Hello, back again with a bit of a Sickos Stat I really love. Don’t you just love it when the offense gets the ball on the 1-yard line and then goes the entire length of the field for a touchdown? It’s basically telling the opposing coach, Yeah, you pinned us down here with a punt, or we stopped you on defense at the 1-yard line; now watch as we take the ball the furthest possible distance and score a touchdown. It’s one of the great asserting dominance moves in the game of football. The only way you don’t love 99-yard touchdown drives is if you’re rooting for the defense, or you bet on some aspect of the game.

The Commish is back with some data diving for the full 2024 College Football Season. This time, I just gathered a gigantic spreadsheet of all the drives that took place in Division I football in 2024. I wanted to see how many 99-yard touchdown scoring drives we had and then break down some stats about these drives further. Mainly, did a 99-yard touchdown drive serve as a precursor to winning the football game? Also, what team had the most 99-yard touchdown drives? Finally, what team had the dubious distinction of giving up the most 99-yard touchdown drives?

Before I go further, here’s the Sickos Sentinel Guarantee: there will likely be an error in the data because I am human, and I will miss something or the data will have an error I couldn’t correct. Also, you’ll get at least one typo or grammatical error, no matter how many times I check the write-up.

SO, HOW MANY 99-YARD TOUCHDOWN DRIVES DID WE HAVE IN 2024?

(I am writing this before the National Championship game and it’ll be funny if I have to come back and update this later)

During the data dive I was able to locate FORTY-SEVEN 99-yard touchdown drives for the 2024 Season. The 99-yard touchdown drives ranged from 2 plays to 20 plays to traverse the entire football field.

Let’s call this category the Quick Strike 99-yard touchdown drive category and make an arbitrary decision of 6 plays or fewer.

We had two teams that had a 2-play 99-yard touchdown drive in Division I Football this year.

Presbyterian got a 2-play, 99-yard touchdown drive against Stetson by picking up 5 yards on first down with a run and then a 94-yard TD pass on their way to a 42-14 win.

North Texas got their 2-play, 99-yard touchdown drive against Tulsa by picking up 3 yards on a rush and then a 96-yard TD pass on their way to a 52-20 win over the Golden Hurricane.

Also, look away, Purdue fans. Your defense showed up here twice in losses to Indiana and Oregon.

You see Robert Morris on here. This was likely the most Sickos game on this list. Robert Morris, aka Bobby Mo, went 5 plays for 99 yards for the ONLY SCORE OF THE GAME ON AN 82-YARD TD PASS WITH THE EXTRA POINT BLOCKED.

Ok, lets keep going.

I mean, I have no idea what to call this category, but I guess we can call this a medium-speed 99-yard touchdown drive. These are the 99-yard touchdown drives that took 7–11 plays. (Did I just want the chance to say 7-Eleven? Yes)

If you notice, North Texas is back from the same game against Tulsa. That’s right, they had TWO 99-yard touchdown drives in the SAME GAME this year. Or if you’re a Tulsa fan, the Golden Hurricane gave up TWO in the SAME GAME.

Middle Tennessee was apparently cursed to give up 11-play 99-yard Touchdown drives this year.

Florida A&M also gave up two 99-yard touchdown drives, too. Incredibly, to very very very different caliber opponents, Miami (FL) and Mississippi Valley State.

Let’s call this a Methodical Matriculation of the ball. All of these drives took 12 plays or more, and it’s understandable; they had a long way to go.

I will note the longest drive here for North Dakota State gave them a two possession lead with under 4 minutes remaining, but they lost that game. I’m sure the Bison fans won’t mind because they won the FCS National Championship for the 10th time in 14 years, though.

Now, do 99-yard touchdown scoring drives lead to a win?

The Offenses went 35-12 here, a winning percentage of 74.46%. Maybe we have something here—the offenses dominate the defense, and it demoralizes the opposing team? Your offense gets a 99-yard drive; you win 75% of the time, right? That’s just a fact we can repeat, and it will always happen like this no matter the situation, right? Right?

SO WHAT OFFENSE DID IT THE MOST THIS YEAR?

We had a tie! In FBS, we had the North Texas Mean Green with 2 99-yard Touchdown Drives (in the same game). In FCS, we had the South Carolina State Bulldogs with 2 99-yard Touchdown Drives.

SO WHAT DEFENSE ALLOWED THIS TO HAPPEN TO THEM THE MOST THIS YEAR?

Well, we had a tie here too!! This time, FIVE teams allowed it this year. Arizona, Florida A&M, Middle Tennessee, Purdue and Tulsa. The Golden Hurricane had the one really terrible game against North Texas where they gave up two. Every other team only gave up one in two separate games. So you could either hate this stat as a Tulsa fan, or think at least we just had the one regrettable game. Each team listed here, too, lost the game; they gave up the 99-yard TD drive.

Hope you enjoyed reading! Also, I am releasing this on the day of the National Championship Game, so I personally dare you Ohio State and Notre Dame to have a 99-yard Touchdown Drive to make me have to correct this post.