Now that Kansas routinely is referred to as the worst of the 65 power-five football conference schools (a designation that includes independent Notre Dame), it’s time to see if the numbers support the label.
It boiled down to a two-school race with Kansas edging Oregon State, thanks to the Beavers having strong back-to-back weeks in the first two games under interim coach Cory Hall, who lost 36-33 to Colorado in his first game and 15-14 to Stanford in his second. Hall took over after one of the more stunning moves by a coach in recent memory. Gary Andersen quit with a 1-5 record and in doing so walked away from a guaranteed $12.6 million.
After checking the margin between points scored and points allowed for the 65 schools, I ranked the 10 worst in that category and also tracked how many times each school has been on the wrong end of a blowout, which we’ll call any loss by 38 or more points.
Illinois checks in at No. 3 and Baylor, which defeated Kansas 38-9 two weeks ago in Lawrence, is No. 4.
Just those four schools had negative margins of more than 100 points. A look at the 10 worst programs, ranked in order of margin between points scored and allowed, with conference record breaking ties:
School | Rec/Conf | PF | PA | Margin | Blowouts (38+L’s) |
Coach (Record) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 – Kansas | (1-10, 0-8) | 207 | 463 | -256 | 4 | David Beaty (3-32) |
2 – Oregon State | (1-10, 0-8) | 238 | 447 | -209 | 0 | Cory Hall (0-5) interim |
3 – Illinois | (2-9, 0-8) | 178 | 336 | -158 | 1 | Lovie Smith (5-18) |
4 – Baylor | (1-10, 1-7) | 270 | 386 | -116 | 1 | Matt Rhule (1-10) |
5 – Vanderbilt | (4-7, 0-7) | 253 | 352 | -99 | 1 | Derek Mason (17-31) |
6 – Tennessee | (4-7, 0-7) | 214 | 307 | -93 | 2 | Brady Hoke (0-1) interim |
7 – Maryland | (4-7, 2-5) | 286 | 379 | -93 | 1 | D.J. Durkin (10-14) |
8 – Rutgers | (4-7, 3-5) | 209 | 300 | -91 | 2 | Chris Ash (6-17) |
9 – Arkansas | (4-7, 1-6) | 300 | 386 | -86 | 0 | Bret Bielema (29-33) |
10 – Nebraska | (4-7, 3-5) | 295 | 381 | -86 | 1 | Mike Riley (19-18) |