The 14 Teams With The Most Winless Seasons In College Football History

Every college football program experiences some ups and downs, and more than a few have hit rock bottom by failing to win a single game over the course of a season. However, there are some programs that have experienced that dubious fate on more than one occasion.

These college football teams have posted more winless seasons than any other programs

Around half of the college football teams that currently comprise the FBS level have at least one season where they were unable to get a single victory over the course of the campaign.

Most of the members of that group have only had to endure that fate a single time, but there are some that have been down as bad as you can get on multiple occasions—including these programs that have gone winless at least three times.

Boston College: 3

Based on how Boston College has looked in 2025, the Eagles probably would have seen this number rise to four if they hadn’t opened up the year with a win over Fordham.

You have to go all the way back to 1902 for the first winless season (they went 0-9) that year, and while they did get a tie against Wake Forest to go 0-9-1 in 1950, that was not the case with the 0-11 stinker that unfolded in 1978.

They are one of three schools on this list that eventually won a national championship after going winless, with the second being…

Florida: 3

The Gators went 0-5 in 1916 and managed to avoid the same fate for 40 years before going 0-9 in 1946. They’ve been immune since 1979, a season where they finished with a 0-10-1 record (the tie was in the season opener with Georgia Tech).

Kansas: 3

There are nine teams that didn’t record a single win in 2020, although most of them didn’t play what I would consider a full schedule due to the pandemic.

However, I’m going to include the 0-9 showing Kansas subjected its fans to during Les Miles’ second (and final) season with the Jayhawks.

That was five years removed from their 0-12 season while kicking off the disastrous David Beaty Era in 2015, which marked the first time the team was unable to salvage a win since they went 0-10 in 1954.

Illinois: 4

Illinois has won five national championships (the most recent of which was secured in 1951), but unlike BC, Florida, and another school we’ll get to in a second, they all came before they experienced a winless season.

The first two transpired in less than 10 years, as the Fighting Illini went 0-9 in 1961 (while scoring a grand total of 53 points) and a very not nice 0-10 in 1969. It took a while for them to crash out again in that manner, but it happened again when they went 0-11 in 1997.

New Mexico: 3

New Mexico is the only team on this list that has never been ranked, and the three winless seasons they’ve had—0-9 in 1954, 0-10 in 1968, and 0-11 in 1987—obviously didn’t help that cause.

SMU: 3

SMU is the third team on this list that won a national championship at some point after a winless season, and there isn’t a program that’s had them more spread out than the Mustangs.

Their first one was a 0-8-2 effort in 1916, their second was a 0-9-1 campaign in 1960 (where they scored 31 points in 10 games), and the most recent was the 0-12 debacle that was the 2003 season.

Tulsa: 3

Tulsa joined the club by going 0-8-1 in 1917, cemented its membership by finishing at 0-9-1 in 1948, and turned that duo into a trio with a 0-11 record in 1954.

Wyoming: 3

We’re wrapping up the section of teams with three winless seasons with Wyoming, although all of its contributions are relatively ancient history: the Cowboys went 0-5 in 1913, 0-8 in 1923, and 0-7-1 in 1939.

Wake Forest: 4

There isn’t a single P4 conference that’s more well-represented here than the ACC, as Wake Forest is the fourth (and final) current member to make the cut.

The Demon Deacons went 0-8 in 1913 and 0-5-1 in 1933, then had a particularly rough patch in a relatively short span with 0-10 showings in 1957 and 1962.

Kent State: 5

Kent State is responsible for the most recent winless season at the FBS level, as the Golden Flashes went 0-12 in 2024 after going 1-11 the previous season.

That marked the first time the team lost 12 games in the same year, although they did previously go 0-11 under four different coaches in 1982, 1989, 1993, and 1998.

Northwestern: 6

Northwestern had its first winless season in 1954 while going 0-8-1 during Lou Saban’s only year as head coach. He was replaced by Ara Parseghian, who had fared pretty well at Miami and ended up doing the same at Notre Dame but struggled during a tenure that included an 0-9 showing in 1957.

1978 was a particularly brutal one for the Wildcats, as they finished at 0-10-1 under Rick Venturri while losing all of those games by 17 points or more. He was fired after going 0-11 in 1980 (a year after going 1-10), and Dennis Green didn’t have any more luck by replicating that feat in 1981.

Northwestern did get a relatively brief respite at that point, but Francis Peay became the third coach to go 0-11 in the span of a decade in 1989.

Colorado State: 7

Colorado State gets a bit of a pass compared to the only other program that’s gone winless on seven occasions, as the first four came between 1904 and 1917 during seasons that featured between four and eight games.

However, the Rams hit a rough patch at the start of the 1960s by going 0-10 in back-to-back years (and under two different coaches) starting in 1961. It would be a stretch to say they turned around from there, but they did avoid reaching that nadir again for close to two decades before going 0-12 in 1981.

Kansas State: 7

If you’re a student of college football history, you likely know Kansas State was long considered the laughing stock of the country before Bill Snyder arrived in 1989 and staged a truly miraculous turnaround in Manhattan.

He narrowly avoided becoming the fifth Kansas State coach to lay a goose egg after the Wildcats finished at 1-10 during his inaugural season, and if he hadn’t snapped a 30-game winless streak against North Texas while giving fans an excuse to tear down the goalposts, he would have joined:

• Hobb Adams (0-9 in 1946)
• Sam Francis (0-10 in 1947 )
• Doug Weaver (0-10 in 1962 and 1965 before going 0-9-1 in 1966)
• Stan Parrish (0-10-1 in 1987 and 0-11 in 1988)

It’s safe to say they’ve come a long way.