College Football's Biggest Slumps 1960 to Present (34-11)

The top college football schools have shown a remarkable resilience when it comes to staying atop the heap over recent decades. Many of the top teams in the 1960s and 1970s -- USC, Alabama, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Texas -- still dominate the collegiate gridiron today.

But nearly every National Champion of the past 50 to 60 years has experienced a slump at one time or another. Florida is the one champion who has not. But with the Gators winning their first title in 1996 and then going on to become one of the top two or three teams of this decade, there simply hasn't been enough time to slump.

You will also see a few National Champs not listed here for more dubious reasons than I had for excluding the Gators. Champion teams such as Pittsburgh (1976), Michigan State (1965), Minnesota (1960) and Syracuse (1959) have not so much slumped as keeled over. Any school whose drop has lasted more than 15 consecutive years were excluded.

Colorado and Washington should take note.

To rank the slumps from most benign to most severe, I created an algorithm.

A slump begins when a team posts two consecutive 7-win (or worse) seasons or one sub .500 season and ends when they post three consecutive 8-win (or better) seasons or two consecutive 10-win (or better) seasons or one 11-win (or better) season. Exceptions have been made for earlier teams due to fewer games played. For example, Notre Dame's late 1950s to early 1960s slump ends with a 9-1 season because it's comparable to an 11-win season today. And what might have looked like a slump for Ohio State in the mid-60s was hard to classify as such because, although never winning more than seven games over a six-season stretch, Big 10 schools in that era only played nine games a season.

Demerits.

Teams earn 2 demerits for every season of the slump. So if a slump lasts five seasons, that's ten demerits. Teams also receive one demerit for every loss during the slump minus the number of wins. A team can end up with a negative number of demerits in this case. A team also receives one demerit for every "blow out" loss (any loss by 17 or more points) and an extra demerit if the blow out is delivered by a team with less than 8 total wins for the season. Ties equal half a demerit.

So, as an example, here is how Ohio State's slump of 1987-1992 adds up.

Total number of seasons (6) times 2 = 12 demerits
25 losses minus 41 wins = -16 demerits
7 total blow out losses = 7 demerits
2 blow out losses to sub 8-win teams = 2 demerits
4 ties = 2 demerits

Total demerits = 7

Using this criteria, I ranked the 34 slumps over the last fifty years betiding 20 different National Champions. I also created a misery index which ranks the 20 programs in terms of avoiding and weathering their downturns over the last fifty years.

Misery Index

Now on to the slumps.

34. Alabama 1984-1987 (31-15-1)
Coaches: Ray Perkins, Bill Curry

This was a bit of tricky slump to define. Starting with a 5-6 season in 1984, Bama didn't technically shake this slide per my criteria until 1991 when the Tide went 11-1 and set the stage for a National Title run in 1992. But, to extend the slump from 1984 to the 7-5 campaign of 1990, I would need to include two pairs of 9 and 10-win seasons in between (in addition to another 7-5 season). Couple that with a lack of blow-out losses and the final demerit tally for Alabama ends well below zero.

So I truncated this slump by three seasons. Which still left it with a negative number of demerits.

Total number of seasons (4) times 2 = 8 demerits
15 losses minus 31 wins = -16 demerits
2 total blow out losses = 2 demerits
0 blow out losses to sub 8-win teams
1 tie = .5 demerit

Total demerits = -5.5

Negative demerits may not seem like much of a slump, but by Bear Bryant-era standards, it's hard to classify this stretch as anything other than a downturn. After Bryant's retirement in 1982, Alabama looked to former player, Ray Perkins, an NFL coach at the time, for a replacement.

Already sliding a bit in Bryant's last season, Coach Perkins's debut season matched Bryant's final record of 8-4. But his second season (1984) saw Alabama suffer its first losing season in 27 years. Perkins' 1984 team dropped a slew of games to mediocre clubs including Vanderbilt and a 6-4-1 Georgia Tech. A win over Auburn probably kept the boosters from biting down too hard on Perkins who salvaged the team's reputation with a 9 and then a 10-win season, after which the coach returned to the NFL.

Another coaching switch produced a 7-5 season in 1987. But Bill Curry's three season tenure helped set the stage for another Alabama title run under Gene Stallings.

33. Texas 1965-1967 (19-12)
Coach: Darrell Royal

After a 40-3-1 run from 1961 to 1964 (which included the 1963 National Championship), Darrell Royal's Texas Longhorns muddled through a trio of seasons that were less than spectacular. But, despite dropping four games each of those three seasons, Texas remained remarkably competitive, beating arch-rival Oklahoma twice (including a 19-0 shutout) and getting blown-out only once themselves. And just barely -- a 17-point loss to SMU.

Whatever ailed Texas in this brief downturn went down a well somewhere as Texas and the newly installed wishbone offense fired off back-to-back National Titles just two seasons later.

Total number of seasons (3) times 2 = 6 demerits
12 losses minus 19 wins = -7 demerit
1 total blow out losss = 1 demerit
1 blow out loss to sub 8-win teams = 1 demerit
0 ties

Total demerits = 1

32. Clemson 1984-1985 (13-10)
Coach: Danny Ford

Clemson boosters had reservations in hiring 30-year-old Danny Ford as head coach in 1979. However, their tepid trust in the coaching wunderkind proved fortunate as he lead the Tigers to a 12-0 season and a National Title in just his third year at the helm.

But things would not stay all sunshine and roses for the program as Clemson was sacked with probation by the NCAA after the 1982 season. The result was a two season slump in 1984 and 1985 which likely derailed the schools best opportunity to snag another National Title. Something it has not done since.

Things got immediately better for Clemson once the taint of impropriety wore off. Ford rattled off three consecutive ACC titles and amassed an impressive 38-8-2 run to close his tenure at Clemson.

Total number of seasons (2) times 2 = 4 demerits
10 losses minus 13 wins = -3 demerits
2 total blow out losses = 2 demerits
1 blow out losses to sub 8-win teams = 1 demerit
0 ties

Total demerits = 4

31. Florida State 2006-2007 (14-12)
Coach: Bobby Bowden

Bobby Bowden and the Florida State Seminoles perpetrated one of the most amazing streaks in college football history when, from 1987 to 2000, FSU never won fewer than ten games. 14 straight seasons. And what's more, in ten of those seasons, Florida State won no fewer than 11 contests. This, at a time when most teams rarely played more than 12 games total.

That's why, when Seminole fans think of their team slumping, they probably look back to 2001's 8-4 record as the start of their travails. And, by the lofty standards of the previous decade, the 9-5, 10-3, 9-3 and 8-5 seasons that followed 2001 were no picnic. But the bottom didn't truly fall out on Bowden's program until 2006.

While never suffering the humiliation of a sub .500 record or sitting out a bowl season, Florida State still has had to face the indignity of losing to the likes of Wake Forest and North Carolina State. Sure Wake was the eventual ACC champion and Orange Bowl-bound in 2006. But it's doubtful those facts took much sting out of getting blanked 30-0 by the Demon Deacons in Doak Campbell Stadium.

Still, Seminole fans can take solace in that, in the grand scheme of college gridiron titan slumpage, there's hasn't been so bad.

With nine wins in 2008 including beatdowns of Wisconsin, Clemson, Maryland and Virginia Tech, there's a pretty vivid light at the end of the tunnel. The slump could already be over for FSU. But questions about the program remain. The biggest, of course, is who will take the reigns from a soon-to-be octogenarian coach? And when?

Total number of seasons (2) times 2 = 4 demerits
12 losses minus 14 wins = -2 demerits
3 total blow out losses = 3 demerits
0 blow out losses to sub 8-win teams
0 ties

Total demerits = 5

30. Washington 1993-1999 (53-33-1)
Coaches: Jim Lambright, Rick Neuheisel

The Washington Huskies began toying with greatness early into Coach Don James' move to Seattle. Winning the conference title and the Rose Bowl over a 10-1 Michigan team in just his third season, and collecting 16 first place votes in the final 1984 AP Poll (finishing second to National Champion BYU) the James era peaked at the end with a 1991 college football crown (shared with Miami).

But, as with many top programs which suffered slumps on the immediate heels of greatness, NCAA and conference sanctions drove James from his position.

Jim Lambright took over starting in 1993, but the former Washington defensive end never got much traction as his entire six-year career as UW's head coach would constitute the bulk of a seven-year downturn for the school.

For a team which had grown accustomed to National Title discussion while dominating the likes of USC, Nebraska and Michigan, the opening 7-4 season for Lambright was a bitter pill. Fans knew they would have to wait out two years of bowl ineligibility before they could even think National Title again. But even after the sanctions, mediocre seasons became the standard at Washington. The highlight of the Lambright era was a nine-win 1996 season. A pinnacle which would nonetheless include being clobbered by both Notre Dame and Colorado.

Ironically, Rick Neuheisal, the coach of the Colorado team that spanked Lambright's best team, would become his replacement in 1999. After one more mediocre season, Neuheisal brought the Huskies back amongst the elite in 2000. If only temporarily.

Not a particularly severe slump. But a pre-tremor, perhaps to the earthquake that would envelope the Washington football program just a short time later.

Total number of seasons (7) times 2 = 14 demerits
33 losses minus 53 wins = -20 demerits
9 total blow out losses = 9 demerits
2 blow out losses to sub 8-win teams = 2 demerits
1 tie = .5 demerit

Total demerits = 5.5

29. Ohio State 1987-1992 (41-25-4)
Coaches: Earle Bruce, John Cooper

The Ohio State Buckeyes are the college football program most teflon to downturns over the last 50 years. See misery index

But even the Buckeyes had a brief stint out of the limelight.

Any school that fires two of the best coaches of the late 20th Century clearly has the highest of standards and expectations. Granted, Woody Hayes was fired for aggravated assault. Earle Bruce, on the other hand, was canned for going 6-4-1 despite collecting 75 wins and four Big 10 crowns over the previous eight seasons.

John Cooper took over in 1988 and promptly guided Ohio State to its worst season in 30 years. A 4-6-1 nightmare with blowout losses to Pitt and Indiana (neither of whom were terribly impressive themselves). The Buckeyes would also get beat in the Horseshoe by a 4-win Purdue and clobbered by Illinois and Michigan State. Two teams with barely winning records.

Bumping along for the next four seasons of relative mediocrity (including four straight bowl losses), Cooper's program finally found its footing in 1993 with a Big 10 Championship, ten wins and the school's first post-season victory in seven years. Ending the slump without two much damage to the Buckeye ego.

Total number of seasons (6) times 2 = 12 demerits
25 losses minus 41 wins = -16 demerits
7 total blow out losses = 7 demerits
2 blow out losses to sub 8-win teams = 2 demerits
4 ties = 2 demerits

Total demerits = 7

28. Auburn 1961-1968 (49-32-2)
Coach: Ralph Jordan

Ralph "Shug" Jordan, a dual-sport coach, and Auburn's all-time winningest head football coach, brought Auburn its only AP National Title in 1957. His 25-year career collected 175 wins, a dozen bowl appearances, 13 Top 20 finishes and SEC "Coach of the Year" honors four times. The 1950s and 1970s would see the most glory reaped upon the program under Jordan's reign. Very nice career bookends.

But the middle decade produced a bit of a sag.

1961 to 1968 were not exactly terrible. Auburn won 17 more games than the school lost in that stretch and 1963 saw nine wins and an Orange Bowl appearance. But the decade held two losing seasons and frequent finishes in the bottom half of SEC standings. Particularly problematic for the Tigers was a sputtering offense which failed to score double-digits in 28 games during the 1960s. Auburn was, in fact, shutout 10 times in the course of the decade, including 4 times against arch-rival, Alabama. Indicative of Jordan's struggles with the Crimson Tide was a four-year span (1959-1962) in which Auburn did not score a single point against them.

But, all in all, it was a fairly mild downturn as a 1968 Sun Bowl win over Arizona helped catapult the Tigers back to national relevance in the ensuing decade.

Total number of seasons (8) times 2 = 16 demerits
32 losses minus 49 wins = -17 demerits
8 total blow out losses = 8 demerits
3 blow out losses to sub 8-win teams = 3 demerits
2 ties = 1 demerit

Total demerits = 11

27. Miami 2006-present (19-19)
Coaches: Larry Coker, Randy Shannon

Some people remember the Miami Hurricanes slumping in the late 1990s. With four national titles won since 1983, it may have seemed that way. But 1997's 5-7 season was merely a speed bump on the Hurricanes' return to the top from 2000 to 2003 -- a four season period in which Miami collected 46 wins, four losses and the Hurricane's fifth National Title.

But what has transpired since 2006 is no false positive. This is a bona fide slump. The only question now is how long will it last?

Coach Larry Coker had as auspicious a start to head coaching as anyone can hope for, guiding the 2001 Hurricanes to a 12-0 record, a National Title and recognition in the annals of college football history as one of the greatest teams ever.

Coker went on to amass an impressive 35-3 record in his first three seasons including three Top 5 finishes and wins in the Rose and Orange Bowls. But 2003 was the last year of Miami's participation in the Big East conference, switching to the ACC (along with Virginia Tech) -- home of long-time instate rival Florida State.

The Hurricanes' first new conference came against the Seminoles, a 16-10 win on the way to a 6-0 start for 2004. But ACC conference play proved immediately stickier for Miami who had only lost one Big East conference game in the previous four seasons. North Carolina, Clemson and Virginia Tech all dealt Miami losses setting a trend in which the Hurricanes have yet to finish better than third in ACC conference play.

Having signed a contract extension in 2005, Larry Coker seemed to have the University squarely behind him despite a clear drop-off in team quality since taking over. Although finishing at .500 with a win over Boston College in 2006, the University's faith in Coker ultimately vanished after four straight ACC losses.

Randy Shannon replaced the ousted Coker right before the 2006 bowl game. A mere five seasons after blasting Nebraska in the 2002 Rose Bowl for a spectacular National Title performance, Miami had spiraled down to an MPC Computers Bowl versus third-place WAC member Nevada-Reno. A game in which the Hurricanes needed a last-second pick deep in their own territory to ice a 1-point victory.

The mighty had truly fallen.

Shannon, now at the start of his third season, has produced scarily poor results going 12-13 while the Hurricanes suffer through humiliating lopsided beatdowns by the likes of Virginia and Georgia Tech (nevermind Oklahoma and Florida).

Unless Miami sees a dramatic Alabama-esque turnaround for 2009, this particular slump could see its third coach before the year is out.

Total number of seasons (3) times 2 = 6 demerits
19 losses minus 19 wins = 0 demerits
6 total blow out losses = 6 demerits
0 blow out losses to sub 8-win teams = 0 demerits
0 ties =

Total demerits = 12*
* so far

26. USC 1991-1992 (9-13-1)
Coach: Larry Smith

The 1990s are generally thought of as a decade-long slump for the University of Southern California Trojans. But, in actuality, the decade saw two mini-slumps separated by three milquetoast years of 8 and 9-win ordinariness.

Coach Larry Smith came to USC in 1987 after reviving a lackluster Arizona program. He found success early on with three straight PAC-10 crowns to end the 1980s. But the start of the next decade proved fatal to Smith's tenure at Southern Cal. An 8-4-1 record in 1990 was acceptable in and of itself. But there were cracks showing in the minutia. A 0-31 blowout loss to Washington. Needing nearly all of 45 points to dispatch sub-.500 crosstown rival UCLA. Losing to Norte Dame at home. Going to the Sun Bowl instead of the Rose for the first time since Smith's arrival. And losing that, too.

The following year, USC only won three games. A 6-5-1 season the next year ended Smith's stay in Los Angeles.

Former coach John Robinson stepped in and immediately brought the Trojans out of this micro-slump. But his return would only end up a temporary fix.

Total number of seasons (2) times 2 = 4 demerits
13 losses minus 9 wins = 4 demerits
3 total blow out losses = 3 demerits
1 blow out loss to a sub 8-win team = 1 demerit
1 tie = .5 demerit

Total demerits = 12.5

25. Georgia Tech 2002-2007 (44-33)
Coach: Chan Gailey

If ever there was a program stuck in limbo, it was this decade's Yellow Jackets. In five of six seasons (spanning the entire length of Coach Chan Gailey's tenure), Georgia Tech finished with seven wins and either six or five losses. The kind of uniformity that would make a North Korean army general's chest swell.

Tech fans' chests? Not so much.

Georgia Tech has enjoyed a storied history -- a 22-15 overall bowl record, numerous undefeated seasons, a regular finisher in the final AP polls spanning decades (including a second-place finish to Michigan State in 1952).

But it wasn't until a seemingly "out of nowhere" season in 1990, that Georgia Tech finally notched a place among college football's elite. (Albeit while holding hands with fellow debutante, Colorado.) Emerging from the worst decade in school history (Tech had all of 43 wins in the 1980s), Bobby Ross guided the Yellow Jackets through an 11-0-1 seasons, ending with blowouts of Georgia in Athens and Nebraska in the Citrus Bowl.

Ross' departure in 1992 took Georgia Tech back down to 1980s-level doldrums again (with a one-win season in 1994), but the hiring of George O'Leary got Georgia Tech back on track until his own departure before the 2001 Seattle Bowl.

Chan Gailey arrived at Georgia Tech in 2002 having spent nearly a decade coaching in the NFL. He got off to a 4-1 start his first year, but soon found ACC conference play rough going, collecting a 4-4 league record enroute to a 7-51 pounding by instate (nonconference) rival Georgia and a substantial loss to Fresno State in the bowl game.

Gailey followed 2002 with identical records -- 7-6 overall and 4-4 in conference. With back-to-back sub-8-win seasons, the slump was officially underway. A pair of 7-5 seasons would follow, but there did seem to be signs of improvement. In 2005, Gailey notched 5-wins in the ACC and came within a touchdown of knocking off the hated Bulldogs, but ended up embarrassed by a 7-5 Utah team in the Emerald Bowl.

2006 finally saw some encouraging results as Georgia Tech raced out to a 9-2 record and a #16 ranking in the AP poll. But that's as good as it got for the slump and for Gailey as the Yellow Jackets finished with three heartbreakers -- a come-from-behind win by Georgia, a come-from-behind field goal duel with Wake Forest in the ACC Title Game and a come-from-behind-blow-an-18-point-lead-with-13-minutes-left-Gator-Bowl loss to West Virginia.

A slide back to 7-6 in 2007, a season with nary even a moral victory, sent Gailey packing. And, along with him, the apparent end of a slump.

Former Navy coach, Paul Johnson, brought a throw-back option offense and nine wins to Atlanta in 2008. If he can maintain that kind of success for the next two seasons, Georgia Tech can put a fork in this downturn.

Total number of seasons (6) times 2 = 12 demerits
33 losses minus 44 wins = -11 demerits
12 total blow out losses = 12 demerits
3 blow out losses to sub 8-win teams = 3 demerits
0 ties

Total demerits = 16

24. Nebraska 2004-2007 (27-22)
Coach: Bill Callahan

For college football fans born in the 1960s or later, it's probably hard to remember a tougher period for the Nebraska Cornhuskers than the one going on right now. That 's because unless you were born before 1962, you haven't been alive for a rougher period in Nebraska football history.

The Cornhuskers were arguably the most dominant college football program of the second half of the 20th Century. From 1962 to 2001, Nebraska compiled 40 consecutive winning seasons. 38 of those came with 9 or more wins. They played in 9 National Title games, winning five -- and coming within one failed two-point conversion and one missed field goal of winning two more. Over those forty seasons, the Huskers finished ranked in 37 final AP polls -- 30 times within the Top 10 and 14 times within the Top 5.

So consistent was Nebraska's success from Bob Devaney's debut season in 1962, through Tom Osborne's 25-year head coaching run (1973-1997) and well into Frank Solich's six seasons at the helm, that the Cornhuskers found themselves ranked in nearly every weekly AP poll stretching from 1969 to 2002. 514 consecutive AP polls, and Nebraska's name could be found somewhere in all of them, except three. (The Huskers was absent from the polls once in 1977 and twice in 1981).

But all great things do eventually come to an end.

Cornhusker fans probably consider 2002 to be the start of Nebraska's slump. (Or, more specifically, the last two games of the 2001 season.) But Frank Solich, though fired after a 9-3 regular season in 2003, managed to keep the Nebraska football standards just high enough to bestow this downturn entirely on the shoulders of his successor. Bill Callahan.

Giving the Big Red its only two losing seasons since 1961, Callahan also managed to scrap together two fairly solid seasons in the middle, which go along way in mitigating the severity of this slump.

But what does not numb this slide much -- and what's probably most painful to the Nebraska faithful -- is the number of blow-out losses crammed into these four seasons. Few slumps on this list can match the 2.5 blow-out losses per season average that Callahan's teams endured. Alabama, for example had the same number of beatdowns in their latest slump, but they were spread out over 11 seasons. With scores like 10-70 against Texas Tech and 39-76 against Kansas, that's a tough pill to swallow for a program that only lost by 17 or more points 3 times in the entire decade of the 1990s.

What's more, some cherished streaks fell under Callahan's watch. Such as Nebraska's consecutive bowl appearances spanning 35 seasons from 1969 to 2003. And consecutive seasons without a losing record which stretched 42 years from 1962 to 2003. (Frank Solich barely avoided this distinction with his .500 7-7 docket of 2002.)

The hiring of Bo Pelini at the end of 2007 produced a 9-4 campaign for Nebraska in 2008. That's not enough alone to call the slump over. I'll revise the rating if Nebraska wins less than 8 games in 2009. As it stands now, though, the Big Red nation looks to have already survived the worst.

Total number of seasons (4) times 2 = 8 demerits
22 losses minus 27 wins = -5 demerits
10 total blow out losses = 10 demerits
5 blow out losses to sub 8-win teams = 5 demerits
0 ties

Total demerits = 18

22. (tie) Notre Dame 1981-1986 (35-32-1)
Coaches: Gerry Faust, Lou Holtz

Following a brief, but very successful coaching tenure by Dan Devine (which featured a Joe Montana-led 1977 National Championship team) Notre Dame hired prolific high-school football coach, Gerry Faust, who led Archbishop Moeller High School (an all-boys private Catholic school in Cincinnati) to an astonishing 90-3 record in his last 8 seasons there.

But would high school gridiron coaching mastery translate well to top-echolon division I college football?

No. It wouldn't.

Faust languished for the full five years of his contract with Notre Dame, compiling a 30-26-1 overall record. That was three more losses than his teams produced in 19 years at Archbishop Moeller (a school that, like college teams, played 10 to 12 games per season).

But Faust's first season at Notre Dame would mark an immediate drop for the program. The schedule, littered with high-profile teams such as LSU, Michigan, Florida State, USC, Penn State and Miami resulted in six losses and just five wins for the Irish.

It was Notre Dame's first losing season since 1963 and the second most losses the school suffered in a single season since 1956.

Faust's second season wasn't much better. Although 1982 started with four straight wins (against the likes of Michigan, Michigan State and Miami) Notre Dame finished 6-4-1, including three straight losses to close out the season, leaving the football team bowl-less in back-to-back years for the first time since the 1960s.

1983 and 1984 saw a small improvement as the Irish went 7-5 both seasons, netting a Liberty Bowl win against Boston College and an Aloha Bowl appearance versus SMU.

Another 5-6 season in 1985, featuring blow-out losses to Purdue, Penn State and Miami, yielded no new contract ink for the embattled coach. Lou Holtz took over in 1986, matching Faust's worst records the first season, then promptly went 12-0 and won a National Title just two years later.

Total number of seasons (6) times 2 = 12 demerits
32 losses minus 35 wins = -3 demerits
8 total blow out losses = 8 demerits
1 blow out losses to sub 8-win teams = 1 demerit
1 tie = .5 demerit

Total demerits = 18.5

22. (tie) USC 1983-1986 (26-20-1)
Coach: Ted Tollner

Much like the Gerry Faust era at Notre Dame, Ted Tollner's four-year stint at USC would be a one-coach slump for the program. The pair of rival schools' coaches floundered pretty much at the same time, each leaving their program in consecutive seasons.

But, unfortunately for Tollner, the hard-luck coach at Notre Dame would own the Trojans in each of their three meetings.

Fresh with images of Rose Bowl victories, a Heisman Trophy (for Marcus Allen in 1981) and regular nine to twelve-win seasons, USC fans stood-by in shock as Tollner lead his initial Trojan squad to just four meager wins in 1983. And only one of those victories came against a school with a winning record.

1984 would be a vast improvement as USC went 9-3 including a Rose Bowl win over Ohio State. Nevertheless, Tollner was also 0-4 in his first two seasons against the school's biggest rivals -- Notre Dame and UCLA. What's more, Tollner had failed to make any of those games even close.

The next two seasons produced 13 wins and 11 losses for the Trojans and some rather humiliating outings, such as a 14-34 loss to 3-win Washington State and a 25-45 manhandling by UCLA.

Tollner's record would be 26-20-1 (including 1-7 versus rivals Notre Dame and UCLA) before throwing the towel to Larry Smith, thereby ending USC's mini-slump of the 1980s.

Total number of seasons (4) times 2 = 8 demerits
20 losses minus 26 wins = -6 demerits
11 total blow out losses = 11 demerits
5 blow out losses to sub 8-win teams = 5 demerits
1 tie = .5 demerit

Total demerits = 18.5

21. Oklahoma 1960-1966 (39-31-2)
Coaches: Bud Wilkinson, Gomer Jones, Jim Mackenzie

Some coaching legends leave programs in their prime. Tom Osborne at Nebraska and Bo Schembechler at Michigan come to mind.

Bud Wilkinson, who coached the Oklahoma Sooners to 13 consecutive Big 8 Conference titles and scooped up three National Titles and five undefeated seasons along the way, was one coaching legend who did not.

With a 93-10-2 record for the 1950s, Wilkinson's Oklahoma was the undisputed king of mid-20th Century college football. Strangely enough, an immediate and comparatively severe downturn would strike the program at the very flip of the decade.

Wilkinson's 1960 team had an anemic offense, managing to score more than 19 points just once (against hapless one-win Kansas State) and getting blanked twice (versus Texas and Colorado) en route to a 3-6-1 record -- arguably Oklahoma's worst record in program history up to that point.

The Sooner's improved to 5-5 the following year, ending the season on a five-game winning streak which lead to a more typical 8-3 season and an 8-2 swan song for Wilkinson who retired at the age of 47. The slump might have been over had he stayed a few seasons longer.

But former Oklahoma assistant coach, Gomer Jones, stepped in and promptly handed Oklahoma it's new worst season in program history. A dubious distinction that would last until usurped by John Blake in 1996.

Gomer's offense was perhaps even more anemic than the 1960 Sooners, getting shut out by Navy and Texas. And Colorado. And Missouri. The 1965 Oklahoma Sooners only scored ten touchdowns the whole season. Luckily, a pretty good defense kept most games from being total embarrassments and was stingy enough to win them three games (albeit against teams who had combined for just 7 wins and 22 losses).

Jones -- a standout linebacker for Ohio State in the 1930s and an all around nice guy -- would not be asked back for another season.

His replacement, Jim Mackenzie, coached Oklahoma to six wins in 1966 before, devastatingly, succumbing to a heart attack in the offseason. Chuck Fairbanks then stepped in and instantly returned Oklahoma to the top of the game with ten wins and a third-place finish in the 1967 AP poll.

Total number of seasons (7) times 2 = 14 demerits
31 losses minus 39 wins = -8 demerit
10 total blow out losses = 10 demerits
2 blow out losses to sub 8-win teams = 2 demerits
2 ties = 1 demerit

Total demerits = 19

20. Auburn 1998-2001 (24-23)
Coaches: Terry Bowden, Tommy Tuberville

Terry Bowden was a coach with a prestigious pedigree and an extremely auspicious start as head coach of the Auburn Tigers. Coaching his team to an 11-0 season in 1993 and a 9-1-1 follow-up, the Tigers were, unfortunately, ineligible for post-season glory in either of those years due to NCAA sanctions. The effects of probabtion were felt in back-to-back 8-4 seasons in the middle of Bowden's tenure but, by 1997, the coach seemed to have Auburn back to where the program wanted to be and on legal terms.

Up 20-7 early against 10-1 Tennessee in the 1997 SEC Championship, Bowden and the 9-2 Tigers seemed poised to reach the upper echelons once again. But Peyton Manning's 373 passing yards and four touchdowns were enough to give him the game MVP and Tennessee a 1-point come from behind win.

Little did Bowden know that this particular collapse would be something of a bad harbinger for next season. Midway through the 1998 season, Bowden resigned on the eve of Auburn's Lousiana Tech game in the wake of a 1-5 start and mounting pressure by school supporters and the Athletic Director.

Tommy Tuberville got the job for the next season. A start that would feature a five-game mid-season losing skid. But there were signs of recovery from the previous disasterous season as Tuberville posted wins over LSU and Georgia in an eventual 5-6 finish.

2000 collected 9 wins and an SEC championship appearance (in which the Tigers were clobbered by Florida -- who clobbered them in the regular season, too).

2001 would be a final step back (7-5) including blowout losses to Syracuse, Arkansas and Alabama as Tuberville slowly ratched Auburn up to a 13-0 performance in 2004, erasing a good many bad images of a slump that barely eclipsed a .500 record over four seasons.

Total number of seasons (4) times 2 = 8 demerits
23 losses minus 24 wins = -1 demerit
11 total blow out losses = 11 demerits
2 blow out losses to sub 8-win teams = 2 demerits
0 ties

Total demerits = 20

19. Georgia 1989-1996 (51-40-1)
Coaches: Ray Goff, Jim Donnan

The Georgia Bulldogs flirted with greatness over the course of the 20th Century, but always seemed to do so in a Jekyll and Hyde manner. An 11-1 season in 1942, for example, was followed by 6-4 in 1943, 11-0 in 1946 preceded 7-4-1 in 1947, 10-1 in 1959 preceded 6-4, 10-1 in 1966 preceded 7-4, 11-1 in 1971 preceded 7-4, 10-2 in 1976 preceded 5-6.

The Bulldogs could muscle their way to the top of the college football heap with relative ease and regularity. They just never seemed able to stay there.

Until 1980.

Coached by the legendary Vince Dooley and led by Heisman-winner Herschel Walker, the 1980 Bulldogs stormed their way to Georgia's first and only National Title. The successful afterglow of this accomplishment lasted longer than any run of success in Georgia history, producing a 43-4-1 record for the Bulldogs from 1980 to 1983, featuring three straight SEC championships and an appearance in a second National Title game in 1982 against Penn State.

While dropping down a notch in subsequent years, Dooley left the Bulldogs with respectable back-to-back 9-win seasons in 1988.

Enter Ray Goff.

Goff was familiar to Georgia fans, having quarterbacked under Dooley in the mid-70s and assistant coached for him from 1981 to 1988. But his intimacy with the program proved to be no particular head coaching advantage as he steered Georgia into an immediate and long-lasting slump beginning with his very first season.

Going 6-6 in 1989 and then 4-7 the year after, Goff felt job-security pressure from the get-go. Blowout losses to Clemson, Florida and Auburn were of no particular help, either. But then something clicked under Goff's watch as his teams produced a 19-5 record over the next two seasons.

Still, 1991 and 1992 had their share of embarrassments as the Bulldogs were blanked by Alabama, mauled by Florida and struggled past patsies like Cal State Fullerton or slumping conference foes such as Auburn who posted a 5-5-1 record in 1992 when Georgia eeked out a 14-10 win.

That was as good as it got for Goff who finished out his tenure at 17-16-1 over three seasons while continuing to get mauled by the conference titans and occasionally bested by the SEC also-rans, like Vanderbilt.

Jim Donnan replaced Goff after his firing in 1995 and quickly revived the program. But not before extending the slump his first season with a 5-6 turn and a 40-point loss at the hands of Florida.

Total number of seasons (8) times 2 = 16 demerits
40 losses minus 51 wins = -11 demerit
14 total blow out losses = 14 demerits
1 blow out loss to sub 8-win teams = 1 demerit
1 tie = .5 demerit

Total demerits =20.5

18. Alabama 1997-2007 (74-61)
Coaches: Mike Dubose, Dennis Franchione, Mike Shula, Nick Saban

Unlike its minor struggles in the 1980s under Ray Perkins, Alabama suffered a more bona fide downturn over the last decade. Returning swiftly to the top under Gene Stallings, Alabama hit a 45-5-1 stretch from 1991 to 1994 in which Bama would claim the 1992 National Title.

But player eligibility issues would cast a pall over Bama's return to the top as nine wins were expunged for the 1993 season. Despite a would-be 70-16-1 overall record and a 10-3 1996 season (which included an SEC West title) Stallings stepped down, opening the door for Mike DuBose. And an immediate start to a decade-long slump.

At 4-7, Alabamans had not seen a season this bad since 1957 -- the year before Bear Bryant came along to start one of the greatest college football dynasties of all time. It was a season that saw two losses to sub-.500 teams, a shutout at home against LSU, a loss to Kentucky for the first time in 75 years -- a 30 game streak that included 29 wins and one tie -- and a one-point loss to instate rival Auburn (a setback which Dubose laid on the backs of four fired assistants).

The following year produced a better win-loss result -- at 7-5 -- but was still a season marred with humiliation as the Tide went down 6-42 at Arkansas, 18-35 at Tennessee and 7-38 against Virginia Tech in the Music City Bowl.

1999 was both professionally better and personally worse for DuBose. Ten wins and just three losses against a slate that included ten 8-win or better teams (including Orange Bowl opponent, Michigan). But the offseason between 1998 and 1999 saw a contract restructure for the coach on the heels of a scandal involving a secretary. To DuBose's credit, such a distraction could have produced a disaster of a season and the end of his career. Instead, Bama fell just five points shy of what could've been a 12-1 season and the end of the slump entirely.

But "disaster" and the end of DuBose at Alabama would have to wait just one more season.

With a preseason ranking as high as third in some polls, Alabama was poised to restore the order in 2000. But the Tide's first season of the new millennium started bad (with a 24-35 loss to subpar UCLA) and finished worse with a five-game skid that left the Crimson Tide a miserable 3-8. Alabama found itself dominated by the likes of Mississippi State and Central Florida and blanked entirely by Southern Miss and Auburn. The Auburn shutout coming at home.

It was time for some new blood in Dennis Franchione -- a coach fresh off working miracles in the deserts of New Mexico and the suburbs of Fort Worth, Texas. He seemed poised to do it again in Tuscaloosa with a 7-5 run in 2001, followed by 10-3 in 2002, prompting the University to offer an immediate and lucrative contract extension. But NCAA sanctions for infractions incurred prior to Franchione's arrival made an opening at Texas A&M too tempting to pass up.

Mike Shula came in for the 2003 season (after another coach by the name of "Mike" didn't pan out) and would ultimately stay for four seasons.

Four tumultuous seasons.

2003 was dismal from a win/loss standpoint (at 4-9). But Shula's team was a remarkably competitive nine-loss team, if there ever was one. Losing by just a touchdown to 12-2 Oklahoma, three points to 9-4 Arkansas and five points at Jordan-Hare Stadium where 8-5 Auburn would surely have loved to take a little more advantage of a Tide slump. 2004 saw improvement to a 6-5 regular season which gave Alabama a Music City Bowl berth against Minnesota. But that was just another loss ending the Tide's season at .500.

2005 was the season Bama fans were waiting for as the Crimson Tide bolted to a 9-0 start, a thrid-place ranking in the AP poll and talk of National Title contention. A three-point heartbreaker at home against LSU ruined a perfect season. And so did the following week's loss at Auburn. But nothing ruined that 10-2 season so much as the NCAA hammer coming down and wiping out those victories. Along with the six that were to come the next season.

Nick Saban arrived at Alabama in 2007, leading the Tide to a 6-2 start (with narrow and respectable losses to Georgia and Florida State), but a four-game skid to end the season extended the slump by another year, finishing 7-6. And all those wins would be expunged by the NCAA, too.

In all 74 wins and 62 losses over 11 years. With 21 wins erased by the NCAA. Not Alabama's glory years by any stretch of the imagination. Saban officially ended the slump in 2008 with a 12-2 season and an SEC West crown.

Total number of seasons (11) times 2 = 22 demerits
61 losses minus 74 wins = -13 demerits
10 total blow out losses = 10 demerits
2 blow out losses to sub 8-win teams = 2 demerits
0 ties

Total demerits = 21

17. USC 1996-2001 (37-35)
Coaches: John Robinson, Paul Hackett, Pete Carroll

If it weren't for a three-season run of mild-respectibility in the mid 1990s, USC might have produced a slump to compete for top honors on this list. Merely adding the demerits of the 1991-1992 USC slump (#26 on this list) to this slump would have vaulted the Trojans into the Top 10. But, as it was, USC got a bit of reprieve from its doldrums thanks largely to the return of a former coach, John Robinson.

Robinson immediately improved upon Larry Smith's ruinous turn in 1991 and 1992 with an 8-5 run in 1993, followed by 8-3-1 and 9-2-1, featuring finishes of 13 and 12 in the final AP polls and a Rose Bowl win over Northwestern after the 1995 season.

But even with this brief run of success, there were signs of another USC football recession such as frequent blow-out losses to top tier teams and a poor track record versus schools with winning records.

1996 would see USC slip again as Robinson's team went 6-6 against a schedule with six teams posting losing records. 1997 turned out just as bad (at 6-5) although it was against a markedly tougher slate than the previous season -- including dropping a 7-14 heartbreaker in the home opener against perennial 1990s juggernaut Florida State (who finished 11-1 and third in the final AP).

Still, a tough schedule was no sufficient excuse for back-to-back six-win seasons at USC. And even though John Robinson was part of the Southern Cal "family", out he went and USC turned to Kansas City Chief offensive coordinator, Paul Hackett, to fill the void.

Except... He didn't.

While initially taking the Trojans on an uptick back to the unremarkable levels of the 8-win mid-90s, USC would ultimately get worse under Hackett, hitting a five-game losing streak in the middle of 1999 (enroute to a 6-6 record) and again in 2000 (dropping to 5-7). That was enough to send Hackett packing. After which, Pete Carroll arrived.

The slump would last one more season as Carroll got off to a 2-5 start. But there was something immediately different about these losses. A two-point loss to eventual Pac-10 champ, 11-1 Oregon. Three points to 8-4 Washington. 4 points to Kansas State and Utah. Five points to Stanford.

What's more, USC started scoring blowouts of its own, putting up scores of 55, 48 and 41 against Pac-10 competition. The following season, with 11 wins, the slump would be instantly over. And a new streak would begin. Seven straight seasons of 11 or more wins. An NCAA record.

And still counting.

Total number of seasons (6) times 2 = 12 demerits
35 losses minus 37 wins = -2 demerits
6 total blow out losses = 6 demerits
0 blow out losses to sub 8-win teams
0 ties

Total demerits = 24

15. (tie )Penn State 2000-2004 (26-33)
Coach: Joe Paterno

Penn State has 800 all-time wins -- just the 7th college football team to pass that mark -- and nearly half of those wins came from one man. Joe Paterno.

In a remarkable 4-decade run as head coach of Penn State, Paterno has amassed a jaw-dropping 383-127-3 record including two National Titles (despite 5 undefeated seasons), a 23-11-1 bowl record including multiple wins in the Rose, Orange, Sugar and Fiesta Bowls and 14 seasons in which Penn State won no fewer than 11 games.

Yep, Paterno has brought plenty of his own brand of happiness to Happy Valley. But the first five seasons of this decade saw the skies darken over middle Pennsylvania. Not since the Great Depression had Penn State endured a more depressing stretch of college football.

Penn State finished the 1990s with 97 wins and 26 losses -- the fifth best Division I record for the decade. The downturn in 2000 seemed to come abruptly, although a three-game skid at the end of 1999 may have been enough of a harbinger to suggest that not all was well.

The Nittany Lions started the 2000 season with a 29-5 loss to USC. By Pete Carroll-era standards, that might not be such a big deal. But USC was coached (in his last season) by Paul Hackett and in the midst of its own bad slump (#17 on this list). The Trojans were a 5-7 team in 2000 and, yet, they dominated Penn State. And so did Toledo the next week, in Beaver Stadium. A 67-7 drubbing of hapless Louisiana Tech looked a little more like what Penn State fans were used to, but it was only a brief flash of dominance as the Lions then went to Pittsburgh and got skunked 0-12. Purdue ended up the only victory Penn State would post on a team with a winning record that year.

2001 was just as bad as Paterno's team started 0-4 before limping to a 5-6 finish which included a pair of losses to 5-7 teams (Wisconsin and Virginia) and a 0-20 shut-out at home against Michigan.

Grumblings began to mount that perhaps the 74-year-old Paterno was hitting retirement age.

But 2002 saw an improvement as the Lions posted nine wins, a 40-7 blowout of (then AP #7) Nebraska and an appearance vs. Auburn in the Capital One Bowl.

However, the halcyon days had not returned to Happy Valley as evidenced by Penn State's worst season under Joe Paterno -- a 3-9 campaign in 2003 -- that saw the Nittany Lions tie for 9th place in the Big 10. The final humiliation was a 10-41 nightmare against Michigan State in which Penn State needed all but the final 11 seconds of the game to finally cross the goal line as they had mustered an anemic 55 total yards rushing.

2004 was similarly soul-crushing as Penn State went on a six-game losing skid in which the Lions scored just four touchdowns and featured a bizzarre 6-4 decision against Iowa in which Hawkeye miscues gave the Penn State a pair of safeties to bookend Iowa's field goals. Having dipped to 2-7, before redeeming themselves against two sub-.500 teams, Paterno suggested to boosters that, unless wins started coming in 2005, that perhaps it really was time to throw in the towel.

I'm not sure what happened between December of 2004 and September of 2005. Perhaps the Penn State underclassmen were afraid of losing good ole Joe Pa to bass fishing and Senior Homestyle Meatloaf at Denny's. Whatever it was, the 2005 class saw to it that Paterno would serve out his contract (which ran through 2008) with an 11-1 record, a tie with Ohio State for the Big 10 crown and a thrilling triple overtime win against Florida State in the Orange Bowl.

The slump was officially over. And, with 40 wins over the last four seasons, the ole winter lion appears on his way out with a bite as potent as it ever was.

Total number of seasons (5) times 2 = 10 demerits
33 losses minus 26 wins = 7 demerits
7 total blow out losses = 7 demerits
2 blow out losses to sub 8-win teams = 2 demerits
0 ties

Total demerits = 26

15. (tie) Tennessee 1974-1988 (102-66-8)
Coaches: Bill Battle, Johnny Majors

Knoxville, Tennessee sits in the shadow of the famous Smokey Mountains, which may be --metaphorically speaking -- the perfect location for Tennessee Football. Because, like the University's hometown setting, Tennessee's gridiron history can be best defined as a series of peaks and valleys.

The Volunteers won their first AP National Title in 1951 as part of a three-year 30-4-1 reign of domination under the auspices of coaching legend, General Robert Neyland. Leaving Tennessee atop its highest peak, Neyland's move to Athletic Director and away from the sidelines, set off a series of on-again-off-again slumps, the second of which is chronicled on this list (at #14). That slump could be defined as the deepest Tennessee valley of the last 60 seasons. But the third dip, from 1974 to 1988 was the longest.

Bill Battle took over the Volunteers from Doug Dickey, who led the football team out of its previous slump. And Battle's first squad was his best, utilizing a stingy defense on its way to an 11-1 record and a 4th place finish in the AP poll. 1971 and 1972 (with a combined 20 wins and 4 losses) kept the Vols on a high plateau, but Battle turned out not to be so much the coaching sherpa as he led the program back down to lowly performances in just two short seasons later.

1973 saw the team suffer through four losses for the first time since Coach Dickey's debut in 1964. And while 8 wins kept 1973 from officially starting the slump, Battle was powerless to stop the downward trajectory with a 7-3-2 record in 1974, 7-5 in 1975 and 6-5 in his final season, 1976.

Fresh from leading Pittsburgh to the 1976 National Title, Johnny Majors was lured back to his alma mater to rouse the program out of its latest doldrums. But there would be no instant fix as 1977 produced just 4 wins and 7 losses -- the most defeats Tennessee had ever suffered in a single season.

Major would go 21-23-1 in his first four seasons, before lifting the program's head above water with an 8-4 run in 1981. But this record would be deceptive as far as indicating a return to the top for the Vols as seven of Tennessee's eight wins were against teams which finished with losing records. When facing good teams, such as Georgia, Southern Cal and Alabama, the Vols were a disaster, losing their first two games of the season by a combined score of 7-87. And Tennessee's wins -- though almost entirely against sub-.500 teams -- were not dominating affairs such as a 3-pointer over one-win Georgia Tech or 24-21 over 4-win Wichita State or 10-7 over 5-6 Auburn or 38-34 over 4-7 Vanderbilt.

Had enough of those games turned against Tennessee, perhaps Majors wouldn't have gone on to a sixth season. But he did. And the cracks shown in that 8-4 campaign split open in 1982 with a 6-5-1 seaosn in which, yet again, Tennessee beat just one team with a winning record.

The situation did improve for Majors in the mid-1980s, peaking in 1985 with nine wins, one loss and two ties, an SEC championship and a 35-7 Sugar Bowl drubbing of Miami. This might have been the end of the slump, especially when you add in a 10-2-1 run in 1987. But that season was sandwiched by a pair of outings that combined for 12 wins and 11 losses and which featured some pretty heavy blowouts against LSU, Auburn, Washington State and Alabama.

It was a long and bumpy slump. It finally ended (in spectacular fashion) with an 11-1 season in 1989 and sustained success through the 1990s.

Total number of seasons (15) times 2 = 30 demerits
66 losses minus 102 wins = -36 demerits
22 total blow out losses = 22 demerits
6 blow out losses to sub 8-win teams = 6 demerits
8 ties = 4 demerits

Total demerits = 26

14. Tennessee 1958-1964 (34-32-4)
Coaches: Bowden Wyatt, James McDonald, Doug Dickey

Coach Bowden Wyatt mapped his own hilly terrain through the history of Tennessee football. Pulling the program out of its first slump since the departure of Robert Neyland, Wyatt brought Tennessee to the cusp of another National Title with a 10-1 season in 1956.

But fortunes went precipitously downward from that peak as the Vols suffered a scoring problem (or more precisely a lack of scoring problem) in 1958 as the team never managed more than 18 points for the season, was shutout twice and could not score double digits more than four times the whole season enroute to a 4-6 record.

1959 was slightly better as the Vols managed to pass twenty points vs. Tennessee-Chatanooga, a 2-7 Mississippi State and a 5-5 North Carolina. But there were still two shutout losses along the way (vs. Kentucky and Vanderbilt -- teams boasting unimpressive combined records of 9-9-2) and four other games in which Tennessee could not break double digits. The record -- 5-4-1.

Wyatt scraped along for another three seasons, amassing 16 wins, 12 losses and 2 ties over that period. The low point perhaps being a 0-0 draw against 2-win Mississippi State.

James McDonald stepped in for the 1963 season, elevating the team back to five wins and five losses. But with three shutouts against Alabama and the SEC's Mississippi schools, the coaching search continued the next year.

Tennessee finally found resuscitation in the hiring of Doug Dickey, but not before one more season of offensive futility. 4-5-1 in 1964 including three more shutouts and a topping of 20 points just once on the year.

Things would get markedly better for Tennessee the following season and stay there a full decade until the Vols' next slump starting in 1974 (#15 on this list).

Total number of seasons (7) times 2 = 14 demerits
32 losses minus 34 wins = -2 demerits
9 total blow out losses = 9 demerits
4 blow out losses to sub 8-win teams = 4 demerits
4 ties = 2 demerits

Total demerits = 27

13. Texas 1986-1993 (46-42-1)
Coaches: Fred Akers, David McWilliams, John Mackovic

The University of Texas had several near-stumbles from the upper echelons since its initial mid-1960s slump, such as a 5-5-1 season in 1976 (Darrell Royal's last) and a 7-4-1 season in 1984, but Texas was able to rebound almost completely in follow-up seasons. Until 1986.

Taking over for coaching legend, Royal, Coach Fred Akers had some huge shoes to fill. And he did it pretty well, initially leading Texas to an 11-1 season his first year and also in 1983. His first seven seasons as head coach saw a record worse than 9-3 only once.

But even in those golden days of Akers' tenure, things were not completely satisfactory to the Texas powers that be. Although his teams went to bowl games every year he coached (except his last) his record in the post season was an abysmal 2-7 including a 17-55 scorching by Iowa in the 1984 Freedom Bowl. And, while initially successful against arch-rivals Oklahoma and Texas A&M, by the mid-1980s, both schools began to dominate the Longhorns. A 5-6 turn in 1986 (Akers' only losing season while at Texas) and an offer from Purdue University, left the Longhorns searching for a new coach.

Enter David McWilliams.

Former defensive coordinator under Akers, McWilliams spent one year as head coach of Texas Tech (upsetting the Longhorns in their match up) before hired to replace Akers in Austin. While initially improving upon Akers' last season with a 7-5 record and a Bluebonnet Bowl win over Pittsburgh, McWilliams produced three losing seasons (out of five) between 1987 and 1991. 1990 was the lone bright spot as Texas went 10-1 during the regulars season with the only loss a 7-point squeaker against 2nd ranked Colorado. But even that season ended on a sour note as the Miami Hurricanes crushed the Longhorns 46-3 in the Cotton Bowl.

A disappointing 5-6 follow-up to 1990 led to McWilliams' resignation.

Known for turning around struggling programs such as Wake Forest and Illinois, John Mackovic took over for McWilliams and, two seasons later, effectively ended this slump with back-to-back conference titles in 1995 and 1996. The last conference title of the Southwestern Conference and the first of the newly formed Big 12.

Total number of seasons (8) times 2 = 16 demerits
42 losses minus 46 wins = -4 demerits
16 total blow out losses = 16 demerits
3 blow out losses to sub 8-win teams = 3 demerits
1 tie = .5 demerit

Total demerits = 31.5

11. (tie) BYU 2002-2005 (20-27)
Coaches: Gary Crowton, Bronco Mendenhall

In 1984, Brigham Young University went 13-0 on its way to claiming its first and only National Title. And 25 years later, the school still gets no respect for it.

The problem was BYU's perceived soft schedule, including a Holiday Bowl opponent (Michigan) which had a 6-5 record before the Cougars handed them a sixth loss on the season. It was a 24-17 win in which BYU was hardly dominant.

Nevertheless, BYU was the only undefeated team after the bowl dust settled and a marquis opponent (never mind the record) swayed enough voters to crown the Cougar's champions.

Whether Brigham Young continued to benefit from softer slates than other National Title programs is debatable, but the seasons of double-digit wins continued to roll out of Provo -- 14-1 in 1996, 12-2 in 2001, 11-3 in 1985, 10-3 in 1989, 1990 and 1994 -- with a bevy of 8 and 9-win seasons sprinkled in between.

There was an occasional false start to a slump in the 1990s as LaVell Edwards' amazing 29-year run as head coach ended with 257 total wins and 19 conference championships.

Ironically, Edwards retired perhaps a year too late, leaving BYU with the third worst season of his career. His replacement, Gary Crowton, would start off with a more Edwards-esque result of 12-2, but then immediately plummet the program into a 4-year slump consisting of not a single winning season.

With 7 more losses than wins over the period, the slump was made all the more severe by the frequency and brutality of its blowout losses -- much like the 4-year crucible of punishment Nebraska went through under Bill Callahan.

Scores like 13-58, 9-52, 21-52, 12-50, 23-49, 10-42 caused Cougar fans to take to watching games with their eyes closed. And when they weren't getting blown out, they were losing to sub-.500 teams like UNLV, Stanford, Wyoming, San Diego State and Nevada-Reno.

After three-straight losing seasons, Crowton voluntarily left the program, opening the door for defensive coordinator, Bronco Mendenhall, to step in. A 6-6 record in 2005 put a cap on the slump as Mendenhall boosted BYU back to Edwards-level standards with two Mountain West conference titles and a 32-7 record over the last three seasons.

The downturn may have been brief, but Crowton's overall run was horrific enough to nearly land BYU in the top ten slumps of the last 50 years.

Total number of seasons (4) times 2 = 8 demerits
27 losses minus 20 wins = 7 demerits
12 total blow out losses = 12 demerits
5 blow out losses to sub 8-win teams = 5 demerits
0 ties

Total demerits = 32

11. (tie) Notre Dame 1999-present (69-53)
Coaches: Bob Davie, Ty Willingham, Charlie Weis

With a 63-9-1 run from 1988 to 1993, the middle portion of Notre Dame's Lou Holtz era was just about as good as any of the storied stretches in Irish history. The one lapse once Holtz got things going was a 6-5-1 conundrum in 1994 which still saw hugely competitive efforts in losses to such college gridiron stalwarts as Michigan, BYU and Florida State and in a tie against USC. The season probably could have been a little better for Notre Dame, had they not been mismatched against an one-loss Colorado in the Fiesta Bowl. Holtz's only lopsided loss of the season.

Nevertheless, this lackluster season planted the seeds for retirement in the coach's mind, even despite contract extension offers from the University and 17 wins in his last two years in South Bend.

With Holtz's departure in 1996, in stepped Notre Dame defensive coordinator, Bob Davie. Who pretty much immediately blew a cold wind right up Touchdown Jesus' tunic.

Notre Dame started off 1997 with a preseason AP rank of 11 and a manageable season-opener as host to Georgia Tech. For the Yellow Jackets' part, they would bring in no national ranking, a losing-record streak of four of the last five seasons and a sophomore quarterback by the name of Joe Hamilton as starter.

With just three minutes left in the game, Hamilton had his team up 13-10, with a stadium full of Irish fans and national television audience all holding their collective breaths. Notre Dame managed to punch in a one-yard touchdown run to pull out the win. But, for Davie, the victory did not bode well as it was game the Irish were expected to have taken going away.

Notre Dame summarily dropped the next four games before beating a mediocre Pittsburgh on the road, only to return to South Bend and lose to a deeply slumping Southern Cal for a 2-5 start on the season. Davie's team then turned it up a notch, winning their last five regular season games, before getting spanked by LSU in an Independence Bowl revenge rematch.

It was the second false start to the present-day Notre Dame slump which Davie managed to avoid kicking off for one more season.

1999 was a truly bizarre season as Notre Dame won every road game (including matches with Oklahoma, Arizona State and USC) while losing every single game at home, including against an awful Pitt Panther team. At 5-7, the slump that has dogged the Irish's last three coaches, was officially under way.

Nine wins in 2000 prolonged Davie's stint at the controls, but a 32-point clobbering by Oregon State in the Fiesta Bowl was a precursor to an arduous season that proved to be his ouster in 2001. Starting the year with three losses -- including two blowouts -- the best performances by the Irish would be a 4-point loss on the road against Stanford and mild dominations of 3-win West Virginia and no-win Navy at home.

Stanford coach, Ty Willingham must have liked what he saw along the opposing sidelines when he laid the hammer to Davie's squad because, after an offbeat resume incident with incoming coach, George O'Leary, in the offseason, Willingham accepted the vacant job himself.

Willingham produced the best season of his coaching career with Davie's leftovers, as the Irish sprinted to an 8-0 start including impressive victories over Michigan, Florida State and an 11-win Maryland. The season tempered after that with three losses in the last five games and a 10-3 overall record. Blowout losses to USC in the Coliseum and North Carolina State in the Gator Bowl had Irish fans putting the corks back after their mid-season champaign-popping.

And they would replace those bubbles with alka-selzer fizz soon after the launch of 2003 as Willingham's Irish hamfisted along to a 2-6 start, featuring two shutout losses (to Michigan and Florida State) by 38 and 37 points respectively and a 14-45 drubbing by USC in South Bend. November would fare a little better for the team, utilizing a pair of 4-win teams in BYU and Stanford for some much needed win-column Prozac. But a season finale at the Carrier Dome against Syracuse (pitting a pair of 5-6 teams) sent Irish fans back to rehab. A win would make one team bowl eligible, while the other would have to sit out the post season.

The Orangeman took advantage, ripping Notre Dame for nearly 500 yards in a 38-12 thrashing. Of course, Syracuse itself was so mediocre in 2003 that, even with the bowl eligibility of six wins, no one offered an invitation.

As for Notre Dame, the 5-7 mark gave the Irish its third losing season in five years. A dubious first for the program. The shine was officially off of Willingham's 10-win debut as the slump ostensibly continued.

2004 saw an immediate improvement for the program as Notre Dame started off at 5-2 with big wins over Michigan, Michigan State and Washington. But none of those schools had particularly good seasons in 2004. An opening loss at home to slumping BYU (see co-#11 on this list) was no badge of honor, either. And neither was the 16-41 mauling by Big-10 middle-feeder, Purdue. Also at Notre Dame Stadium.

Still sitting at a respectable 6-3 following an impressive road win against previously 7-1 Tennessee, Notre Dame's 2004 season completely pooped out with three straight losses including a 10-41 debacle against USC and a 17-point drubbing by mediocre 7-5 Oregon State in the Insight Bowl.

Willingham had already split for Washington after the regular season ended. Maybe he liked what he saw as his team pounded the one-win Huskies earlier that year. Or perhaps he left South Bend for Seattle because Notre Dame canned him.

Whatever the case, Charlie Weis became the next (and current) coach for Notre Dame starting with 2005.

Like his predecessor, Weis showed early promise in his first season at the helm, steering the Irish to nine wins and a thriller of a loss to #1 USC at South Bend, famous for "The Bush Push" in which the Trojans, down 28-31 with a little over a minute left in the game, drove nearly the length of the field only to get stopped by a tenacious Irish defense on the two yard line. With seven seconds left, a Matt Leinart sneak was stuffed up the middle, but Reggie Bush shoved the quartback off the left side and into the endzone.

That's how close Weis' men were from upsetting what some in the media had been calling "the greatest college football team ever". And that loss remains still the highpoint of this ten-season (and counting) slump.

10-3 followed 2005's nine wins, giving Weis a 19-6 start to his tenure. The death rattle to this slump could be faintly heard. But there were a lot of questions going into 2007 about how to replace the personnel largely responsible for those 19 wins.

And no answers were found as Notre Dame was blown out by its first five opponents of 2007. No Irish team had ever started a season with more than three straight losses, let alone five. And everyone of the scores were embarrassing 3-33 to Georgia Tech, 10-31 to Penn State and 0-38 to a Michigan team that had started its own season 0-2 and had famously lost its opener to Appalachian State.

A 20-6 win over UCLA broke the losing streak, but another four straight losses (including two more blow outs) lead to the school's first ever 1-9 mark, before salvaging the season somewhat with two wins for a 3-9 finish. Nevertheless, 2007 sits as the only nine-loss season in school history.

2008 had fans hoping for a major turn around. The Irish faithful got a small one with seven wins and six losses for the year. Blow-out losses to the likes of USC and Boston College continue. But what could have clearly been the end of the slump -- after two fine opening seasons for Weis -- continues on into 2009.

Total number of seasons (10) times 2 = 20 demerits
53 losses minus 69 wins = -16 demerits
23 total blow out losses = 23 demerits
5 blow out losses to sub 8-win teams = 5 demerits
0 ties

Total demerits = 32