The Rocky 5 feature here at Blogcritics – named after the worst movie of all time - was created to point out all of the really bad teams that exist in the world of Division 1 college football, and served as a tonic for those of us who are sick and tired of all of the repetitive “who’s number one” nonsense that dominates the discourse during the college football season.
As we got into the first few weeks of the season I realized that there were so many crap college football programs out there that deserved derision, I added a team to the mix and the feature became the Rocky 5 Plus One.
I fully realize that there were many bad, rotten, putrid, fetid, foul and rancid teams out there this year. However, this poll is concerned with the bad programs, the perennially losers and the perpetually putrid, and not the teams that have had a bad year or two. Also, the teams from the better conferences always get harsher treatment than do teams from conferences like the Sun Belt and such.
The First Rocky 5 poll looked like this; Duke, Temple, Buffalo, Syracuse and
Kent State. Basically nobody ever threatened the top-three turds - Duke, Temple and Buffalo - and is why after Week 6 of the season I abandoned this exercise in the obvious.
Duke, Temple, and Buffalo are clearly head and shoulders above the worst of the worst teams. These teams not only lost games, they lost games in ways that only true losers could pull off. Pathetic.
There is no way that there is a worse Division 1 sports program than Duke Blow Devil football. Hands down the disaster in Durham is unprecedented as Duke - a major university with a commitment to athletic excellence – year after year allows this embarrassing product to be put on the field bearing the Duke Blue Devil logo. This is inexcusable.
With the money and power possessed by Duke, there is no way that this football team should be this bad. Including the 2000 season, Duke has won 9 games and has had three winless seasons including this season’s “0-fer.” This goes beyond just being bad, this record is the result of total neglect by the entire university administration.
Article comments
1 - Andy
Your points on IL are valid except for keeping Zook as head coach. He's a master recruiter and unlike Florida, the Illinois program will have the patience to let him run his course of improvement through the recruitment process. He has a top 10 ranked class according to scout.com as of today before national signing day for next fall. Let's not confuse the 2002-2004 teams that were coached and recruited for by Ron Turner which underachieved after the Sugar Bowl apperance. Illinois is definitely going to improve over the next few years possibly getting to a bowl by 2008 season
2 - sal m
for illinois sake i hope that you're right...because these days three of four really bad seasons can kill a program for long time.
3 - Steve L
Steve Spurrier (yes that Spurrier) was once the Duke football head coach. They actually won games under him. So it does prove that it can be done. However, as a Carolina grad, nothing makes me happier than seeing Dook go 0-fer.
4 - RJ Elliott
What about UCF? They looked great last year...but this year was a HUGE disappointment...maybe they aren't one of the worst six teams in college football, but surely they are one of the worst 20 in D-1...
5 - sal m
UCF was 4-8 and there are a bunch of teams that were just as bad if not worse...granted the expectations were higher in orlando, but it's hard to get that upset about a underacheiving Conference USA team.
as a program they aren't nearly as bad as any of the teams mentioned in the Rocky 5.
6 - slantpass
This poll clearly shows East Coast Media bias. The PAC-10 owns the country's worst team. Last year Stanford lost to Div I-AA U.C. Davis. Those were the good 'ol days for Stanford- this year was worse. Duke would kick Stanford's ass.
7 - sal m
clearly reading comprehension
is an issue here...stanford surely was awful, as was utah state and some other teams...but this poll is about the worst programs...i understand if you missed it because i only mention it about 6000 times...
oh and hyperbole is an east coast thing....
8 - Jake
It's stupid to rank Temple as one of the 5 worst PROGRAMS in D-1 football. When you take into account the renewed commitment of Temple University to football, the quality of their facilities, the quality of their coaches, and the quality of recruting in the past two years since Al Golden was hired, there is no way on Earth this is one of the worst programs in D-1. The results will show up in the win column in the next couple years.
If you want to talk about lousy PROGRAMS, take a look at Florida International, whose only claim to fame is that embarrassing brawl with Miami where players were swinging crutches at each other.
9 - Cork
Good call on your Illinois prediction, moron.