This September has been a fun month for college football, in large part because unsuspecting programs otherwise known for their basketball prowess opened their seasons undefeated on the field. Duke, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Syracuse and UCLA — schools with 40 total national titles in men’s basketball — are 18-0 combined in the first three weeks of the football season.
Clean, right?
Check that. In more than 100 years of college football, these six traditional basketball powerhouses have never – until now – started the same 3-0 season.
There is a chance that a few of these football teams will end up having better seasons than their basketball counterparts this college year. And if you’re wondering when was the last time this happened for each of these schools, you’ve come to the right place.
Hoops powers in more recent seasons were better in football
Kentucky: 2021-2022
Yes, we don’t even have to go back a year to find the first time a basketball powerhouse has been surpassed by its soccer brethren. It’s tight, but Wildcats football went 10-3 (.769 winning percentage) last season, which only beat John Calipari’s Kentucky basketball team because — you know. You guessed it – Kentucky (26-8, .765) lost to No. 15 seed Saint Peter’s in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
If Kentucky had won just one more game – even if they had lost in the second round to the state’s little brother Murray State – the UK would have finished with a 0.771 winning percentage at worst. . But that was not the case. Thus, Kentucky is first on the list.
The next most recent example of Kentucky football beating British hoops…you guessed it: 2020. Even with Mark Stoops’ team going 5-6 (.455), the 2020-21 British basketball season doomed ensured football was better. Kentucky notoriously went 9-16 (.360), giving the program its worst single-season winning percentage since 1926-27 and just the second time in the NCAA Tournament era (since 1939) that the U.K. finished below .500.
Dating back to Kentucky’s first football season in 1916, the football program has ended with a higher winning percentage than the men’s basketball program just 14 times. As you’ll see, that’s comfortably the lowest total of anyone on our list.
Indiana: 2020-21
For official purposes, the most recent college year in which IU football won a higher percentage of its games than IU men’s basketball was ’20-21. But these two teams did not play full seasons; the football team played eight times (6-2, .750), while the men’s hoops played 27 games (pandemic or not, it was unquestionably worse with a 12-15 record and a winning percentage of .444).
Before 2020-21, you had to go back to 2010-11, when IU football was an edgy 5-7 (1-7 in the Big Ten, .417 overall winning percentage), but that still beat Indiana. 12-20 (.375) campaign under Tom Crean. It was the last of Crean’s three under-.500 teams as he worked to rebuild after Kelvin Sampson was fired in the late 2000s.
IU football and basketball have been played since 1900. The Hoosiers football team has won a higher percentage of its games in the same season than the men’s basketball team 30 times – 21 of those seasons before 1950.
North Carolina: 2020-21
OK, so maybe it’s not that rare after all. Three of the seven schools have seen men’s soccer hoops in the past two years. Mack Brown returned to coaching after a six-year absence and quickly made North Carolina interesting on the football field. In his second season, the Tar Heels went 8-4 (.667), finished 18th in the nation, and won the Orange Bowl. While this was happening, hardly anyone knew it, but UNC was entering its final season under Roy Williams. Carolina basketball went 18-11 (.621) in Ol’ Roy’s kickoff season, losing in the first round of March Madness for the first time in his career. North Carolina was unranked at the end of that regular season and finished 34th on KenPom.com.
Had UNC maintained Williams’ streak, the Tar Heels would have finished with a higher winning percentage this college year, but still: UNC football also surpassed men’s basketball in winning percentage in 2019.
By proving that this will be a basketball school first and foremost forever, UNC tapped into its blue blood powers and had a memorable run to the 2021 national title game in Hubert Davis’ freshman season. at the head of the Tar Heels. Meanwhile, the North Carolina football team went 6-7 in 2021 after being a buzzing preseason pick for the ACC.
They have played football and basketball in Chapel Hill since 1910. In 27 instances – including 17 before 1950 – football has been better in terms of records than men’s hoops.
Syracuse: 2018-19
The only major season for the Orange under current coach Dino Babers came four years ago when SU went 10-3 and finished 15th in the AP standings, his first season with a ranked finish since 2001. men’s ball, the 2018-19 Orange went 20-14 (.588) and lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament as the No. 8 seed.
Prior to 2018, the last time Syracuse football won a higher percentage of its games in the same season as men’s hoops: 2001, otherwise known as the season before Carmelo Anthony arrived on campus. Syracuse’s best player that season: Preston Shumpert. In football, running back James Mungro had a team-high 15 touchdowns for a team that won the Insight Bowl and finished 14th in the nation.
Syracuse is a basketball school, but it has a strong football history in addition to being known for its lacrosse success over the years. The school has fielded football and basketball teams since 1900. Football was better in 38 of those seasons, including all but three seasons from 1952 to 1969.
UCLA: 2015-16
It has long been claimed that UCLA is football’s greatest historical underachiever. The John Wooden dynasty certainly influenced this; UCLA’s blue blood status in hoops is solely due to what Wooden did for 15 years in the 60s and 70s.
Seven years ago, Jim Mora — now a coach in obscurity at UConn — seemed poised to win Los Angeles’ war with USC, which was in disarray (with more things going on). The Bruins had 10-3 straight seasons, then went 8-5 in 2015 with Josh Rosen throwing for nearly 3,700 yards. UCLA basketball was busy that year, missing its first NCAA tournament under third-year coach Steve Alford. Those Bruins went 15-17 (.469) and had an unusually sluggish season at Westwood. And yet 2015 was the third time in four years that football could claim a more successful season than men’s hoop.
Truth be told, no blue bloods have been outmatched by their football counterparts more than UCLA. Since 1928, when UCLA adopted football, the gridiron boys have won a higher percentage of their games than men’s basketball 39 times. Thank goodness Mick Cronin turned around.
Duke: 1994-95
While researching this, here is what I found quite amazing. OK, so Duke only had two seasons after Mike Krzyzewski shook things up in the mid-’80s. There was the COVID year, 2020-21, in which Duke missed the NCAAs for the first time in a generation – and then there’s the infamous 94-95 campaign which saw Coach K step down due to ill health. That year was the most recent example of Duke being better at football than basketball. Incredibly, on the football side, Duke was in his first season of a five-year run under Fred Goldsmith. He went 8-4 in 1994, but understand this. That 1994 season for Duke was the team’s only with more than five wins over a 22-year span, from 1990 to 2012.
Historical nonsense. If 1994 had not been an aberration, we would have to go back to 1982, Krzyzewski’s third year of work.
They started playing college football at Duke in 1922, nearly two decades after basketball. The Blue Devils football team has finished a season better than Duke hoops 27 times, with all but five of those years predating 1957.
Kansas: 1981-82
You must have realized that it was a long time for Kansas, but 41 years? It’s almost unfathomable. Not even room for a year in this period? Could this be the biggest proof that, more than any other power conference program with both sports, Kansas has the biggest disparity between its basketball and its football? (Reminder: Kansas has played in every NCAA tournament since 1990 and has only missed one since 1984.)
Forty-one years ago, Kansas was playing in the Big 8. Don Fambrough was in his third year of a four-year tenure with KU football, guiding the Jayhawks to an 8-4 mark (.667) . Kansas lost 10-0 to Mississippi State in the Classic Hall of Fame Bowl that year. On the hardwood, KU went 13-14 (.481) in the winter of Ted Owens’ 19-year tenure as coach.
If you thought Kansas’ magical 2007 season — in which legend Mark Mangino guided the Jayhawks to a 12-1 record and an Orange Bowl appearance — led to a better percentage … surprisingly, no. The KU football team had a winning percentage of 0.923 this season. But that same college year saw Bill Self guide Mario Chalmers, Darrell Arthur, Brandon Rush and Co. to a memorable NCAA Tournament overtime win over Memphis. The victory took the Jayhawks to 37-3, giving them a .925 winning percentage – barely ahead of KU football.
They’ve played both sports in Lawrence, Kansas since 1901. KU football overcomes assumptions here, winning 24 times the winning percentage over the past 120 years. Sixteen of those 24 years came before 1950. There’s a reason Kansas basketball is considered the best advantage of the home field, by farin the sport.