Photo courtesy of University of Missouri School of Music
Welcome back to the seventh of 13 installments where we rank all 130 FBS fight songs!
BACKGROUND
Fight songs are one of, if not the, best parts of college athletics. Everyone knows their university’s fight song.
Each week, 10 teams will be covered, starting with No. 130, and ending with the No. 1 fight song. This is designed to carry fans past the midway point of the darkness that is the FBS offseason.
This is perhaps the most subjective ranking list you’ll read all offseason. Any and all feedback can be directed to @CJOlson2000 on Twitter — whether it be positive or negative. But also remember that this is one man’s opinions on fight songs.
Also, even the worst fight songs are still enjoyable; they just are worse than their counterparts.
This took close to eight hours to complete, and that’s before turning it into 13 weekly articles. If someone is upset and feels so inclined, they’re welcome to listen and then grade all 130 FBS fight songs. It could be made into a weekly activity that’s updated as articles are published.
Lastly, there’s a possibility that the wrong song was used. If the wrong song was considered for a team and it negatively impacted their ranking, we are very sorry.
CRITERIA CONSIDERED
There were three factors considered for each team’s fight song.
1. FLOW
Did the song flow from beginning to end in a smooth way? This was given a weight of 25%.
The average flow score was 6.7016.
2. CROWD FACTOR
Is the crowd getting into it? Fight songs are designed to engage the crowd and get the crowd going, because this is the purpose of a fight song; this was given a 50% weight.
The average crowd factor score was 6.7137.
3. NOSTALGIA/FEEL-GOOD FACTOR
How much does this trigger the nostalgia of someone who put thousands of hours into NCAA football video games back when they had fight songs in the main menu?
Some teams newer to FBS do have a little bit of a disadvantage here. To make up for that, there is also a ‘feel-good factor’ incorporated. Fight songs should give listeners a great feeling, hence the reason for this category.
It’s fairly self-explanatory, but also the most subjective of the categories. This was given a 25% weight.
The average nostalgia/feel-good score was 6.8189.
The average overall score was 6.7370.
As a disclaimer, this final category was where biases shone through the most. For the first two categories, an attempt to be as unbiased as possible was made.
To avoid ties as best as possible, each factor’s score is given to four decimal places. Even with that, there was coincidentally two ties.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Lyrics and vocals were not considered unless it dominates the song and is what is predominantly coming across for a brief section. To remain uniform across the board, vocals and lyrics were only considered for these brief sections instead of for the full song.
PREVIOUS ARTICLES
If you’re interested in reading the rankings revealed so far without going through individual articles, that can found here.
Let’s get back to the rankings!
70. Georgia State
| Flow | Crowd Factor | Nostalgia/Feel Good | Overall | |
| Rating | 7.0143 | 6.6351 | 6.3563 | 6.6602 |
| Rank (Conf.) | 56/130 (2/10) | 72/130 (2/10) | 80/130 (4/10) | 70/130 (3/10) |
This was one of the rare instances where it was impossible to find just the tune without the lyrics over the entire song. This one is a fairly standard fight song, so there’s not much wrong with it. But there’s nothing that separates it from the rest of the average songs.
69. Virginia
| Flow | Crowd Factor | Nostalgia/Feel Good | Overall | |
| Rating | 6.3895 | 7.0054 | 6.2435 | 6.6610 |
| Rank (Conf.) | 78/130 (9/14) | 55/130 (9/14) | 84/130 (8/14) | 69/130 (8/14) |
This one is not strong in the nostalgia department. It’s also a little unremarkable in that it’s unlikely an opponent’s fan will remember it on the ride home from the stadium. That’s sometimes what separates the average fight songs from the elite – will an opposing fan ever catch themselves humming or whistling the tune after the game is over?
The “Go Wahoos” at the end is very well-placed. Given the war the first six articles have had with most chanting and spelling sections, this might be a little surprising. But not only does it not detract from the song, but it adds some flavor to any otherwise forgettable tune.
68. Ohio State
| Flow | Crowd Factor | Nostalgia/Feel Good | Overall | |
| Rating | 6.8845 | 6.9918 | 5.8716 | 6.6849 |
| Rank (Conf.) | 64/130 (11/14) | 59/130 (11/14) | 97/130 (13/14) | 68/130 (12/14) |
To any Ohio State fans, this is not meant to be an affront on the Ohio State University Marching Band, because they are rightfully so one of the most famous marching bands.
It’s simply unremarkable as a song goes, which is surprising given Ohio State’s relative dominance throughout the better part of this author’s 20 living years.
67. Kansas
| Flow | Crowd Factor | Nostalgia/Feel Good | Overall | |
| Rating | 8.0179 | 5.3641 | 8.1138 | 6.7150 |
| Rank (Conf.) | 22/130 (3/10) | 111/130 (10/10) | 31/130 (3/10) | 67/130 (6/10) |
This one comes with major nostalgia feelings and some great “feel good” vibes.
Kansas’ relative mediocrity hurts in that it doesn’t feel like the Jayhawk faithful are going to go crazy at a football game because they don’t have a ton to cheer for. So the crowd factor gets knocked a bit, since this list is looked at through the prism of college football. In college basketball, Phog Allen Fieldhouse probably goes bananas. But David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium (just rolls of the tongue, doesn’t it?) is probably not getting all that hyped.
Sidebar – the fact that they mentioned six other original Big 12 members is taking it too far. The phrase “rent free” is wildly overused, especially in the college football landscape. But this is too perfect an example of it.
Thankfully for Kansas, lyrics were not considered, so it did not hurt the score. But the Jayhawks knocked out over half of their competitors in a 60-second song; it’s almost impressive.
66. Nebraska
| Flow | Crowd Factor | Nostalgia/Feel Good | Overall | |
| Rating | 6.9985 | 7.0014 | 5.9989 | 6.7501 |
| Rank (Conf.) | 59/130 (10/14) | 57/130 (10/14) | 92/130 (11/14) | 66/130 (11/14) |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nynv00gueeY&ab_channel=Pelicaine
Listed above, the average of all of the songs is 6.7370, so we’ve officially reached the songs that are above average.
There is a lot of positivity for this song online, lauding it as one of the best. But here’s one list where it isn’t all that high. There’s just not a positive association to this song, personally. Some have it in the top 15 or 20, but 66 feels more than fair for our list.
65. Maryland
| Flow | Crowd Factor | Nostalgia/Feel Good | Overall | |
| Rating | 6.0211 | 7.8853 | 5.3414 | 6.7833 |
| Rank (Conf.) | 90/130 (13/14) | 25/130 (3/14) | 107/130 (14/14) | 65/130 (10/14) |
We’ve officially reached the halfway point! To anyone that’s read the bottom 65 already, give yourself a pat on the back.
The second quarter of Maryland’s fight song is very strong. That alone carries the crowd factor rating, and therefore gives it an overall boost of about 20 spots. As an outside observer, it doesn’t give that many great vibes, but it seems like it definitely plays with the Terrapin faithful.
64. Houston
| Flow | Crowd Factor | Nostalgia/Feel Good | Overall | |
| Rating | 6.8912 | 6.5953 | 7.0588 | 6.7852 |
| Rank (Conf.) | 63/130 (4/11) | 73/130 (4/11) | 59/130 (6/11) | 64/130 (4/11) |
This one has the right amount of upbeat for a fight song. In hindsight, this one might be graded a little low since it was one of the first ones graded and there was a ‘feeling out’ period in the beginning.
One area that is lacking is the weird two- to three-second space from 34 seconds to 37 seconds. It almost feels like the band director was tasked with writing a full-minute long song, and made gold. But the only problem is that they still needed another 25 seconds, so they just repeated the best parts of the first 60%.
That out-of-sync pause is impossible to look past in an otherwise great song.
63. Air Force
| Flow | Crowd Factor | Nostalgia/Feel Good | Overall | |
| Rating | 6.6514 | 7.0991 | 6.4583 | 6.8270 |
| Rank (Conf.) | 72/130 (6/12) | 48/130 (5/12) | 77/130 (8/12) | 63/130 (7/12) |
The Air Force fight song has a very strong military feeling, so great job on Air Force’s part for knowing its audience.
It definitely plays with the crowd even if it’s a little boring otherwise.
62. Missouri
| Flow | Crowd Factor | Nostalgia/Feel Good | Overall | |
| Rating | 7.0834 | 6.8355 | 6.6323 | 6.8467 |
| Rank (Conf.) | 55/130 (13/14) | 64/130 (13/14) | 73/130 (14/14) | 62/130 (14/14) |
Hey look, the SEC has made an appearance!
The worst in a conference of incredible fight songs belongs to one of its two newest members. It would be one of the best songs in the Sun Belt or American, actually.
It’s not all that memorable, so it does suffer a bit in the nostalgia and feel-good category compared to the other two.
61. Colorado State
| Flow | Crowd Factor | Nostalgia/Feel Good | Overall | |
| Rating | 6.9991 | 6.5801 | 7.2323 | 6.8479 |
| Rank (Conf.) | 58/130 (3/12) | 74/130 (8/12) | 49/130 (4/12) | 61/130 (6/12) |
This one has such a classic fight song feel to it. Flow is basic, but solid. It doesn’t seem like it would carry much of an ‘oomph’ with the crowd, but not to the point where it gets too noticeable of a ding.
If a new university wanted a fight song, this would have one of the highest approval ratings of the songs that are not among the unanimous top few.
STILL TO COME: RANKINGS NOS. 60-51
Only 150 more days until FBS college football returns, football fans. Hang tough and see everyone each Wednesday morning for the next installation of ranking FBS fight songs.