On a blog entry on Buster Sports, author Dave Nathan has discovered what he believes to be the three worst college football and basketball teams from 2006 to 2009. There are three BCS schools that have had 3 straight losing seasons in football while also missing the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Of course, NC State is a member of this “unholy trilogy” along with Colorado and Iowa St.
I had done a similar entry in May of last year about BCS schools that didn’t make a bowl game, the men’s basketball tourney and the women’s basketball tourney and BCS schools that didn’t go to a bowl or the men’s tourney.
NC State is also one of six BCS schools that did not go to a bowl and also didn’t make the men’s tourney each of the last two seasons. Interestingly, there was one school in each conference.
• NC State
• Syracuse
• Northwestern
• Iowa St
• Washington
• Ole Miss
A quick update on this group: NC State, Northwestern and Ole Miss went to bowl games last year while Syracuse and Washington made the big dance, leaving Iowa St as the only BCS school to not go to a bowl and the men’s tourney each of the last 3 years.
There are some other groups of distinction where NC State is a member. Did you know that NC State is one of eight BCS schools (and the only ACC school) that has never played in any of the four BCS bowls (Rose, Fiesta, Sugar and Orange)? Those eight schools are:
• NC State
• Iowa St
• Rutgers
• South Carolina
• Texas Tech
• Vanderbilt
• UConn*
• South Florida*
* didn’t join Big East until 2005
Here is another group, since Lee Fowler has been AD (from 2000-2001), NC State is one of 16 BCS schools that have not won a team national championship:
• NC State
• Virginia Tech
• Pitt
• Rutgers
• Purdue
• Iowa St
• Kansas St
• Missouri
• Texas Tech
• Washington St
• Kentucky
• Mississippi St
• Ole Miss
• Cincinnati*
• Louisville*
• South Florida*
* didn’t join Big East until 2005
That means that 50 of the 66 BCS schools (75.8%) have won at least one team national championship in the past nine years. Of course, NC State is in the bottom 25%.
Although, in the category of national titles NC State is one of 14 schools to have won multiple national championships in men’s basketball.
There are two other groups that NC State is a member of that my fellow stat major ruffles31 has researched. In the nine years where Lee Fowler has been AD, there are four BCS schools (and only 3 full-time) that have failed to win a conference title in any of the four major revenue or high profile sports (football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, baseball):
• NC State
• Texas Tech
• Arkansas
• South Florida*
If you take that analysis a little further, you will find an even more exclusive group (although the time frame was selected for more personal reasons than you might usually do for an analysis). Since myself, ruffles31 and the rest of the NCSU Class of 1996 came to campus at the beginning of the 1992-1993 season there is one full-time BCS school that has not won a single conference title in football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball or baseball:
NC State
If I had gone to any other BCS school (other than South Florida*) I would have at least one t-shirt in a drawer somewhere with the name of my alma mater and the word “Champion” underneath.
State’s last conference title in the major revenue sports was baseball in 1991-1992, coincidently the season before I became a State fan.
So Dave Nathan, I take your Unholy Trinity and raise you to the Impossible One. Just to repeat:
From the beginning of the 1992-1993 season, NC State is the only full-time BCS school that has not won a single conference title in football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball or baseball.
Take that Colorado and Iowa State.
