25 biggest villains in college football history
By Brad Weiss
Jimmy Clausen
Quarterback, Notre Dame
When Jimmy Clausen chose Notre Dame as his college, Fighting Irish head coach Charlie Weis must have felt like he won the lottery. Clausen was the hands-down best quarterback in the country, as he was dubbed “The Kid with the Golden Arm.” In South Bend, people could imagine the national titles he would win, though he would leave school as more of a disappointment than a savior.
It did not start well for Clausen, who announced his school from the College Football Hall of Fame. Arriving at the campus in a stretch Hummer limo, Clausen spoke about winning four national championships for the Irish, though he would eventually finish his career with a sub-.500 winning percentage. It was quite the fall from grace for a player that every school in the country coveted when he was in high school.
For the opposition, Clausen was a seen as a punk, and that made him a villain in the eyes of nearly every school he played. He had a certain air about him when he played for the Fighting Irish, though he seems to have matured since then. His NFL career has been mostly as a backup quarterback, and while he never reached the heights he was expected to out of high school, he has come a long way from the kid who showed up in the Hummer limo.
Clausen ended up leaving South Bend early, and the Carolina Panthers selected him in the second round of the 2010 NFL Draft. Since then, Clausen has bounced around from the Panthers to the Chicago Bears, to the Baltimore Ravens, where he last was on an NFL roster back in 2015. Clausen never lost a game in high school, going 42-0 as the starter for Westlake Village (CA), but at Notre Dame, he finished his collegiate career with a 16-26 mark.