The Bottom 10 (officially, ESPN.com's Bottom 10) is a week-by-week regular season "ranking" of the worst ten

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

teams in the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

Division I FBS The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). A ...

. ESPN.com writer

Ryan McGee Ryan McGee is a senior writer for ''ESPN The Magazine'' and formerly a television producer with ESPN, Fox Sports Net, and NASCAR Media Group. He covers a variety of American sports, but is best known for his motorsports work, particularly NASCAR, ...

currently writes the column each week and is the sole determiner of the teams that are listed. One of the

running gag A running gag, or running joke, is a literary device that takes the form of an amusing joke or a comical reference and appears repeatedly throughout a work of literature or other form of storytelling. Though they are similar, catchphrases are not ...

s of the Bottom 10 is the "highly coveted Number 5 spot." This spot is typically reserved for "the top BCS blunder of the week" – a normally strong football team that found itself on the wrong end of an upset the prior week; an example would be the Bottom 10 of September 7, 2011, which featured

Oregon State Oregon State University (OSU) is a public land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. It has the 10th largest engineering col ...

at the #5 ranking after its upset loss to

Sacramento State California State University, Sacramento (CSUS, Sacramento State, or informally Sac State) is a public university in Sacramento, California. Founded in 1947 as Sacramento State College, it is the eleventh oldest school in the 23-campus California ...

, a

Division I FCS The NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), formerly known as Division I-AA, is the second-highest level of college football in the United States, after the Football Bowl Subdivision. Sponsored by the National Collegiate Athletic ...

program that had previously never beaten an FBS team in its history. Occasionally, the Number 5 spot can be used for other aspects relating to the game, as occurred on two consecutive weeks in 2015. On October 13, "Monday" (that day) was Number 5 following three significant events: the firing of

Steve Sarkisian Stephen Sarkisian (born March 8, 1974)Stephens, Ken. – "QB GENEALOGY – Steve Sarkisian is latest in long line of talented BYU quarterbacks". – FUN FACT, Sarkisian’s father is actually Texas Tech Head Coach, Joey McGuire. ''Dallas Mo ...

as head coach at

USC USC most often refers to: * University of South Carolina, a public research university ** University of South Carolina System, the main university and its satellite campuses **South Carolina Gamecocks, the school athletic program * University of ...

, the

PED Peds are aggregates of soil particles formed as a result of pedogenic processes; this natural organization of particles forms discrete units separated by pores or voids. The term is generally used for macroscopic (visible; i.e. greater than 1 mm i ...

suspension of

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

starting quarterback

Will Grier William Grier (born April 3, 1995) is an American football quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Florida and West Virginia and was drafted by the Carolina Panthers in the third ro ...

, and the unexpected retirement of

South Carolina )''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...

head coach

Steve Spurrier Stephen Orr Spurrier (born April 20, 1945) is an American former American football, football quarterback and coach who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 10 seasons before coaching for 38 years, primarily in college. He is often ...

. One week later, the Number 5 spot was handed to " Digital Tough Guys from

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

", referring to a number of putative Michigan fans who sent insulting tweets and death threats to

Wolverines The wolverine (), (''Gulo gulo''; ''Gulo'' is Latin for " glutton"), also referred to as the glutton, carcajou, or quickhatch (from East Cree, ''kwiihkwahaacheew''), is the largest land-dwelling species of the family Mustelidae. It is a muscul ...

punter Blake O'Neill after his mishandling of a snap led to the game-winning touchdown for

Michigan State Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. It i ...

in their October 18 game. The Bottom 10 also features the "Pillow Fight of the Week", which is usually a matchup between fellow Bottom 10 teams.

The Bottom 10 in popular culture

The Bottom 10 rankings are occasionally referenced by other sportswriters when writing editorials about teams that the writers consider to be poor performers. One example of this can be found in the Stanford Review: "

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

has consistently maintained the #2 spot on the ESPN "Bottom 10" rankings, only losing, or winning depending on your perspective, to equally hapless

Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are ran ...

Original idea

The ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...

'' credits the idea to Los Angeles sportswriter Steve Harvey approximately 30 years before ESPN began using the term. On Sept 6, 1972, the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' introduced the Bottom 10 as follows: "This season ''The Times'' will keep football fans up to date on the bad as well as the good in football with (Steve) Harvey's irreverent feature, The Bottom 10." ESPN now publishes the rankings "With apologies to Steve Harvey." In 2008, Harvey resumed his "Bottom 10" columns for college and NFL football in the ''Los Angeles Times''.Steve Harvey
College Football - Bottom 10
''Los Angeles Times'', September 24, 2009

References

{{reflist

External links

ESPN.com college football ranking index
College football rankings ESPN

The Bottom 10 in popular culture

Original idea

See also

References

External links