Finding The Worst College Football Team

[Music] every college football program goes through down periods periods that feel hopeless and never ending periods where it feels like you were watching the absolute bottom of the barrel worst football in the nation I know I've felt it constantly for the past 3 years but it's hyperb right more often than not your team isn't actually the worst team ever hell they're likely not even the worst team in your conference but if they're not what team is every year there are programs whose down periods transition into a full-on collapse a 21 or no win season these cases usually only happen once maybe twice a season but when they do they are truly a sight to behold these teams are not created equal however some are better than others there is a worst college football team ever and today I've set out to find [Music] it first some qualifiers only major conferences are going to be judged here partially due to them just being more entertaining to pick apart these programs usually have the capital support and Personnel to be serviceable at at least as opposed to smaller schools who buy large La some or all of those resources in other words it feels more fair to on say Colorado than Florida International also I'm lazy there's that secondly the sample size will be extending back to the year 2000 because past then year-long stats become more and more sparse for instance 1997 Illinois has every single detail of their abysmal windless season readily available while 1999 South Carolina has nothing likely out of embarrassment some 21st century it is finally the programs judged will be the teams with the worst overall record on the year if two teams have identical bad records both are judged with these parameters set how will these programs actually be judged let me introduce you to the formula ma in house coupled together with duct tape and a dream the formula is my personal means of deriving the quality of a football program the basic formula is this offensive efficiency times a defensive efficiency multiplier plus special teams efficiency times the team's record plus one times the strength of schedule percentile how do you get each component well glad you asked offensive efficiency is total offensive yards per game plus points per game divided by offensive turnovers per game defensive efficiency is total yards per game divided by the opponent's average yards per game times defensive turnovers per game special teams efficiency is just punt average plus kick return average plus punt return average times field goal percentage record is self-explanatory wins over games played finally strength of scheduled percentiles calculated by dividing the total number of games played by the average end ofe rank of each team played divided by total games played like that we have a quantifiable means to judge team's quality so let's start on the complete opposite end of the spectrum what would one of the best teams ever rank 2019 LSU boasted perhaps the most dominant college offense ever which combined with a solid offense and a tough schedule gave the bayu Bengals a final score of 1,873 28 this is by and large the ceiling what every program should strive for yet not every team can be this good what we need instead is an average these are the 2017 Iowa hawkey a team I randomly chose because they sounded boring the 2017 Pinstripe Bowl champions the most notable thing to happen to this team was a miraculous upset of top five Ohio State under the hood those stats back up how average this team was the offense was mediocre the defense was solid special teams were good the only thing truly miraculous was the surprisingly brutal strength of schedule giving this team a total score of [Music] 472991120 before zooming the long untouched remains of these horrid Seasons let's take a minute to slander the conferences instead in total 36 teams were judged with all major conferences of the 21st century being represented at the bottom is the SEC and Big East each with three teams in the sample in terms of unique programs the SEC is also near the bottom with two while the Big East curiously had each of its Representatives be unique programs next is the ACC in Big 12 both with six total worst teams and both having two unique programs represented next is the Big 10 with eight total teams and six unique programs and finally there's the Pack 12 standing at the top of mountain with 10 total representatives and six unique programs an impressive lack of [Music] performance standing as the the best of the worst meet the 2003 Temple Owls compiling a surprisingly decent offensive and defensive efficiency score the owls were probably the most unlucky team in the sample throughout their 1 in1 season three of their losses W into overtime including against number 12 Virginia Tech there also blowouts including a 52 to4 loss to number two Miami and their schedule was as a whole pretty weak but had it been a little sunnier in Philadelphia they likely wouldn't be in this sample of absolute worst teams thankfully for temple they had improved the next year to 2 and N before getting kicked out of the Big East the next year putting to rest the power six stint Temple never really had the resources to afford finishing out the top 30 are more terrible teams with various bright spots to keep them from descending further 2010 Washington state had an almost serviceable defense and offense have brought them a win out of nowhere from Oregon State 2014 Colorado had an offense strong enough to not only bring them to wins but bring them into overtime and two of their losses each are bad teams but reasonably could have pulled off enough wins to not be the absolute worst their respective Seasons had to offer that benefit of the doubt goes away pretty quickly in the 20s you see a lot of oneand done teams programs whose absolute Rock bottoms are shown here and they never return 2007 Minnesota 2013 Cal and 2005 Syracuse come to mind there's also another much more recent Colorado team here 2022 Colorado was bad there's a reason the University was willing to take a chance on Dion Sanders after this disaster class of a season yet they rank fairly High here why well it's not their offens and defensive stats was rank among the worst of the sample it's partially their fluke overtime win over Cal that kept them from going winless yet the biggest thing inflating their score is their absolutely brutal strength of schedule of their opponents none were FCS schools their lone group of five game was against an Air Force Squad that finish the year with double digit wins and seven of their 12 opponents finished the season ranked three of which in the top 10 their strength of schedule percentile ranked the highest among the sample size which begs the question how much of Colorado's failings were on the gauntlet the Pack 12 has been the past 2 years considering they're here two other times probably not a ton but who knows at least it helps Colorado escape the abyss for now in the teens you start to see something interesting some of these teams appear in back-to-back Seasons Duke from 2005 to 07 and 200 to 01 Kansas from 2015 to 2017 ruter from 2018 to 2019 going into the top 10 2009 to 2010 Washington State and shockingly some of these get worse over time Washington state made an improvement from 2009 to 2010 owing primarily to a better offense and slightly better record and it's a similar story with Duke from 2005 to 2007 and 2001 but the rest for whatever reason refused to improve on any front ruter went from having a mediocre defense and terrible offense to a terrible offense and terrible defense and Kansas took a small step forward between 2015 to 16 to then the bed in 2017 it's here you also see the Irish national champions 2022 Northwestern and the only instance where two of the worst teams of the Year actually played each [Music] other in 2017's college rendition of a tank Bowl 2017 Kansas whose lone win came against Southeastern Missouri State faced off against 2017 Baylor a program still reeling from art B's controversy filled exit from the program overall the 2017 bears were relatively all right with an offense okay enough to keep them in some games while The Jayhawks on the other hand were horrible on all fronts even among bad teams there's no parody and Baylor would decisively beat Kansas to notch their only win of the Season entering the top five we enter into the realm of unimaginably bad they will collectively have a record of 3 and 54 including two losses to FCS schools and one whole Conference win they are in actuality the worst teams in college football God forbid their names be repeated two years removed from New York six bid and finishing the top 15 2003 Illinois is officially the worst Big 10 team of the 21st century and they did so with one of the worst defenses in the sample holding their opponents to an abysmal average of 426.7 yards per game and managing less than a turnover per game shockingly this season didn't even start that bad with fairly competitive losses to Missouri UCLA and Cal along with beating their FCS team Illinois State starting with conference play though the fighting Eli began to fight less and less any team with a pulse would demolish them with their only competitive Big 10 loss being a 14- 17 point loss to fellow single win team Indiana it's a horrid team that has largely been forgotten for a very very very good reason 2002 ruter is the Bigg East worst team in their final stretch of relevance with the Scarlet Knights charging fourth with the 21st Century's worst offense remember back to 2019 LSU's offensive efficiency of 771.00 the mark of a historic offensive performance 2002 ruter on the other hand has a 71.2 two offensive score less than a tenth of what the Tigers were able to accomplish 13.9 points per game and 3.2 offensive turnovers per game what's horrifying though is this could have been so so much worse 2002 ruter had one win not against their FCS cupcake Villanova they lost to them 37 to9 no it was against fellow one11 team army winning 44 to0 how did this happen I'm not exactly sure removed that game from the season though and they average 11.12 points per game it goes without saying that conference play was a Slaughter even for an extremely top heavy Big East they got murdered from everyone from number one Miami to Boston College ruers as a program appeared on this list four separate times yet this dumpster fire stands alone going closer to the modern day we get to 2021 Arizona somehow beating out every horrible 20110 Colorado team as one of the worst Pack 12 teams ever the wild cats boasted the worst defense in the sample being the only team to get a defensive multiplier of less than one this primarily is due to their allergy to turning over the ball managing to do so on average once every two games the worst among Ong the sample this naturally translated to a lot of losses including an Infamous loss at home to instate FCS program Northern Arizona na would go 5 and six that Year by the way somehow Arizona would also gain the bottom five's only Conference win with Cal once more stepping in and handing an almost winless Pack 12 team their only win who knew how generous Berkeley could be and then we reach our top two the worst teams ever both however could be argued to be the worst teams of the sample for reasons I'll get into both are winless both have some of the worst offenses and defenses of the 21st century and both are a pain in the ass to watch these are the worst teams in college football God forbid you ever had to watch them live 2020 Vanderbilt was an anomaly among a year full of anomalies the commodor as in SEC football Watcher or a team I expected to be on this list significantly more yet year after year they're usually able to Cobble together three or more wins from group of five cupcakes and other bad SEC teams even their one previous appearance for their 2010 season still ranks fairly high but here's Randy right at the bottom with an overall score of 50.5 2 despite starting off strong only losing by five to a really solid Texas A&M they be blown out across the rest of their all conference covid schedule finishing the season 0 and9 their abysmal score is partially due to The Usual Suspects horrid offense and defense yet what really plunges them to the bottom and what puts an asterisk on their claim as the worst team ever is their strength of schedule it's the worst of the sample only two of their nine opponents finishing ranked and the rest finishing in the bottom half of the country yet the sample size was made intentionally short due to the co year and so many other outside forces affected much of the Season that I'm willing to almost give this AAL team the benefit of the down the other worst team however has no Saving Grace no benefit of the down and is in my opinion the worst team in the modern era of college football 2004 Washington was the worst team of the Year putting together a horrible 1 in 10 record that ended up getting head coach Keith Gilbertson fired bringing in new head coach Tyrone Willingham to clean up the mes Gilberts and left behind for 3 years the program languished Willingham failed to put together a single winning season and in 2008 his job was on the line it was a make or break year for him in the Huskies he tried to pull from the abyss and it's here where he created his Masterpiece 0 and 12 the only windless season in Washington football history and the worst team of the 21st century starting off strong with blowout losses to Oregon and Oklahoma willingham's Titanic finally sunk in a 33-7 loss to a pretty mediocre Notre Dame where he was finally shown the door their final winnable game of the season would be against a one- win Washington State in their annual apple cup nicknamed the crapple Cup and the press for obvious reasons the game lived up to the hype as an absolutely disgust in display what football can be going up by 10 in the first half the Huskies would allow the Cougars to get back in it in the second half sending the game into overtime at 1010 What followed was a thrilling field goal duel which is funny considering 2008 Washington made an average of 53% of their field goals and sure enough Washington state would pull it out 16 to13 the huskys would finish the year with a final score of 51 .88 just above the co commodor with no worldwide pandemic to blame for their performance it's rock bottom not just for the University of Washington but for college football as a whole there was truly no place to go but up 8 years later Washington would go from the absolute bottom of the barrel to the second Pack 12 team to reach the playoffs and while they've been up and down since then they seem poised to make another run for the playoffs in 2023 as one of the best teams in the nation you can also look back 13 years prior to their 04 skid that brought them to their Infamous 08 campaign they stood at top the nation as that year's National Champion alongside Miami but that's neither here nor there point is even when your team is actually the worst team in the nation maybe of all time the moment will always be ephemeral it feels like for forever but the great thing about college ball is how common it is to tear something down start from scratch and have a shot at creating something great this extends beyond the Pacific Northwest too 2022 Northwestern was just 2 years removed from winning their division Colorado's bad years stand in stark contrast to the Midwest Powerhouse they were at the beginning of the 2000s and the 2016 Virginia Cavaliers were 3 years away from winning their division and securing a New York 6 birth no team even the worst are bad forever these moments of painful horrible football just make the eventual triumphs all the sweeter and to those without success well at least there's still basketball

Channel: EMPIRE

Views: 109,711

Keywords: College, Football, American Football, Duke, Virginia, Kansas, Rutgers, SEC, Big 12, Big 10, PAC 12, ACC, Big East, Colorado, Deion Sanders, Prime Time, Prime, Washington, Washington State, Huskies, Jayhawks, Blue Devils, NCAA, Sports, Video Essay, Ohio State, LSU, Iowa, Hawkeyes, Florida, Vanderbilt, Illinois, Arizona, Northwestern, Wildcats, Temple, Owls, Phillidelphia, Always, Sunny, AAC, Worst, Bad, Horrible, Even, Blood Meridian, Judge, :), Running Out of Tags, Out of Touch, Out of Time

Id: jqCk4mlbhHY

Length: 19min 45sec (1185 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 15 2023