The 8 Longest Losing Streaks In College Football History

Every college football team goes through a rough patch every now and then, and fans who endure them simply have to hope they’ll be able to turn things around and put those low points behind them. However, there are some situations where it’s hard to have any hope when your school is seemingly incapable of winning a game.

There’s nothing capable of taking the wind out of a college football team’s sails quite like a lengthy losing streak, which can be just as demoralizing for fans as the players who are unable to snap them with a win.

Plenty of teams have been forced to deal with some particularly brutal stretches, but if you’ve ever lost hope because your squad lost four of five games in a row, it’s worth putting things in perspective with the help of these losing streaks that prove it could be much, much worse.

Northwestern—34 Games

Northwestern has never really come close to becoming a national powerhouse since the football program was founded all the way back in 1882, and fans were subjected to decades of mediocrity thanks to a 64-year bowl drought that was mercifully snapped in 2013.

That span also spawned the longest losing streak in college football history, which began when the Wildcats fell to 1-2 with a loss to Syracuse on September 22, 1979.

Rick Venturi was fired at the end of the 1980 season after failing to get a single win, but Dennis Green was unable to turn things around after leading Northwestern to a 0-11 record when he took over.

He got his first win over NIU four weeks into the 1982 season to bring the 34-game losing streak to an end, but the team never came close to sniffing a winning record during the five years he ultimately spent at the helm while going 10–45 during his tenure.

Kansas State—28 Games

Kansas State was once viewed as the laughingstock of the college football world before Bill Snyder emerged as its savior after taking over at the end of the 1980s, and fans were used to disappointment prior to that point.

However, the program arguably reached its nadir in the wake of World War II.

The Wildcats opened up the 1945 campaign with a win over Witchita but finished the year at 1-7. They failed to get a single victory in the two seasons that followed before snapping the then-NCAA record 28-game slide against Arkansas State three weeks into the 1948 season (a 37-6 win where they also scored their first points of the year).

However, the celebration was fairly short-lived, as they lost their next seven games and finished at 1-9.

Virginia—28 Games

The University of Virginia has had a football team since 1887 and has been no stranger to struggles since then.

However, nothing rivals the disastrous Richard Voris Era that was ushered in when he was hired as the head coach of the Cavaliers ahead of the 1958 campaign.

UVA got off to a 1-1 start that year but lost the eight games remaining on the schedule. You might think there was nowhere to go but up from there, but Voris proved that was not the case by losing every single game over the course of the ensuing two seasons before being booted to the curb after posting a 1-29 record.

He was replaced by Bill Elias, who kicked off his time at Virginia with a win over William & Mary to end the streak prior to leading the Cavaliers to a comparatively phenomenal 4-6 record in 1961.

New Mexico State—27 Games

In 1986, New Mexico State hired Mike Knoll to replace Fred Zechman as the head coach of their football team in the hopes he could improve on the 1-10 record his predecessor posted the previous season.

He did not, as the Aggies once again went 1-0 before “improving” to 2-9 during Knoll’s second year at the helm. Things somehow got even worse from there, as they started the 1987 season at 0-4 before getting a win that was sandwiched between the six losses that capped off the season.

The Aggies went winless in 1988 before Knoll was finally fired after going 4-40 during his tenure. Jim Ness got off to a 0-10 start when he took over in 1990, but was able to end the season on a positive note by snapping the skid with a 43-9 win over Cal State Fullerton.

Eastern Michigan—27 Games

Eastern Michigan has spent decades unsuccessfully attempting to recapture some of the magic that led saw program experience a fair amount of success in the first half of the 20th century, but it’s been largely downhill since the second half rolled around.

The Eagles firmly reached the bottom of that hill when Mike Stock was hired as their head coach in 1978 (they were still known as the Hurons at the time).

His first two seasons were very underwhelming, but things took a turn for the worse when they went 1-9 in 1980 and finished the year with eight straight losses.

Stock got one more shot after Eastern Michigan went 0-11 in 1981 but was fired after they started the 1982 season at 0-3. However, interim coach Bob LaPointe lost his first five contests before the streak ended with a 9-7 win over Kent State.

Western Kentucky—27 Games

Most people reading this probably aren’t old enough to vividly recall the rest of the losing streak on this list, but Western Kentucky’s is a relatively recent one.

The Hilltoppers experienced a fair amount of success at what is now the FCS, and the team made the leap to the FBS in 2008.  Unfortunately, Western Kentucky got a very rude welcome to the next level.

WKU got off to a 2-2 start during its first year with the big boys but finished at 2-10. They lost all of the 12 games they played in 2009 before David Elson was replaced by Willie Taggart, who lost his first six games before a 54–21 win over Louisiana-Lafayette ended the pain.

Colorado State—26 Games

Don Mullison capped off the 1950s by posting two consecutive 6-4 seasons as the head coach at Colorado State before the Rams kicked off the next decade on the wrong foot with a 2-8 campaign where they lost their last six games.

1961 marked Mullsion’s sixth and final season in Fort Collins after going 0-10, and Mike Lude replicated that total lack of success when he took over the following year. Thankfully, the Rams started off the 1963 season with a win to end the 26-game slide.

Louisville—24 Games

You may remember me referring to Kansas State’s 28-game skid as a “then-NCAA record” when it was set in 1948, which implies there was already a team to beat.

The team in question was Louisville, which saw itself dealing with a revolving door of head coaches during the beginning of The Great Depression.

In 1931, Jack McGrath coached his first and only season at Louisville while going 0-7. He was replaced by C. V. Money, who went 0-9 before befalling the same fate. Ben Cregor also got off to an inauspicious start the following year after starting at 0-7, but he capped things off with a 13-7 win over Eastern Kentucky and ultimately lasted for two more seasons.

While I’m going to cut things off with the Cardinals, it’s worth noting four teams—Duke, NIU, FIU, and Southern Miss—narrowly missed out on this list with the 23-game losing streaks they all posted at one point.