The Sickos Committee TIE-tle

As the Chairman of the Sickos Committee, I wistfully found myself longing for the days when a college football game could end in a tie. A hard fought battle between two teams with a tie score at the end of the 4th quarter wouldn’t go to overtime; the game would just end. You used to see teams finish a season with a weird 5-5-1 record, and we all thought it was normal and just part of the lore of college football. Well, they finally eliminated ties for the postseason in 1995, and likely, we will never see one again.  

Sure, overtime is fantastic - I mean, the 9OT game between Penn State and Illinois from last season exists. Also, we got the insane 74-72 LSU and Texas A&M seven overtime thriller, among many other wild overtimes since 1995. I know if ties were brought back, we wouldn’t get those games any longer. 

However, the other part of me just thinks about this being a final score instead of just the end of regulation…

The last tie game in college football was in 1995. If you had to guess in which conference this game happened, you’d probably guess the Big Ten, and you’d be correct. The distinct honor of being involved in the last tie game goes to Wisconsin and Illinois. This game ended 3-3 and crushed the bowl hopes of the Illini since they finished 5-5-1, while Wisconsin finished 4-5-2. (You can read the story about the game here The Last Tie in CFB History)

So congrats to you, Illinois, you have the distinct honor of playing in the game with the most overtimes and the last tie game in college football history. 

My Sickos brain started to wonder if Illinois or Wisconsin also had the distinct honor of having the most ties in college football history. I began to research teams who have tied the most in the history of Division I college football. Standouts include the 1937 Temple, 1939 UCLA, and 1991 Central Michigan teams; who all tied four times in one season, a record that will never be broken. (Most Ties in one CFB season)

However, I really wanted to know what team had tied the most over all of their seasons. It would be a weird piece of Sickos college football trivia, since it’ll likely be an honor that is never broken (unless they bring back ties to spite the Sickos Committee). 

I found an FBS Records book PDF and began to research. Of course, the record books don’t list out the honor of most ties like they do most wins, so I had to do some manual calculations. Sometimes, as a college football Sicko Scholar, you have to do the research yourself. 

Based on information in the FBS Records linked above, the school with the most ties in FBS History had 58 of them since their football program's inception in 1890. In the 105 years of their program before ties were eliminated at the end of 1995, they finished the season with a tie 55.24% of the time. 

So without further delay, the Sickos Committee presents the College Football TIE-tle to the Kansas Jayhawks!!!  

Also, here are the Top 24 teams with at least 50 tie games in their history. Navy and TCU were just one tie short of tieing Kansas for the most ties in college football history. They both tied for second. Also, there were a lot of ties in the total amount of ties as seen in the graphic below.

And, for those who are curious, we also listed the teams with the least amount of ties in college football and how many years they played in Division I football through 1995 to give you an idea about how infrequently they tied.

Boise State had only 2 ties in the 27 years they played Division I football through 1995. UNLV had 4 ties in the same amount of time. ULM had 8 ties in 44 years.

Other programs, like FAU (founded in 2001) and FIU (founded in 2002), didn’t exist before 1995 so they never got a chance to tie.