost to NC State in the National Semifinal. Despite Walton leaving for the NBA, the Bruins won one more title the following year before Wooden retired, and the dynasty fizzled out.

Women’s Basketball

2009-16 UConn: A new dynasty might be brewing in Storrs with the Huskies currently looking as unbeatable as ever during their run through the NCAA Tournament, but it’ll be hard to top Geno Auriemma’s masterpiece that turned UConn into a WNBA factory that, often times, made it look like it didn’t belong in the same division as many of its opponents.

From 2009-16, UConn won six titles in eight years and did it with four undefeated seasons and historic 111 and 90-game winning streaks. Tina Charles, Breanna Stewart, and Maya Moore took turns holding National Player of the Year hardware through the stretch. In 2016, the Huskies swept the top three picks of the WNBA Draft, the first time in any professional sport that a college has done so.

They were so dominant that beating them was treated as the biggest upset in women’s basketball history. The end of the dynasty was when their 111-game winning streak was snapped against Mississippi State in the 2017 Final Four.

Men’s Hockey:

1951-56 Michigan: Hockey has had a fair amount of parity, which has prevented dominant dynasties compared to other sports. The Wolverines once won five in six years in the 1950s, going 114-28-1 with rosters full of Olympians. The start of the dynasty in 1950-51 was probably their most dominant season, scoring a staggering 212 goals in 27 games.

2008-12 Boston College: Modern college hockey is full of future NHL talent, which is how the Eagles claimed three national titles in five years. Multiple first-round picks and stars like Chris Kreider, Brian Dumoulin, Jimmy and Kevin Hayes, Cam Atkinson, and Johnny Gaudreau powered Boston College to some miraculous midseason turnarounds, always peaking at the right time.

In 2008, the Eagles started 3-4-5 and, after a late-season skid, finished the regular season with just 17 wins, but ran the table to win nine straight to win the title. A similarly choppy season had Boston College in a funk in mid-February 2010 before it finished the season 13-0-1 en route to another championship. It didn’t need a comeback in 2011-12, going a dominant 33-10-1.

Women’s Hockey

2019-26 Wisconsin: The sting of Penn State women’s hockey’s heartbreaking defeat in the Frozen Four to Wisconsin is still too fresh to talk about, but when the Badgers got revenge on Ohio State two nights later, it continued a dynasty that’s seen them win five championships in seven (technically eight, but the 2020 NCAA Tournament was cancelled) seasons.

In a sport that’s seen three or four teams exchange long runs of dominance, Wisconsin’s recent run is at the top, thanks to the embarrassment of riches they have at their disposal. Six Olympic gold medalists suited up in the red and white during this stretch, with several others who had to settle for silver in 2022 or 2026.

Baseball

1970-74 USC: The perennial baseball powers of today might all reside in the SEC, but there was a time that California stole the show. The Trojans won five consecutive championships, dominating the Pac-8 and never losing more than 13 games until 1974, when they went 50-20. Five future MLB All-Stars played during this time: Dave Kingman, Steve Busby, Fred Lynn, Roy Smalley, and Steve Kemp.

They weren’t always dominant. The Trojans lost a game in the College World Series in four of the five years in the double-elimination bracket, but they always got it done. In 1970 and 1971, they lost their second game and had to win four consecutive games with their backs against the wall to get it done.

Softball

2021-24 Oklahoma: There are other good options for softball, namely Arizona winning five in seven years in the 1990s, but the recent run that Oklahoma has pulled off with four consecutive titles is the most impressive, especially when you factor in its historic 53-game winning streak.

Across their four-peat, the Sooners went 235-15, an unfathomable level of dominance across 250 games in a sport like this. They were finally unseated at the 2025 Women’s College World Series, when Texas Tech eliminated them in the semifinal at the end of another 59-7 season. Even still, they have a chance to extend the dynasty with a 32-2 start to 2026.

Men’s Soccer

1959-73 Saint Louis: Sports like basketball, football, and hockey just aren’t able to have one school rule over the sport for a long period of time, but there are definitely sports where that’s possible. Saint Louis won 10 titles in a 15-year span once NCAA soccer was established in 1959. Even when it wasn’t the national champion, it was always in the picture.

Of the five years Saint Louis didn’t win it all, it was the runner-up in 1961 and 1971 and finished third in 1974. It even has a claim to the 1971 title, as the team it lost to, Howard, was later forced to vacate the title due to several ineligible players. The closest men’s soccer has had to a dynasty since was Virginia’s four-peat from 1991-94.

Women’s Soccer

1982-00 North Carolina: If you want a dynasty to chase, this is it. North Carolina women’s soccer won 16 national championships in 19 years, including nine in a row. From the moment the sport joined the NCAA, it ruled over it and usually flattened teams.

The Tar Heels beat George Mason 4-0 in 1983 and 6-0 in 1993, NC State 4-1 in 1988, UConn 6-0 in 1990, Duke 9-1 in 1992, and Notre Dame 5-0 in 1994. The few times they went down, it was miraculous. George Mason upset them 2-0 in 1986. Notre Dame stunned them and ended their nine-peat with a 1-0 win in the 1995 semifinal. Florida beat them 1-0 in 1998.

Even after they stopped ruling over the sport, the Tar Heels have since won in 2003, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2012, and 2024 while being runners-up four times and losing in the semifinals three times.

Men’s Lacrosse

1992-98 Princeton: If we were doing all of college lacrosse history, Johns Hopkins would take the cake by winning 23 titles from 1898 to 1934. But in sticking to the last 50 years, Princeton’s run in the 1990s with six titles in 10 years and a three-peat in the middle comes out on top.

After never making the NCAA Tournament until 1990, the Tigers dominated the decade with their six titles, two runner-up finishes, and an additional semifinal appearance from 1992 to 2002. Most seasons, it would be a surprise to see them lose multiple games, and there were years that they’d get to the championship game and blow out their opponent, beating Maryland by 12 in 1997 and 10 in 1998.

Women’s Lacrosse

1995-01 Maryland: Seven titles in a row is rarified air that would take another two years for the wrestling team to match, but that’s what Maryland did around the turn of the millennium in women’s lacrosse. Even before the seven-peat, they lost in the title game three times in the previous five years while also claiming a championship in 1992.

2005-12 Northwestern: There’s even a more modern equivalent to the Terrapins’ dominance, as Northwestern took control of the sport with seven titles in eight years starting in 2005. The one year the Wildcats didn’t win it, they lost 13-11 in the 2010 National Championship to… Maryland.

Field Hockey

2018-23 North Carolina: Field hockey has had a few nice runs in the last 45 years. Old Dominion claimed two early three-peats from 1982-84 and 1990-92. North Carolina did it from 1995-97, while Wake Forest had its moment from 2002-04. But with all of these runs, once they ended, they ended.

The Tar Heels won titles in 2007 and 2009 and lost in the championship game another five times in the next decade before going on their run. Their dynasty was notable in another way, as historic head coach Karen Shelton retired after the 2022 season and handed the reins to a graduating senior, who became a national champion head coach at age 23.

Women’s Volleyball

2007-10 Penn State: Another Nittany Lion appearance, women’s volleyball has made history by always being in the title picture. Their immortal four-peat, which saw two undefeated seasons and a 102-match winning streak, stands alone.

In two of their four consecutive titles, the Nittany Lions swept their opponents in the National Championship. Even after they were finally taken out in the Round of 16 in 2011, they rebounded to win another pair of titles in 2013 and 2014.

Men’s Volleyball

1970-00 UCLA: It’s hard to find a specific period for a team that’s dominated the sport for a vast majority of its existence, like the Bruins have done in men’s volleyball.

They won six of the first seven titles from 1970-76 and quickly won another four in a row from 1981-84. For three entire decades, they never went more than four years without a championship, winning a staggering 18 titles in 31 seasons with four additional runner-up finishes. The rest of the NCAA appeared to figure things out after that, holding the Bruins to one title over the next 20 years.