There are a lot of college football fanbases hungry for success on the gridiron. Here are the 15 most tortured.
College football fans suffer each week. The months of September through January are the most anticipated of the year for fans of the sport, but some suffer excruciating pain as they watch their favorite team struggle.
There’s even heartbreak for the perennial contenders. Last year Alabama suffered an early season loss to Ole Miss, and they were beaten by Ohio State the year before. In 2013, in-state rival Auburn burned the Crimson Tide with a kick-six with no time left in the annual Iron Bowl.
Florida State, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Baylor, Oklahoma and Stanford have all experienced some painful losses over the past few years. That’s just the way it works — not even the best of the best can contend for the national title every season.
But some fanbases are more tortured than others. Some have never seen their team win a national title, while others have waited decades for that kind of glory. Heck, some have only seen a couple conference championships in their lifetime.
Let’s take a look at the 15 college football fanbases that have been tortured most in recent years, beginning with the Oklahoma State Cowboys.
The Cowboys have been Oklahoma’s “other” team for decades, which has only been made worse by the success the Sooners have had over the years.
Oklahoma State fans have never seen their team win a national title. The Cowboys have had plenty of successful seasons under Mike Gundy, but the national crown has eluded them since the program joined the football ranks in 1901.
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In the 115 years since then, the Cowboys have won just 10 conference titles — only one of which came under Gundy — while putting together a measly four 10-win seasons in the past 28 years.
If that wasn’t enough to convince you that this fanbase really is tortured, just look at the start of the 2016 season. The Cowboys began the year ranked in the AP Poll, but hosted a pesky Central Michigan team in Week 2. They looked as if they’d done enough to win before the Chippewas scored on a last-second Hail Mary and lateral.
Oklahoma State was essentially eliminated from College Football Playoff talks in the second week of the year. It looks like it will be another national title-less year for the Cowboys.
There may not be a more overrated team heading into each season than the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Every year, they’re expected to be one of the best teams in the nation and to make a run to the national title. But it hasn’t happened since 1988.
Notre Dame fans have suffered through plenty of heartbreak over the years, and to make matters worse, some of that suffering is self-inflicted. If the Fighting Irish had joined a conference over the past decade, there’s a good chance they would have another national title or two under their belts.
Just how bad has it been for the Irish? Besides not being able to cheer for a conference title — ever — the Fighting Irish have had one true shot at a national crown in the past couple of decades, going to the 2013 BCS National Championship.
The Manti Te’o fake-girlfriend scandal took a lot of attention away from the game itself, which may have been a good thing for Notre Dame fans, as their team lost to Alabama 42-14.
The Fighting Irish are one of the most successful teams in college football, but things have gone seriously downhill since 1990. They haven’t won a title for almost 30 years and have had to put up with a string of high-profile, but ultimately disappointing coaches. Oh yeah, and Notre Dame is off to a 1-3 start to the 2016 season after beginning the year ranked No. 10.
The only team on this list (maybe: we can’t give to much away) with a national title since 2000, Miami has had success relatively recently. However, outside of the 20 years from 1983 to 2003, the Hurricanes have known only heartbreak.
The Hurricanes haven’t won so much as a conference title since 2003 and the one season they did tie for first in the ACC Coastal, they were ineligible for postseason play. The ’80s and 90’s are starting to feel like a very long time ago.
The latest torturous scandal to rock Miami was the Shapiro controversy, when a booster handed out illegal benefits to players and coaches from 2002-10. This led to postseason ineligibility and a loss of scholarships.
Some questionable coaching hires over the past decade have contributed to this lack of success, but the Hurricanes believe they have found their man in Mark Richt, a former Miami quarterback and Georgia head coach.
Since 2003, the fans have been tortured a little extra as Larry Coker, Randy Shannon, and Al Golden combined for zero 10-win seasons and seven campaigns of seven wins or fewer.
Georgia football has been home to some of the best talents college football has ever seen. Herschel Walker, Garrison Hearst, Todd Gurley, Champ Bailey and up-and-coming NFL quarterback Matthew Stafford (who really doesn’t get enough credit) have all played for the Bulldogs.
With those stars, you’d think Georgia would have more than just one national title since 1942. But it hasn’t, and so it lands at No. 12 on this list.
The Georgia Bulldogs somewhat surprisingly fired Mark Richt at the end of the 2015 season. Richt had nine 10-win seasons in 15 years and won six division titles and two SEC championships, but apparently that wasn’t good enough.
That might not seem heartbreaking at all to some fanbases on this list, but for a team that has been so close to winning it all so often, having to watch the title game from home is worse than any number of 10-loss seasons.
In fact, since 2002, the Bulldogs have been ranked in the top five at some point in the season eight times. They are considered legitimate title threats more often than not, but have never finished the job. Maybe Kirby Smart will fix that.
Yet another SEC team makes the list. For a conference that has been considered the best in college football for the past decade-plus, it’s crazy to think how miserable so many SEC fanbases have been for so long.
The Bulldogs are in one of their more successful eras, as Dan Mullen has put them on the map. Dak Prescott was a major reason Mississippi State had its third ever 10-win season back in 2014 and a nine-win campaign in 2015.
Mullen has led the Bulldogs to three seasons with nine or more wins since he took over in 2009. Mississippi State had just five before Mullen’s arrival. That’s a shockingly low number for a team in the best conference in the country that hasn’t exactly been considered a bottom-dweller recently.
Mississippi State fans have to be wondering when the pain will end. With one SEC and one SEC West title in their history, the Bulldogs have finished in the final AP Poll just twice since 2000. The 2016 campaign got off to a poor start as well, as the Bulldogs lost to South Alabama.
Sun-soaked beaches, blue skies, and perfect weather are all things that make up a destination program for top recruits — you would think. It’s not that UCLA has a tough time recruiting, but the players that come have never been able to provide much long-term success for the Bruins.
Jim Mora has NFL coaching experience and that usually indicates success in the college ranks, but he has yet to win a Pac-12 title. Granted, he’s only been with the Bruins since 2012, but recording one division title with all the talent he brings in is unacceptable.
No UCLA fan under the age of 60 has ever seen the Bruins win a national title. The Bruins haven’t even finished in the AP Poll’s top 10 since 1998, and they don’t have a conference title since that season, either.
Furthermore, the Bruins haven’t won the coveted Rose Bowl since 1985, and that’s the closest bowl game to their campus. UCLA should be making that bowl game home, but the talent is just not getting the job done.
Hopefully, those born after 1954 will see more than a few conference titles for the rest of their existence, but the program seems to be OK with ‘pretty good’ seasons.
There’s some truth to the tale of a program being dubbed a ‘basketball school.’ North Carolina personifies what it means to be considered a basketball school, and that’s probably because the Tar Heels have never had much success on the gridiron.
Being a North Carolina basketball fan must make up for the football woes, though. I almost didn’t include the Tar Heels on this list because of the tremendous success on the hardwood, but even Michael Jordan gracing the program a few decades ago can’t make up for sad fans from the months of September through December.
The most successful eras of North Carolina football had to be in the 1970s and 1980s when Dick Crum went 72-41-3 over 10 seasons and then gave way to the legendary Mack Brown who led the Tar Heels to a 69-46-1 record over 10 years.
How quiet has North Carolina football been in recent years? Well, if you’re a diehard football fan who loves North Carolina, you might just want to consider sticking to the Carolina Panthers. The Tar Heels have won just nine conference titles ever, but not one since 1980.
You can call that a drought, I call that a nightmare.
Dabo Swinney is bringing excitement back to the Clemson Tigers’ football program. The former Alabama wide receiver has taken over and turned Clemson into a perennial powerhouse for the first time in a few decades.
Clemson was a sad program from 1992-2008, winning nine games just three times and never really looking like a true powerhouse from the ACC. The glory years for the Tigers were from 1978-91 when Clemson won seven conference championships and its only national title in school history back in 1981.
The 34-year national championship drought looked like it was going to come to an end in 2015, but the Tigers fell a few points short of defeating Alabama to take home the crown and bring some added life to the program.
Tigers fans have been tortured over the course of their lifetime because of the lack of national title prominence. One title in school history might not be a terrible thing, but for a program that expects greatness, it’s agitating.
Fans are expecting one from Swinney and Co. in the next few years. That type of pressure usually comes with disappointment and more torture to the fan base.
Texas A&M is one of the toughest places to play in college football. Fans come out in full force to show their support for the Aggies every home Saturday in the fall, but behind this loud cheers are silent cries for help.
It’s crazy to think that it’s been nearly 80 years since the Aggies and their famed ’12th Man’ fan base has seen a national title in College Station. Texas A&M football has had plenty of success under Kevin Sumlin and even a Heisman winner, but the Aggies have yet to bring home the real important hardware.
Sure, cheering for the first freshman to ever win the Heisman is something Aggies fans have those others don’t, but it’s tough to say a fan base isn’t tortured when the only real accomplishment since 1998 has been a personal one. Johnny Manziel was exciting, but even he couldn’t lead A&M to the promised land.
For as good a football program Texas A&M has been, the Aggies have just one national title in school history and no conference crowns since 2000. Texas A&M won six Southwestern Conference titles from 1985-1993, but outside of that period, the Aggies haven’t been truly successful for long periods of time.
The self-proclaimed ‘best fans in college football’ are extremely loyal, but man, they are tortured. Just one division title since 1998 proves that.
Surprise, surprise. Another SEC program makes the list. Outside of Alabama, Florida, Auburn, LSU, and Tennessee, no program in the conference has really stood out as a title contender over the past couple of decades.
South Carolina has a Heisman winner in its history, but that’s surprising seeing as the Gamecocks really haven’t had much success on the gridiron. Watching other programs from the SEC go from down years to national title contention over the course of the past few decades have likely been tough on Gamecock fans seeing as USC hasn’t experienced that.
In fact, since South Carolina joined the SEC back in 1992, the only thing the Gamecocks have ever really accomplished, outside of a bowl win, was an SEC East crown back in 2010 under Steve Spurrier. They have been to 12 bowl games since joining the conference but have never won the SEC.
Heck, South Carolina’s last conference title came in 1969 when it was still a member of the ACC. Before that, it hadn’t won a league title since it was in the Southern Conference in 1933. An unbelievably long drought for a program that doesn’t seem to be trending in the right direction.
Not the best time to be a South Carolina fan, especially since Steve Spurrier is no longer in charge.
The birthplace of college football also happens to be one of the campuses in which you’ll find the saddest fans. Rutgers football fans have been tortured for over 100 years.
You read the headline of the page correctly, the last national title for the Rutgers Scarlet Knights was in that inaugural season back in 1868. No, not 1969, but an entire 100 years earlier before people even knew what football really was.
Rutgers and Princeton faced off in the first intercollegiate game ever and won. The Scarlet Knights then traveled to Princeton for the second game in college football history, losing that time and finishing the season 1-1. They shared the ‘national title’ with Princeton which is what happens when there are just two teams battling it out for one.
Not much you can say about a 147-year national title drought than ‘yikes.’ The only time the program could win a national crown was when there were only two teams competing, and they tied for it, each splitting a game in 1869.
Since 1869, the Scarlet Knights have won just a single conference title and have been to only 10 bowl games. They’ve won more than 10 games just twice in school history and the fan base is looking for anything to cheer about.
A 2-2 start to the Chris Ash era in 2016 is a start, I suppose.
Purdue is a founding member of the Big Ten but only has eight conference titles. But when you look at the modern era, the success has been extremely limited in West Lafayette.
Trivia question: how many Big Ten titles have the Boilermakers won since 1952? Answer: two. Purdue won the Big Ten in 1967 and 2000 when Drew Brees led the team to the Rose Bowl.
Yikes.
The Boilermakers have had plenty of talented players over the course of time. Guys like Mark Herrmann, Jim Everett, and Brees put the program on the map, but the Boilermakers could never seem to get over the hump and become perennial conference title contenders.
You can look at the number of bowl games the Boilermakers have made since 2000 (nine) and think that fans don’t have it that bad. Purdue seems to play in the postseason on a regular basis, so what’s the big deal? Well, that the last bowl win was in 2011 and the Boilermakers haven’t won more than eight games since 2003, there’s your problem.
Darrell Hazell hasn’t been the answer, either. He was a successful head coach at Kent State and one of the hottest commodities on the market before the 2013 season, but he has done nothing for the program so far.
In fact, Hazell has recorded twice as many 10-loss seasons in the past three years than Purdue has 10-win seasons in its history.
How’s that for the tortured fan stat of the day?
Kansas football is very similar to North Carolina football. Both programs have sad fan bases from September to November or December, but once basketball season begins, everyone shifts their focus to the hardwood and that sadness seems to disappear.
You guessed it, Kansas is another basketball school that only makes the list because the football program is in such shambles that it would take annual NCAA Tournament titles to make up for the struggles on the gridiron.
The Jayhawks do have two successful seasons in the past few decades, though. Kansas won 12 games back in 2007 and even won the Orange Bowl. The Jayhawks finished fifth in the BCS rankings and shook the title of ‘basketball school’ for just one season. Since then, it’s been all downhill.
Mark Mangino is the head coach who led the Jayhawks to that successful season and it looked like he might just turn the program around, but the fans were given false hope. He did lead Kansas to an 8-5 record the following year and started 5-0 the next, only to finish 5-7 and find himself out of a job.
Kansas has shuffled through four coaches since 2010 and it looks like a program that might never win a national title. Coaches don’t want to lead this program almost as much as fans don’t want to cheer for it.
You can bet each home game is riddled with “I can’t wait until basketball season” groans.
At one point, Colorado football was the cream of the crop. From 1989-95, the Buffaloes recorded at least 10 wins in four different seasons and even won the 1990 national title. Colorado looked to be a program on the rise but has since regressed into mediocrity.
In fact, Colorado hasn’t won a division title since 2001 when it was still in the Big 12 and hasn’t even been to a bowl game since 2007. The Buffaloes haven’t won a bowl since 2004 and have only been to five since 2000.
It’s been a rough millennium or the Buffaloes and their fans. Colorado made the decision to switch conferences back in 2011, going from the Big 12 to the Pac-12, and that turned out to be the wrong one — at least performance-wise. Business-wise, it may have made sense, but Colorado has won just five Pac-12 games since joining.
The real success of the Colorado program came from 1944 and earlier. The Buffaloes won 20 of their 26 all-time conference titles during that time and really put their mark on college football.
Unless you’re 80-plus years old, you’ve never really seen Colorado win consistently for decades. It’s a rough time to be a Colorado football fan.
The birthplace of the wild jersey combinations happens to be Eugene, Oregon. When the creator of Nike resides in nearby Portland and is an alumnus of the school, you know that you’re going to get all of the hookups. However, there’s a popular College GameDay sign that seems to surface every time the Ducks are the featured road team.
This sign has been used for years and years. Oregon fans may hate it, and that’s only because it’s 100 percent accurate. OK, maybe they don’t have over 7,000 uniform combinations, but the Ducks definitely come out of the tunnel each Saturday looking different. Heck, this past week they had uniforms that resembled actual ducks.
Oregon fans have been tortured unlike any other. Sure, Oregon has been one of college football’s powerhouse programs for the past decade, or so, but the Ducks haven’t won a national title in program history. The Ducks had seven 10-plus win seasons from 2008-14, but no national championships to show for all that success.
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Let’s put this in modern terms. Imagine you’re a fantasy football owner and your team wins the most games in your league every regular season and you make the playoffs only to lose in the semifinals or finals each season. That’s more painful than not even coming close and knowing you have zero shot.
Getting there and falling short has been the Ducks’ problem for the past decade. The fans are loyal, but man, they have to be reeling.