Most corrupt college football programs

The recent revelations from the FBI and media reports of its investigation have filled in the details. But to think college football is immune to such corruption would be foolish.

The sport continues to be the No. It's just that we've been distracted lately. But the only reason we know about the level of basketball's wrongdoing is the FBI. The bureau was investigating an individual for Security and Exchange Commission violations who was allegedly funneling money to players.

That sort of plea-deal whistleblower doesn't exist in college football. All of it has opened the NCAA to a different level of criticism. Some argue its arcane amateurism bylaws have created this black market where compensation is the basis for a federal investigation.

Change the rules and those payments -- and least some of them — are suddenly above board. For now, we have to deal with the NCAA's biggest scandal since the s. The temptation to cheat is certainly there as the structure of football and basketball have become more similar. Salaries, pressure and revenue have never been higher. At certain levels of college football, you even hear of a "going rate" paid for talented recruits.

In other words, the amount of cash it would take to the get in the running for a five-star recruit. With the influence of spread offenses, it's possible -- like basketball -- to change the fortunes of a team with one or two players. Take the deep threat away from Alabama during its current dynasty run. Editor's note: To be clear, these are just examples of recent impact players on major college football teams. No violations are being alleged. While college basketball has been fixated on the negative impacts of one-and-done players, freshmen have been impacting football on an increasing basis.

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Breast Cancer and Exercise. October is Health Literacy Month. Hydration and Basketball. Move to Manage your Stress. The New Strategic Management Paradigm. Battling Depression and Anxiety. Vote Now! Home Pro. Teenage Bowler Converts Rare Split. Please enter your comment! The Aggies had a long history of playing second fiddle to Texas in the Southwest Conference and the Big 12 South, so they up and made the leap to the Southeastern Conference in , much as Arkansas had done two decades earlier.

And that made a difference. And LSU. And Auburn. Aside from R. Jimbo Fisher, over to you. Robert Neyland thought to be the best ever -- the Panthers walked among the college football elite. In , they won the second AP title despite a tie with Fordham; they might have won the first, in , if not for a tie with Fordham.

The teams tied in too, but there was no AP poll. But Sutherland resigned in a dispute with the university after the season. And save for a decade under Johnny Majors and Jackie Sherrill from the mids to mids, the Panthers have been just another program. You wouldn't blame a Mountaineers fan for being frustrated that the college football public believes App State football began in with that jaw-dropping upset at Michigan.

The Mountaineers have won pretty much since they took the field in If you check their record, just skip over the s.

Their greatest run came during nearly a quarter-century under Jerry Moore, a coach who had previously washed out in five seasons at Texas Tech. Some fans still argue whether that was a good idea. But App State just kept winning. Attention, data geeks. Linfield made this list for the simple reason that the Wildcats last year extended their streak of winning seasons to They last had a losing campaign in , when Dwight Eisenhower was president and no one had heard of Elvis Presley. Dude could coach.

You should take in a game at Linfield where, on game days, they rename the two blocks leading to Memorial Stadium "Streak Street. From through , Georgia Tech employed only three coaches, each of whom won at least games and ended up in the College Football Hall of Fame.

Now it's Geoff Collins' turn to live up to a storied legacy. The Big Green but not the NCAA claims the national championship, which are fightin' words in Tuscaloosa, but Dartmouth also can make other historical claims for what it didn't do. Dartmouth didn't beat Yale until ; in , it didn't accept an invitation to the Rose Bowl; and in , it didn't score more points than Cornell but won the game anyway -- the famous "Fifth Down Game," which Cornell forfeited after learning its victory hinged on a touchdown scored on fifth down.

All that happened under the watch of Red Blaik, who left for Army after the season. Since becoming a charter member of the Ivy League in , Dartmouth has won or shared 18 conference titles under five different coaches.

No Ivy team has won more. Virginia Tech played 18 seasons before it had a losing record , then played 10 more seasons before it had another. The less said about the next 60 years, the better. But the arrival of former Hokies defensive back Frank Beamer as head coach meant the arrival of Virginia Tech as a national force. That alone is some kind of legacy. Few programs have enjoyed higher highs or endured lower lows than these brave old Army teams. The Black Knights might have had an unfair advantage at times; in their early years, the generals in charge rarely allowed Army to play a game away from West Point, and during World War II, Army had, um, a sizable recruiting advantage.

But during the s and s, Army also had the sizable advantage of Red Blaik as head coach. He fashioned disciplined, winning teams even as the generals chipped away at his ability to field a competitive team. The six decades since Blaik retired have been by and large bleak. Current head coach Jeff Monken has restored the Black Knights to their winning ways, however.

You might notice that among those legends, Schembechler, the most recent, coached his last season at Miami in That's about when the fortunes of the RedHawks turned, give or take a Ben Roethlisberger at quarterback.

But Miami won or shared 11 of the first 30 Mid-American Conference championships, a good indication of what the program was -- and could be again. It might have had something to do with their coaches. Wild Bill Kelly led Central Michigan to seven conference titles. At some schools, it's easier to win. The Buffaloes have had their moments, just not enough of them. Fred Folsom won so much a century ago 21 straight from to that they named the field after him.

From the end of World War II into the 21st century, Colorado mostly had the misfortune to play in the same conference as Oklahoma and Nebraska. Take , when they finished third in the nation -- behind the Huskers and the Sooners. Bill McCartney led the Buffs to a share of the national championship, a feat few have matched anywhere; and Rick Neuheisel and Gary Barnett continued to win at a high level through Since then, it has been a struggle, one that joining the Pac failed to alleviate.

But living with high academic standards has meant that Stanford has done its share of losing too. It's a dilemma that Stanford has embraced, from the glories of the two decades prior to World War II seven Rose Bowls in 17 seasons to the nadir of the early 21st century when the university considered dropping out of the Pacific Conference to the excellence of the past decade when the Cardinal won three league titles and finished in the top 12 in six out of seven seasons from to Pig Sooie?

By doing so, Arkansas surrendered competitive equality for financial security. The Hogs enter their 28th season in the SEC still looking for their first championship. There's no "h" in Pittsburg, Kansas, but there is one in champion. Most of those nine came in the 20 seasons coached by Chuck Broyles to The Sun Devils landed on the national college football map thanks to the work of two Hall of Fame coaches.

Dan Devine made Arizona State a power in the old Border Conference, but he left the desert after three seasons to , with a record to climb the career ladder. His successor, Frank Kush, stuck around for 22 seasons to , won games and methodically built the Sun Devils into a national power. By the time Arizona State fired him in for physically mishandling a player, Kush had shepherded the Sun Devils into the security of the Pac Conference.

The Mountaineers have been consistently good and rarely great for most of their existence, as good an explanation of this ranking as any.

The past 50 years have been the best, starting with the arrival of a young Bobby Bowden in his first FBS head-coaching gig. Don Nehlen took West Virginia to the brink of national titles in and After Nehlen retired in , Rich Rodriguez positioned the Mountaineers on the cutting edge of the up-tempo spread revolution and took them to the brink of a title again, in They haven't crossed that last frontier just yet.

Legendary Georgia assistant Erk Russell moved over to Statesboro to restart the program. They won again in and in and became the first team in the 20th century to go The Eagles won consecutive national championships in and under Paul Johnson. Georgia Southern has such a strong reputation that it has become a feeder to the FBS: In the past two decades alone, Johnson, Jeff Monken and Willie Fritz all have parlayed winning at Georgia Southern into bigger jobs.

The Utes won consistently in their neck of the woods in the first half of the 20th century. They spent the next 40 years wondering how to rise above mediocrity. Of the schools that changed leagues in the second wave of realignments to , Utah made the smoothest transition. The Utes won the Pac South last season, and Whittingham has quietly established himself as one of the top coaches in the nation. If you are in your 20s or younger, you've never known the Badgers not to contend for the Big Ten championship.

Since the arrival of Barry Alvarez in and through the tenures of Bret Bielema and current coach Paul Chryst, Wisconsin has been a winner. It is a story made even more astounding if you are old enough to remember the previous iterations of Badgers football, which had signed a long-term lease in the bottom half of the Big Ten. Skip to main content Skip to navigation.