The College Football Nail-biter Directory

Depending on your vantage point, a blowout is cause for celebration (fans of the winner), dejection (fans of the loser), or changing the channel (neutral parties). Wherever you fall in that spectrum, however, a blowout gives you time to process that feeling during the game itself.

Tell me Wazzu Popcorn Guy hasn’t moved all the way to acceptance by the time he finishes his snack!

We’ve already catalogued the numbers on the last 30 years of blowouts, so now it’s time to look at its dramatic opposite: the nail-biter. For these purposes, we’re applying that term to any game decided by fewer than three points. Games with a higher point differential can still be nail-biters – the final score of the Kick Six was 34-28 – but these are the outcomes that unquestionably deserve the title. While blowouts per season have grown steadily over time, nail-biters are more like a stock you wasted your time investing in.

(A note: These statistics don’t include ties, which the NCAA eliminated after the 1995 regular season.)

With data combed from Sports Reference, let’s look at the overall team numbers since 1990:

Northwestern’s the current leader in close games played, with 36 (21 wins, 15 losses). From 1990 through 2019, the Wildcats played 363 times. Imagine the experience of being a Northwestern fan over that stretch, with ten percent of your games coming down to the thinnest of margins. (This, of course, is why Pat Fitzgerald is known as America’s Greatest Showman.)

Arizona’s the most agonizing school to be a fan of, however. Those Wildcats lead all schools in nail-biters lost (20) and have the greatest disparity between close losses and close wins (-12). Of the schools on the list who have been FBS members for the entirety of the covered timespan, there’s a three-way tie for fewest nail-biters played, with Kent State, Ohio State, and Ole Miss at 12 each. When you think of peer football programs, those three go together perfectly, right? UPDATE: Of course I had the Ole Miss number in correct; they shouldn’t be on this list. It’s just Ohio State and Kent State, the two dominant programs of the last 30 years.

They all pale before the true masters of the close game, however. Central Michigan has the best spread of nail-biters won to nail-biters lost at plus-12. This is why we need the Chips and Northwestern to start an annual rivalry game. Their traveling trophy will be the Bronze Hourglass With One Grain Of Sand Left In It.

Now, let’s look at some of the single-season nail-bitin’ notables.

MOST NAIL-BITERS WON IN ONE YEAR: Five, by 2007 Virginia. The ‘07 Cavaliers started October with three wins on margins smaller than a field goal, over MTSU, UConn, and Maryland. Throw in a one-point victory over Wake Forest and a 22-20 final against UNC, and you have the most accomplished season of blade-dodging in recent college football history.

MOST NAIL-BITERS LOST IN ONE YEAR: Four, by 2013 South Alabama. The Jaguars opened the season with a one-point loss to FCS Southern Utah and later fell just short against Troy, Texas State, and Arkansas State. But they still managed to finish 6-6 in just the program’s fifth year of existence and second season in FBS. USA and Virginia share the record for most nail-biters played in a year (not including ties) at five games.

Finally, here are the nine matchups with at least five games decided by fewer than three points since 1990. The team listed first for each matchup is Team 1:

Please note: “close” doesn’t necessarily mean “good” or “interesting.” Sometimes it’s “two winded stormtroopers hurling half-eaten dinner rolls at one another from far away on a windy afternoon.”

[sighs deeply] Both stormtroopers played hard.