These Teams Head Into The 2025 Season With The Nation's Longest Bowl Droughts
This year? Louisiana-Monroe and UMass, which has not been to a bowl since elevating to the FBS, will attempt to make the cut. As noted below, the Warhawks have at least been bowl eligible.
Louisiana-Monroe: 12 Seasons
It appeared the Warhawks were on the way to snapping their drought in Bryant Vincent's first season as the program's head coach a year ago. Certainly, they would win one game in the season's back half after a fruitful first half in which they went 5-1, including 3-0 in Sun Belt play, wouldn't they? Instead, ULM enters 2025 with a six-game losing streak and a 12-year bowl drought.
ULM achieved bowl eligibility twice during the period in question. Todd Berry's squad went 6-6 in 2013 and the Warhawks went 6-6 in 2018 under Matt Viator, but were passed over both times. ULM has been competing at the FBS level the past 21 seasons and has only a single postseason appearance, a 2012 Independence Bowl loss to Ohio under Berry. The Warhawks also played at the highest level, then known as I-A, from 1975 to 1981 without a bowl appearance before dropping down to what was then I-AA, now the FCS.
UMass: 12 Seasons
Thirteen seasons have been played since the Minutemen elevated to the FBS, though they did not take the field in pandemic-disrupted 2020. When the program transitioned to the FBS in 2012, the Minutemen were not eligible to participate in a bowl unless they won at least six games and there were not enough bowl eligible teams to fill all slots. It did not matter thanks to going 1-11. Though fully eligible for bowl play in 11 of their 12 seasons since taking the field as an FBS program, we will call it a 12-season drought since there was a chance heading into 2012 that Charley Molnar's team could have played in a bowl.
At any rate, this is a program there has not won as many as five games in a season as an FBS member while sporting a record of 26-122 (.175) since elevating. Back-to-back 4-8 campaigns in 2017 and 2018 is as good as it has been. Joe Harasymiak, who was the DC at Rutgers the past three seasons, is the fourth head coach in the FBS era in Amherst, which beginning this year includes a second stint (also 2012 to 2015) as a MAC member.
UMass appeared in a pair of bowl games as a member of the Yankee Conference prior to Division-I splitting into I-A (FBS) and I-AA (FCS) in 1978. The Minutemen lost to East Carolina in the 1964 Tangerine Bowl in Orlando and defeated UC-Davis in the 1972 Boardwalk Bowl in Atlantic City.
New Mexico: 8 Seasons
The Lobos traveled to Hawaii for their 2024 regular-season finale needing to defeat the Rainbow Warriors to pick up a sixth win and become bowl eligible. They spent all afternoon playing from behind in a 38-30 loss to finish 5-7, their best record since the most recent bowl season of 2016. At least the Lobos were in the postseason conversation last year. After all, they went 19-60 (.240) over the previous seven years under Danny Gonzalez and Bob Davie, a stretch that put the program near the bottom of the FBS.
Speaking of coaches, it is now three in as many years in Albuquerque. Bronco Mendenhall took over for Gonzalez and lasted one season before departing for Utah State. Jason Eck arrived from Idaho and will attempt to get the Lobos over the hump and back into the bowl picture. A very difficult road schedule – Michigan, UCLA, San Jose State, Boise State, UNLV and Air Force -- could conspire against doing just that.
Akron: 7 Seasons
Joe Moorehead's Zips went 3-5 in MAC play last year. That is noteworthy because it was Akron's most conference wins since the last time it went to a bowl, which was 2017. The Zips went 4-8 last season, Moorehead's third running the show. He took over a very challenging situation in 2022 as the Zips had won only three of their previous 35 games.
Akron has certainly been much more competitive under the former Mississippi State coach. Though the Zips were predictably blown out by Ohio State, Rutgers and South Carolina last season, and by a combined 151-30, they not only won three games in conference play, but only one of the five losses was by more than 13 points. Their chances this season in Moorehead's fourth year at the helm? Well, Ben Finley returns at quarterback for his final season of eligibility and the non-conference slate is far less daunting as Wyoming, Nebraska and UAB are the trio of non-conference FBS opponents.
Stanford: 6 Seasons
The Cardinal have been nothing if not consistent in going 3-9 each of the past four seasons, which is the longest active stretch of sub-.500 campaigns among power conference teams. The six-season run without postseason play includes pandemic-abbreviated 2020 when David Shaw's squad went 4-2 and opted against playing in a bowl after a revised Santa Clara County health order made doing anything a chore. That would have been Stanford's only bowl season since a 2018 Sun Bowl win over Pitt. The Cardinal is 16-44 in five 12-game seasons since then.
Frank Reich took over on an interim basis after Troy Taylor was fired in March. This second season as an ACC member will be a test of endurance as the Cardinal take three trips east for conference games against Viriginia, Miami and North Carolina. The season opens with a Week 0 trip to Hawaii then, following an off week, Stanford travels to BYU.
Virginia: 6 Seasons
The Cavaliers been bowl eligible during their six years run without playing in a bowl. In fact, they could have had back-to-back bowl appearances. Like Stanford, Virginia declined to play in a bowl in 2020 due to the virus. The pandemic continued to take its toll in 2021 when Bronco Mendenhall's team went 6-6 and was set to meet SMU in the Fenway Bowl -- until multiple players tested positive and the game was cancelled.
It appeared as though the Cavaliers would finally return to a bowl last season when they started 4-1. Alas, Tony Elliott's team went 1-6 the rest of the way, including losing the last three games while needing one win to break even and become bowl eligible.
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