The 9 College Football Teams That Have Gone The Longest Without A Winning Record

Every sports fan is subjected to plenty of ups and downs while watching their favorite teams, and you can only hope you’re treated to more of the former than the latter. Unfortunately, you’ll likely have to endure extended periods of mediocrity or downright awfulness at some point, which is certainly the case for the supporters of the college football teams that have gone the longest without a winning season.

No college football teams have gone more seasons without a record over .500 than these programs

College football is built on a foundation of inevitable turnover that can make it hard for teams to ride a wave of success (which is especially true in the NIL Era).

There are plenty of blue bloods that have managed to largely endure for decades on end; Florida State set an FBS record by finishing with a winning record 41 seasons in a row starting in 1977 before that run came to an end when the Seminoles went 5-7 in 2018.

However, there are some schools on the other end of the spectrum that welcomed multiple generations of college students who saw their team finish under the .500 mark every single year they were there.

9. UMass: 14 Seasons

UMass is responsible for the only active streak on this list, and it’s very, very hard to imagine the Minutemen won’t be moving up a spot a year from now when you consider they went 0-12 in 2025.

The team made the leap to the FBS level in 2012, and none of the five men who’ve started a season as the head coach in Amherst have come close to cobbling together a winning one; the back-to-back 4-8 showings they have under Mark Whipple starting in 2017 remain the high-water mark for the program.

8. Eastern Michigan: 15 Seasons

In 1995, Eastern Michigan went 6-5 during Rick Rasnick’s first year as the head coach in Ypsilanti. That was the first and only time the Eagles finished above .500 during his five seasons at the helm, and neither Jeff Woodruff nor Jeff Genyk was able to get them over the hump during their tenures.

EMU opted to go with a non-Jeff when it tapped Ron English to take over in 2009, and he ushered in the new era by going 0-12 before “improving” to 2-10 the following season. The streak finally came to an end when the Eagles went 6-6 in 2010, but they had to wait until 2016 for their first winning campaign in over two decades.

7. UTEP: 16 Seasons

Two teams on this list saw their luck start to go south starting in 1971, and UTEP is the first we’ll be talking about.

The Miners were by no means a college football powerhouse prior to that point, but Bobby Dobbs had been able to string together a few winning seasons after taking over in El Paso in 1965. However, he was fired in 1974 midway through their third straight losing one.

This streak is defined by a brutal run between 1975 and 1985 where UTEP never won more than two games in a single season while finishing with a lone victory on seven occasions. Bob Stull was eventually hired to try to right the ship, and he managed to get them back on track and bring the pain to an end with a 7-4 showing in 1987.

T-5. Duke: 18 Seasons

We also have two teams that went 18 years without a winning season, and we’ll kick things off with Duke.

The Blue Devils had some success under Bill Murray (not that one) after joining the ACC as a founding member in 1953, but the program saw its trajectory turn downward when he departed in the wake of the 1965 season.

They’d already spent a few decades as an afterthought before things got even worse, as Fred Goldsmith coached Duke to an 8-4 record during his first season in 1994 before they fell to 3-8 the following year.

He never had another winning season, and both Carl Franks and Ted Roof would come and go before David Cutcliffe finally turned things around in his sixth season by leading his squad to a 10-4 record in 2015  (the first and only time the Blue Devils have hit the double-digit mark).

T-5. Temple: 18 Seasons

Temple has historically been viewed as a Basketball School, and its football team didn’t do itself any favors when it came to challenging that reputation during the rough run that began in 1991.

The Owls got a rude welcome to the Big East by finishing 2-9 that season a year after going 7-4 as an independent, and Jerry Berndt was relieved of his duties following a 1-0 showing the following season.

Ron Dickerson never came close to cracking the .500 mark during his five seasons in Philadelphia, and Bobby Wallace also failed to get there despite having seven opportunities. It took Al Golden a few cracks after he took the reins in 2006, but Temple finally turned the corner by going 9-4 in 2009.

4. Rice: 19 Seasons

We’ve got some more Owls courtesy of Rice, who (get it?) had a rough run that came to an end the year after Temple’s woes began.

Rice has always been a bit of an afterthought in the Texas college football landscape, and they only cemented their status as an also-ran in the Lone Star State with an underwhelming stretch that began when they went 5-6 in 1973.

Al Conover was the head coach at that point, and four other men came and went through Houston before Fred Goldsmith finally (and narrowly) broke the curse by going 6-5 in 1992.

3. Northwestern: 23 Seasons

Northwestern’s woes began a year before Rice’s did, as the Huskies went 2-9 in 1972 before Alex Agase’s time with the team came to an end after nine seasons (contrary to what you might understandably believe, he wasn’t fired but rather got the chance to coach at Purdue).

The team went through four coaches over the course of the next 19 seasons without finishing over .500 in any of them before Gary Barnett arrived on the scene in 1992.

Northwestern did not become an overnight success by any means, as they went 2-8, 2-9, and 3-7-1 during his first three seasons.  However, they brought the streak to an end in emphatic fashion in 1995 by beating Notre Dame and Michigan en route to winning a Big Ten title and finishing at #8 in the country with a 10-2 record.

2. Vanderbilt: 25 Seasons

Vanderbilt finally turned the corner in 2025 after spending a sizeable chunk of its existence as the biggest punching bag in the SEC, and the Commodores never endured more blows than the dark period that commenced in 1983.

The team had made it to a bowl while finishing at 8-4 the previous season before crashing back down with a 2-9 showing. As was the case with Northwestern, Vandy cycled through a quartet of coaches who were unable to turn things around, and Bobby Johnson was by no means a savior when he arrived in 2002.

The skipper left Nashville after eight years with a 29-66 record (which included three 2-10 seasons), although he was able to say he led the team to its first winning season in 25 years after going 7-6 in 2008.

1. Oregon State: 28 Seasons

Last, but not least, we have Oregon State, which is the other school that saw the state of the program go south in 1971. Dee Andros went 5-6 during his seventh season that year, and he got four more years before the Beaver decided to go in a new direction.

The coach cycled through six different head coaches as America went through the same number of presidents before Dennis Erickson finally brought what remains the longest streak of this nature to an end by going 7-5 in his first season in 1999.