The Power Five Misery Index

This isn't a post about the Illini. Not really. This is a post about us.

I have said in the past that no one in the country has suffered like Illinois fans have. So I set out to take a look at the data.

What I was most interested in was not so much the heights, championships, trophies, etc. I wanted a broader sense of a "relevant season", basically meaning a team worth watching and being involved in the conversation. A team that isn't getting laughed at. A team that doesn't make you feel like you're wasting your time being a fan (we all know that feeling as Illini fans).

Obviously it's tough to do with with precision. Football and basketball are different, and Alabama football and Northwestern basketball don't have the same expectations. But I came up with a rough and ready definition of a "relevant season":

1. An above .500 conference record, AND
2. An NCAA Tourney/Bowl appearance

If you met that definition, you were some part of the conversation. If you didn't meet it, you weren't.

So with that definition established, I looked up the records of every power five team since our trip to the Rose Bowl. That's 9 years, or 18 team-seasons. Here are the results:




Most "Relevant Seasons" 07-08 Basketball-present

16 - Wisconsin
15 - Oklahoma
14 - Ohio State, Michigan State, Louisville
12 - Florida State, Pitt, West Virginia, Oregon
11 - Clemson, Duke, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Texas, UCLA
10 - North Carolina, Stanford, Florida, Alabama
9 - Baylor, Kansas, Nebraska, USC, Utah, Mizzou, LSU
8 - Michigan, Arizona, Washington, Georgia
7 - Miami (FL), Iowa, Purdue, California, Kentucky
6 - Georgia Tech, Syracuse, Virginia Tech, TCU, Texas A&M
5 - Virginia, Iowa State, Northwestern, Arizona State, Colorado, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Arkansas, Ole Miss
4 - NC State, Indiana, Penn State, Maryland, South Carolina
3 - Boston College, Wake Forest, Rutgers, Oregon State, Washington State, Auburn, Mississippi State
2 - Texas Tech, Minnesota
1 - Illinois


Longest Current Streak of "Relevant Seasons"

9 - Oklahoma
8 - Wisconsin
5 - Utah
4 - North Carolina, Iowa
3 - Miami (FL), Michigan
2 - West Virginia, Colorado

Longest Current Streak of "Non-Relevant Seasons"

15 - Illinois
14 - Texas Tech, Boston College
10 - Wake Forest
8 - Oregon State, Vanderbilt, Rutgers
6 - South Carolina
5 - Syracuse
4 - Georgia Tech, Arizona State, Mizzou, Mississippi State


The cheese stands alone. We are the worst. We are the model of failure in intercollegiate athletics. Our fans have had less to cheer for than any other fanbase in America.

So what's the point of posting this? Well, for one thing, data is interesting, and this data tells a striking story. But more broadly, it seems to me that the truth revealed here needs to be a part of the conversation when talking about our fans, our students, our attendance, our reputation among media members, etc.

We're in the gutter of the gutter. We're in sports hell. Now for goodness sakes, lets get out, starting right now, this basketball season. And may we look back after 9 more years on the total other side of this list.

That's some fine work. Depressing, but very well put together. :thumb:

This is why I find it irritating when I hear about Illinois fans wanting "instant gratification" from our revenue sports, or suggestions that we have to "be patient". We just want any gratification, because we've had almost none at all since the Rose Bowl.

Look at the highlight film that they show at State Farm before a game. Whiz Kids, beating Magic and MSU, Flyin' Illini, Frank Williams, Dee, Augie... and then Griffey's layup to beat IU. One basketball highlight in the last ten years. Football is even worse; we have a few unicorn seasons with repeatedly bottoming-out in between.

Illini fans - those that are still left - are not lacking for patience. We're fans of one of the worst, if not the worst, major-conference sports programs out there. It's not just a gut feeling. You've spelled it out - the numbers back it up.

Nice work!

That is so depressing.

Second and Chalmers said:

We are the model of failure in intercollegiate football and basketball.

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Fixed that for you.

To include all other athletic events into the same conversation is just disingenuous as our volleyball, tennis, gymnastics, golf, etc... teams have all had exceptional seasons over this same time span.

JDHalfrack said:

Fixed that for you.

To include all other athletic events into the same conversation is just disingenuous as our volleyball, tennis, gymnastics, golf, etc... teams have all had exceptional seasons over this same time span.

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Glad someone pointed this out!

On the original topic, it's interesting to see data backing up what we've all felt. OTOH, I'd be interested to see the same analysis applied to various 9-year stretches over a longer period of time. Obviously if you go from 1999-2007, we had some pretty good years. Was there some other team that had as rough a stretch then as we're having now, or is this a historically noteworthy state of misery? If it is, have we addressed the root problems if they're addressable? If it's not, what happened to those other schools after they went through similar stretches?

So Illinois' one relevant season in that time period was a 5-seed in the NCAA tournament and a 1st round exit?

I would argue that rutgers above .500 in Big East football is not on the same level as finishing above .500 in the Big Ten or SEC, so definitely not a perfect metric to measure success (or failure), but I can't argue with the fact that we have been about as disappointing as it gets

danielb927 said:

Was there some other team that had as rough a stretch then as we're having now, or is this a historically noteworthy state of misery?

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No one is touching pre-Barnett Northwestern by this metric. Technically they were stuck on zero from 1948 to 1995, but those were mostly days with tiny NCAA tournament fields and only one Big Ten team allowed to go to a bowl. But even by modern standards, they didn't have a winning conference record from 1972 football to 1994-95 basketball. Thats 0-for-46.

ballislife17 said:

I would argue that rutgers above .500 in Big East football is not on the same level as finishing above .500 in the Big Ten or SEC, so definitely not a perfect metric to measure success (or failure), but I can't argue with the fact that we have been about as disappointing as it gets

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While I'll agree with your first point Rutgers under Greg Schiano did go bowling regularly and was very successful doing so.

2005 loss to Arizona St 45-40
2006 win to Kansas St 37-10
2008 win to Ball St 52-30
2009 win to NCST 29-23
2010 win to central Florida 45-24
2011 win to Iowa St 27-13

So yes big East definitely isn't the Big Ten but Schiano owned a 5-1 bowl record in his 10 seasons in Piscataway which blows away what we did in that same time frame.

Robert of IlliniBoard measures it slightly differently, but comes to the same conclusion. In his eight year measure vs your nine, there are only two schools without either a Sweet 16 season in basketball or an 8 win football season. We are one, Wake Forest the other. Yup, it is massively painful being an Illini fan.

http://illiniboard.com/2016/11/21/eight-years/

FeelYourPaign said:

Robert of IlliniBoard measures it slightly differently, but comes to the same conclusion. In his eight year measure vs your nine, there are only two schools without either a Sweet 16 season in basketball or an 8 win football season. We are one, Wake Forest the other. Yup, it is massively painful being an Illini fan.

http://illiniboard.com/2016/11/21/eight-years/

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Robert uses that time length because that's when he started his blog.

Wake Forest won 8 football games in 2008, so if you extend it to nine years, once again, the cheese stands alone.

Second and Chalmers said:

Robert uses that time length because that's when he started his blog.

Wake Forest won 8 football games in 2008, so if you extend it to nine years, once again, the cheese stands alone.

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Now I'm confused, are you a lawyer or an accountant??

danielb927 said:

OTOH, I'd be interested to see the same analysis applied to various 9-year stretches over a longer period of time.

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We put up 14 "relevant seasons" over the 9 year stretch from 1981-1990. Comparable to what Wisconsin has done in recent years.

It's almost as if there was some horrible leadership change in the early 90's. I wonder what it could be?

Second and Chalmers said:

We put up 14 "relevant seasons" over the 9 year stretch from 1981-1990. Comparable to what Wisconsin has done in recent years.

It's almost as if there was some horrible leadership change in the early 90's. I wonder what it could be?

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There were some NCAA sanctions around that time too, right?

danielb927 said:

There were some NCAA sanctions around that time too, right?

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Well that was the Thomas/Pearl thing, which the basketball program eventually recovered quite spectacularly from. Football on the other hand died the moment John Mackovic left and was never quite resuscitated.

If you want a hopeful look at this, it was 14 from 1981-1990, then 6 from 1990-1999, then 10 from 1999-2007. Perhaps these things are cyclical.

This analysis almost makes up for all your definitive assertions that were overreaches. Almost. ;-)

Great analysis. Exhibit 1 when people wonder why the psyche of the collective fanbase is the way it is.

So by your standards the 2012 season where we took down Gonzaga, Indiana, and nearly beat Miami in round 2 was not relevant? Just because of a conference record? Not a fan of the standards.

OrangeSoda said:

So by your standards the 2012 season where we took down Gonzaga, Indiana, and nearly beat Miami in round 2 was not relevant? Just because of a conference record? Not a fan of the standards.

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If you start to nit-pick seasons like that, every team will add some. Getting to the second round of the tournament isn't exactly something to make a commemorative DVD about.

OrangeSoda said:

So by your standards the 2012 season where we took down Gonzaga, Indiana, and nearly beat Miami in round 2 was not relevant? Just because of a conference record? Not a fan of the standards.

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I'm not a fan either. He makes it not to include how good we were in the last 15 years because that wouldn't fit his narrative. As far as basketball goes, we have never been the laughing stock of the power five programs in the past 9 years, we haven't been really good, but we are always good. Football has really dragged us down obviously, but for this to be in our basketball forum is ridiculous especially after the big W yesterday.

Here would be my defense of my methodology:

1. First and foremost, this was easily compilable using Wikipedia. I have neither the time nor the math skills to make some intricate five-factor regression that would tell us essentially the same thing.

2. Like I said, this is about us moreso than the Illini. I actually got the inspiration for this on a treadmill at my gym a few Saturdays ago as I saw people in Wisconsin, Michigan State, Iowa, etc t-shirts walk by me. And I was thinking about how the measure of success in a fan's life is really being able to hold victories over your rivals. You could express the Illini's failure in a lot of ways, but the most emotionally resonant one is that we never have the upper hand on our peer institutions whose fans surround us every day. That's where the above .500 conference record came from. But then it also seemed like it was hard to define non-bowl/tournament seasons as successes, which also had the benefit of eliminating seasons where teams are in NCAA jail, which seemed like they shouldn't count because they don't feel like they "matter".

"Mattering". That's what I'm driving at. Sports is fun when your team matters. It sucks when they don't.

(EDIT: Another reason I didn't think of. Doing it any other way would throw the balance between Football/Basketball out of whack.)

Second and Chalmers said:

"Mattering". That's what I'm driving at. Sports is fun when your team matters. It sucks when they don't.

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+infinity

S&C,
Your analysis is fine, imo. It tells a story. A sad story, but a story from a person's point of view. Others see it somewhat differently, but right now no one that I know of has a version in which the Illini are being sprinkled with magical pixie dust. Every narrative ends up in much the same place. Yet we soldier on. That's the only magic (right now).

I think this is a fair representation. I would implore those who disagree with the "narrative" to compile their own data and put it up so we can see both sides.

FiveStar said:

I think this is a fair representation. I would implore those who disagree with the "narrative" to compile their own data and put it up so we can see both sides.

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Bingo. As a fan since my undergrad days in the 70's, the last 10 years have been some depressing times. I would challenge anyone to put a happy face on the two major sports fot that time period no matter what kind of metrics they use.