Photo courtesy of Justin A. Torner/University of Iowa
Welcome back for the sixth 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!
80. Purdue
| Flow | Crowd Factor | Nostalgia/Feel Good | Overall | |
| Rating | 6.3416 | 6.5658 | 6.0114 | 6.3712 |
| Rank (Conf.) | 80/130 (12/14) | 75/130 (14/14) | 89/130 (10/14) | 80/130 (14/14) |
It’s unfortunate that this ranks last in the Big Ten, because it’s a fine song. But it’s really just that – a fine song.
One aspect that is pretty good, is that it seems to have a high replay value, so it’s going to be solid each time.
79. Tulsa
| Flow | Crowd Factor | Nostalgia/Feel Good | Overall | |
| Rating | 6.8440 | 5.8833 | 6.9114 | 6.3805 |
| Rank (Conf.) | 67/130 (5/11) | 99/130 (5/11) | 62/130 (8/11) | 79/130 (6/11) |
There’s something a little discordant about it, especially in the beginning. Overall, it’s strong from start to finish, and it really finds itself by the end of the song.
78. NC State
| Flow | Crowd Factor | Nostalgia/Feel Good | Overall | |
| Rating | 5.5167 | 7.1353 | 5.7437 | 6.3828 |
| Rank (Conf.) | 107/130 (12/14) | 46/130 (6/14) | 99/130 (10/14) | 78/130 (10/14) |
This one has a good buildup at the beginning. Great ending. The middle just doesn’t flow the way it needs to.
It’s as if the song starts to go down a different path a couple of times, but ultimately stops and finds a new path.
This hurts the flow a little, but it’s nowhere near the worst song in the ACC or the FBS by any means.
77. Iowa State
| Flow | Crowd Factor | Nostalgia/Feel Good | Overall | |
| Rating | 5.9855 | 6.3356 | 6.8813 | 6.3845 |
| Rank (Conf.) | 93/130 (8/10) | 77/130 (6/10) | 65/130 (7/10) | 78/130 (7/10) |
This is another fight song where it’s the same thing twice in a row.
At about the 2/3 mark of each half, there’s this area where some of the band sticks with the same tune from the beginning, but the rest of the band goes to another section of the song. This doesn’t work as well as they probably thought it would.
76. Iowa
| Flow | Crowd Factor | Nostalgia/Feel Good | Overall | |
| Rating | 5.8434 | 6.8914 | 5.9578 | 6.3960 |
| Rank (Conf.) | 99/130 (14/14) | 62/130 (12/14) | 94/130 (12/14) | 76/130 (13/14) |
The fact that Iowa comes one spot ahead of in-state rival Iowa State is purely coincidental.
As far as the Big Ten goes, Iowa’s fight song is a little on the boring side. It’s memorable, so that’s a notch in the Hawkeyes’ cap. Memorable, but still underwhelming, nonetheless. The fact it falls almost on the median is no mistake, and is very fitting.
75. Louisville
| Flow | Crowd Factor | Nostalgia/Feel Good | Overall | |
| Rating | 5.9885 | 6.5004 | 6.8442 | 6.4584 |
| Rank (Conf.) | 92/130 (11/14) | 76/130 (11/14) | 68/130 (7/14) | 75/130 (9/14) |
We’re glad that the Louisville fight song writer got the memo that eight letters are the cap on spelling, because they cut it down to just ‘C-A-R-D-S’ when spelling. But then they went and spelled it three separate times to make it 15 total letters
Typically, spelling at the end is tricky. But to make it roughly the entire final third really takes it down a step.
T-74. UCLA and California
| Flow | Crowd Factor | Nostalgia/Feel Good | Overall | |
| Rating | 7.1315 | 6.2469 | 6.6424 | 6.5669 |
| Rank (Conf.) | T53/130 (T6/12) | T84/130 (T7/12) | T73/130 (T8/14) | T74/130 (T7/14) |
From everything that we were able to gather online, these two schools have the same fight songs. Fans probably are sick of hearing it when they play each other!
The second half has more of a triumphant feeling which is naturally elating to listen to. The first half just struggles to get a footing until it’s too late. Otherwise, this would be ranked higher.
72. Texas State
| Flow | Crowd Factor | Nostalgia/Feel Good | Overall | |
| Rating | 6.6531 | 6.2686 | 7.1000 | 6.5726 |
| Rank (Conf.) | 71/130 (4/10) | 81/130 (5/10) | 57/130 (2/10) | 130/130 (4/10) |
There is a surprising bit of nostalgia to this one. One downside is that it’s a bit repetitive in being the same thing twice.
Lastly, the chanting section at the end feels wedged in there and out of place from the rest of the song’s tune. If the chanting section were in between the first and second half, the second half of the song likely sticks the landing at the end.
71. Cincinnati
| Flow | Crowd Factor | Nostalgia/Feel Good | Overall | |
| Rating | 4.8781 | 7.8997 | 5.8752 | 6.6382 |
| Rank (Conf.) | 116/130 (10/11) | 24/130 (2/11) | 96/130 (8/11) | 71/130 (5/11) |
The first 15 to 20 seconds are really good, but the spelling cuts the song at weird times with a different tune from the rest of the song.
It goes from good, to weird and different melody, back to good, back to weird and different melody to end. Also, to have two different spelling sections means that they soared past the eight-letter soft cap placed on spelling with 16 letters.
The non-spelling sections are so great, too.
STILL TO COME: RANKINGS NOS. 70-61
Only 157 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.