SICKOS T.H.A.N.O.S - Teams Having Absolute Numerical Outcome Symmetry

March 01, 2024

Hey y'all Commish here.

You know how we always talk about the Best Team of All Time or the Worst Team of All Time. There are numerous posts and graphics of the Best Team in College Football history and people tend to debate, quote tweet and angrily reply to all of these things in some form of engagement bait. It’s almost formulaic. Let me put this team like 2 or 3 slots lower on the graphic this time so we can see the replies saying, “4th??? There's no way 2001 Miami wasn’t better than 2019 LSU, they should be 1st!”.

When the numerous accounts do the ranking things in the off-season, I tend to get bored by it, but it’s college football, and it’s just debating things a good bit of the time. Really, for the most part, it's harmless yelling on the internet about things that can never be settled. It’s a huge part of the sport. I saw a graphic posted the other day, talking about the most iconic teams. I looked at it and by the 4th or 5th team, I had a confused look on my face and there it goes: 1,000 likes and endless quote tweets in about an hour.

Then I thought, Why do we always debate the top and the bottom teams, but we tend to forget about this juicy middle of .500 teams? We rarely ask the questions, Who was the most average team ever? Who had the most common career of all time? Who was the least remarkable, but yet somewhat competent, to compete at this level?

Well, again, at the Sickos Committee, we kind of made our own way here and began to try to ask these questions. First, I started with a simple question.

How many current FBS teams have finished .500?

Would you believe our Masterspreadsheeter Kevin did this data dive into Winsipedia last year and did the manual counting? It seems, as though, the Commish was not alone in thinking about these average teams.

Thanks to the hard work of the Masterspreadsheeter Kevin, he found out that throughout the history of college football, there have been about 948 teams (regardless of the division at the time & listed in Winsipedia) whose seasons have finished some variety of .500. Whether the team finished 4-4, 5-5-1, 6-6, or even the rare 7-7, or some other variation of .500, they balanced out their season with the same number of wins and losses, plus sometimes ties too.

That’s nearly 1,000 teams that have ended the season at .500.

The Commish aka myself, along with Masterspreadsheeter Kevin, decided to dive into all of these 948 teams and went on a search for a team whose win-loss total was .500 and their points for and against were equal. (For example, did any team go 5-5-1 and finish with 190 points scored while allowing 190 points scored on them?)

I set some parameters for this search. I started with 1945, and my reasoning was that most teams at this time were playing a 10-game schedule. Also, scoring was more common and uniform; the 0-0 tie still occurred now and then, but pretty much we got some sort of points in every game.

Presenting SICKOS T.H.A.N.O.S.

Whose season finished so perfectly balanced that their win/loss total had the same number along with their points for & against? How many teams, if any, accomplished this feat?

This is pretty self-explanatory, so let’s just get to the teams and cut out all the talking.

Here are the teams that got within a touchdown plus an extra point or two-point conversion. They got close but were still a possession away from being perfectly balanced.

Now for the teams that were a touchdown away from this precious goal. Fun Fact: In 1987, Tulane was coached by Mack Brown.

Teams that got within five points. Shout out to Hawaii for being 5-5-2. It was the only record we found of 5-5-2 in CFB History.

Teams that got within four points. 1957: Georgia Tech at 4-4-2 was just incredible; they only scored 75 points in 10 games and only gave up 71.

Teams who got within a made or missed field goal. I really love the random 5-5-1 record. Yes, you had 11 games but still managed a .500 season.

Teams who got within a safety or two-point conversion. Shout out to John Cooper’s 1999 Ohio State team.

Teams that got within one made or missed an extra point. Could one precious point have swayed a win, loss or tie here? These teams were so close yet so far from a perfectly balanced season.

How many teams, since 1945, have achieved the pinnacle of balance?

How many teams finished .500 and hit the ultimate season that wasn’t too good or too bad?

The answer is four teams.

2004 Notre Dame was coached by Tyrone Willingham, but he was fired after the regular season after a 41-10 loss to USC. Their loss in the Insight.com Bowl, 38-21, to Oregon State sealed their 6-6 record and perfectly balanced point differential of zero.

1971 Georgia Tech was coached by Bud Carson. Their loss in the Peach Bowl 41-18 sealed their 6-6 record and perfectly balanced point differential of zero. Bud Carson was fired after the game and ended his Georgia Tech coaching record with a perfect .500 record of 27-27.

1962 Iowa State was coached by Clay Stapleton. Their win in the final game, 31-22, against the Ohio Bobcats sealed their 5-5 record and perfectly balanced point differential of zero. Stapleton coached for five more years finishing his tenure at Iowa State 42–53–4.

1962 Virginia Tech was coached by Jerry Claiborne. Their loss in the final game, 14-9, against the VMI Keydets sealed their 5-5 record and perfectly balanced point differential of zero. Jerry Claiborne was in his second season at Virginia Tech, led the Hokies/Gobblers to their two Liberty Bowls and finished with a career mark of 61–39–2 with the team.

Our Fantastic Four!

Thank you for reading and we hope you enjoyed!

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