10 Most Hated College Teams

 So Uncoached.com released a list of the 10 most hated teams in sports. The list included three college teams; Ohio State football, Duke men's basketball, and Notre Dame football. It got me thinking about the college programs that people around the country really, really dislike and I ranked them. In addition to the three mentioned above, I added seven more.  

10) UConn women's basketball: The only women's team on this list!!! Nobody likes a team that has dominated for so long. 90 wins in a row? 90 FRIGGIN' wins in a row!!! Amazing, yes. But it just made you feel good to see them lose and cry, and pout, and be like 'We're UConn, what is this feeling of losing?'  And you know, there's just something about Geno Auriemma that rubs people the wrong way. I loved it when Pat Summit was winning titles, but Auriemma? The guy looks angry when his team wins by 30. 

Lane Kiffin. My blood boils. 

9)  Boise State football: I know there are many people who are fans of this perennial BCS crasher. But how many other people out there cry foul? Here's to all the people who ask "How would they do in a power conference? How many games would they lose in the SEC?" To each his own, but Boise State really started the conversation for the importance of strength of schedule in determining the top 2 teams in the BCS national championship game. For the record, I'm a fan of the Broncos. 

8) Southern Cal football: Two words: Lane Kiffin. Every time they lost last year just felt so good, didn't it?

7) Miami, Fla., football: The hatred thrown at the program stems from its renegade days in the 1980's. Some people suggest the program is still living in the past, but if that's the case, then so are all the haters who can't get enough of calling Miami "Thug U." So many people were calling for the Death Penalty liberally following the Shapiro scandal. The sanctions await. 

6) Kentucky men's basketball: John Calipari is the nation's best recruiter, but he hasn't won over many fans with his crop of one-and-done freshman sensations. His reliance on young talent paid off spectacularly with last year's national title, but some basketball purists can't stand the idea of "renting" players for one year, unless of course it's your team cutting down the nets at the end of the year. 

5) Tennessee football: You fire Phil Fulmer who was good at the beginning and bad at the end, kind of like an all-you-can-eat buffet. You gave Lane Kiffin a shot. Then he leaves you, your fans go all apocalyptic, but it's OK because you hired Derek Dooley. Plus, you gave Lane Kiffin a shot. 

Lord Voldemort, er, Saban

4) Alabama football: Roll Tide! Alabama was a broken program just six years ago. Enter Lord Saban and college football's craziest, most rabid fans have reason to get all smug again. They also claim a crazy amount of national titles, some of which are totally unjustified, most of which, begrudgingly, are completely legitimate.

3) Notre Dame football: All the history, nostalgia, and legacy from the Four Horsemen to Lou Holtz. No program has more lore than the Fighting Irish, and it's a bit annoying. Sure it's a historic program, but it's no different now than any other major college football program. Plus, there's the resentment of having their own contract with NBC and holding out of a conference. I predict the ACC is in your near future Notre Dame. 

2) Ohio State football: Only 15 years ago Ohio State was a respectable program cheered on by many people outside the state of Michigan. Then came Jim Tressel, who made the program a Big 10 powerhouse, but it came with his horrible sweater vest. Deep down you just knew Tressel was somehow...off. Then came the embarrassing losses to two SEC teams in BCS title games. The Suckeyes, I mean, Buckeyes have yet to live  those losses down. 

Cameron Indoor, home of the Dukies

1) Duke men's basketball: Blue bloods. Players on Duke teams have been called sell-outs, but all they do is keep winning ACC titles on a regular basis and reach Final Fours for Hall of Fame coach Mike Krzyzewski. After Duke won the 2010 championship people were literally outraged that they had beaten Butler. You ever seen an indignant Digger Phelps? I have. Their fans do tend to get annoying, but it's the only arena in all of sports where I catch myself paying more attention to the crowd than to the game. Is that a bad thing or a good thing?

Days Off to the National Title Game

50 off-days until the big stage is a bit much. i.e. 41-14

Building off of my previous post, I looked at the "true" national title games since 1980 to see what impact the number of days off had on the title game participants. What I mean by "true" is the one bowl game that would determine the national title winner, essentially a #1 vs. #2 matchup.

There were instances when if one team lost in a bowl game, then another team had the opportunity to win the title as in 1997 when Nebraska went undefeated and won the national title, and when Penn State also went undefeated but finished 2nd in both polls. Unfortunately, Penn State and Nebraska did not face each other in a "true" title game.

There are also instances as in 1983 when 5th ranked Miami defeated #1 Nebraska in the Orange Bowl and won the national title because of losses suffered by the teams ranked above them. Though the winner of the 1983 matchup resulted in the national title winner, it was not a "true" title game because outcomes outside of the game factored into the national title.

Here's what I found:

1983 Sugar Bowl - Penn State (36 days off) vs. Georgia (35 days off)

1987 Fiesta Bowl - Penn State (41 days off) vs. Miami (36 days off)

1988 Orange Bowl - Oklahoma (41 days off) vs. Miami (26 days off)

1993 Sugar Bowl - Miami (34 days off) vs. Alabama (26 days off)

1994 Orange Bowl - Nebraska (36 days off) vs. Florida State (35 days off) 

1995 Fiesta Bowl - Nebraska (39 days off) vs. Florida (30 days off)

The research was disappointing because dating back to 1980 from the first BCS game in 1998, there were only six instances in which the numbers 1 and 2 teams met for the national title. The data showed that in the six instances when #1 went up against #2, there was an even split between teams with more or less off-days. I would consider the 1983 Sugar Bowl insignificant in that Penn State had just one more day off than Georgia, but I must stick to my requirements.
However, to add on to a previous stat, since 1980 when teams have a difference of seven or more off-days in "true" national title games, the team with fewer days off has an 8-3 record. The sample size is too small for us to consider this significant, but perhaps there is something to having too many off days.
Going back to my first post regarding Ohio State, I still believe Florida was the superior team (I think that was clear considering the outcome). However, the 50 off-days that the Buckeyes had were the most of any team competing in the national title game in the last 31 years, at least. And when we consider our previous stat, it could be that they started the game at a disadvantage. I have to admit while I believe Florida was without a doubt the better team, I don't think Florida was 41-14 better, know what I mean?
I believe that the advent of conference title games for the Big 10 and the Pac 12 will make their elite teams better prepared for bowl games with national title implications. 

Days Off Before the BCS National Championship Game

The BCS Trophy

I'm going to come clean. I am a Florida Gators fan. It's where I went to school and where I did a lot of growing up. This blog isn't about that, but I wanted to let everyone know where I'm coming from. I was in my car the other day when out of nowhere I remembered how people said that the reason Ohio St. lost to Florida in the 2007 BCS title game was because of how many days off the Buckeyes had between their last game and the title game. I have a different hypothesis: the Gators were better.
But the argument some still make to this day sparked some curiosity in me. Does the length of time between a team's last game and the national title game have an impact on that team's performance? Since we are in the BCS era, I looked at BCS national title games in addition to bowl games that figured in split national titles. The numbers are interesting. Of the nine bowl games with national title implications where the teams had different days off between games, six of them were won by teams with fewer days off.
Of the three teams that had more days off and won, the only team that had a difference greater than eight games was.....Ohio State, which had 16 more off-days than Miami leading up to the 2003 title game. For the 2007 title game, Ohio State had 14 more off days than Florida. As evidenced, it seems as if teams that have many more off days tend to not do as well as teams that have played more recently. The data is very limited, however, as it only looks at nine games. I will expand the research in the days to come.
HOWEVER, when it comes to Ohio State, how can you argue one way for one game, but be unable to explain how they beat a potentially all-time great team in Miami in 2003 with many more days off? I'll say this much in Ohio State's defense, the 50 days off is the most - by five days - of any team to compete in the title game, and they did it twice. The average winning team had 35 days off between games, which seems to be about the optimal amount of time between games.
Here's an interesting stat from the research: When teams have a difference of seven or more off-days, the team with fewer days off has a 6-2 record. I will look at other games to increase sample size.

**Teams in bold are the winning teams when there was a difference in off-days
1999 BCS Title Game - Florida State (44 days off) vs. Tennessee (28 days off)
2000 BCS Title Game - Florida State (44 days off) vs. Virginia Tech (38 days off)
2001 BCS Title Game - Florida State (45 days off) vs. Oklahoma (31 days off)
2002 BCS Title Game - Nebraska (41 days off) vs. Miami (32 days off)
2003 BCS Title Game - Ohio State (42 days off) vs. Miami (26 days off)
2004 BCS Title Game - LSU (28 days off) vs. Oklahoma (28 days off)
2004 Rose Bowl - Michigan (40 days off) vs. USC (25 days off)
2005 BCS Title Game - USC (30 days off) vs. Oklahoma (30 days off)
2006 BCS Title Game - Texas (31 days off) vs. USC (31 days off)
2007 BCS Title Game - Ohio State (50 days off) vs. Florida (36 days off)
2008 BCS Title Game - Ohio State (50 days off) vs. LSU (36 days off)
2009 BCS Title Game - Florida (32 days off) vs. Oklahoma (32 days off)
2010 BCS Title Game - Alabama (32 days off) vs. Texas (32 days off)
2011 BCS Title Game - Auburn (36 days off) vs. Oregon (36 days off)
2012 BCS Title Game - Alabama (44 days off) vs. LSU (36 days off)

Butch Davis Could Have Been Pete Carroll

Will this be Butch Davis' last year at UNC?

As we head into another season of college football, I can't help but write about one of my favorite coaches - Butch Davis. Now at North Carolina, Davis has made North Carolina football relevant. Last year I was convinced he was going to take the Tar Heels to a BCS Bowl Game with the ridiculous talent assembled on the defensive side of the ball. But a scandal involving sports agents and impermissible benefits caused 13 North Carolina players to either be suspended for part of the season or to be ruled permanently ineligible. Three players that were supposed to contribute did not play a down of football because of the scandal, including first-round pick Robert Quinn, and second-rounders Greg Little and Marvin Austin. Star cornerback Kendric Burney was suspended for six games and fellow star safety Deunta Williams was suspended for four games.

In the 2011 NFL Draft, the Tar Heels had nine players drafted, the most out of the ACC. The Tar Heels had four defensive players taken in the first four rounds, and then another player, linebacker Quan Sturdivant taken in the sixth round. They were built for a title run in 2010, but that dream dismantled before it could even take shape. Butch was just making the program a national contender until the scandal broke out. It was bad for college football, the ACC, North Carolina, but most of all for Davis.

Davis is credited, as he should be, for building a Miami powerhouse that from 2000-2002 went 35-2, including a national championship that he did not get to celebrate in because he was no longer the Miami coach. I believe his biggest mistake came in leaving a Miami program after a successful 2000 season because he had so painstakingly built up Miami from some very serious probationary sanctions. Very few people could recruit and find talent like Davis, and the evidence is in what he did while at Miami where he was responsible for recruiting a stable of first-round picks.

For a man so well respected in his profession, the truth is that Davis, now entering his 11th season as a college head coach, has just one outright Big East title and one BCS Bowl victory under his belt. Had he not left Miami after 2000, he surely would have been the Pete Carroll of the east. He would have won the title in place of Larry Coker in 2001, and I am convinced that a Davis-coached Hurricane team would have defeated Ohio State in the 2003 BCS Championship Game. Then there's no telling where the Hurricanes would have gone with where Davis put the program. Let me put it this way, Davis was such a good recruiter and coach that even Larry Coker was able to win a national title, appear in another national title game, and win the Orange Bowl in succession in his first three years. In Coker's last three years, the Hurricanes went 9-3, 9-3, and 7-6. No knock against Coker, who I think was a very good offensive coordinator. He was the man he was supposed to be in his first three years, but when Davis' players were gone, you could see that Coker was not the recruiter or talent evaluator that Davis was.

Plus, where was Coker's next coaching job? At a totally new program in the FCS, or I-AA for those of you more familiar with that classification, for the University of Texas at San Antonio Roadrunners whose inaugural season will be this year. I think Coker is more suited for this kind of job at this point in his career. But all of the "what-ifs" are irrelevant.

The fact is that Davis left Miami to become head coach of the Cleveland Browns (seriously?) where he never won more than nine games in a season and made one playoff appearance in a little more than 3 1/2 seasons. By the time he resigned midseason in 2004, he had gone a dismal 24-35, including a loss in the playoffs. He resurfaced in the college ranks in 2007 with North Carolina, and after an understandable 4-8 rebuilding year in his first season, Davis has managed to make the Tar Heel football brand respectable once again. But in his last three seasons the Tar Heels have remained stagnant, going 8-5 each year. Last year seemed like the breakout year, but the scandal left his team in pieces and Davis' job on the line.

Davis is one of my favorite coaches because he can recruit and evaluate talent unlike any other coach. He's shown he is capable of taking a program from the depths of probation to the very top of college football like he did with Miami, and that he can even take a school like North Carolina and stock it with NFL talent. But many times careers are built on the right timing. Just look at Coker and Davis. Coker can wear a national title ring, and Davis can wear a Big East conference title ring. In some instances Davis is to blame for possibly making the wrong career choice, and at other times he's been blindsided by scandal. Now Davis may end up out of a job if he is found to have been negligent in the sports-agent scandal, and pull North Carolina into its own dark probationary period. He may never realize the full potential of what he has built at North Carolina, and it wouldn't surprise me if he thinks, as Yogi Berra once said, "It's deja vu all over again."