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ESPN.com football ranking toasts and roasts college lightweights
By BRIAN McTAGGART
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle

It's not the kind of job that will qualify you for the witness protection program, but the college football editors at ESPN.com who are responsible for picking the worst teams in the country want their identities hidden nonetheless.

Maybe they don't want to see their names typed in vain on the Internet fan sites of schools like Baylor, Texas-El Paso, Buffalo, Louisiana-Monroe, Kansas or any other place where the football mascot is used more in punch lines than cheers.

Perhaps they're simply ashamed of what they do -- coming up with a list of the biggest weaklings among the 117 teams that play Division I-A college football. It's called the Bottom 10, a weekly feature on ESPN.com that shines an all-too-bright spotlight on the worst of the worst.

Those responsible for compiling the Bottom 10 seem to have a little too much fun kicking those who are down, which may be the biggest reason they demand anonymity. Talk about your guilty pleasures.

Each Monday, the college football editors from ESPN.com sit around a table and sift through the weekend's scores to come up with a list of schools where basketball season can't some soon enough.

"This is by no means scientific, and it's not meant to be serious," said one of the anonymous editors.

And what would a list of the worst college football teams in the nation be without a prominent mention of Baylor? The Bears come in at No. 4 in this week's Bottom 10, though Baylor fans can rest assured their team likely will climb the rankings in the coming weeks if the Bears' 52-14 loss to North Texas last week was any indication.

"It was just kind of a horrible night for us as a football team," Baylor coach Guy Morriss said.

The boys at ESPN.com agreed.

But the top spot in this week's Bottom 10 is reserved for another Texas team -- Texas-El Paso. The Miners, whose only win in the past year was on a 59-yard field goal at the gun to beat Rice last season, were embarrassed at home by Division I-AA Cal Poly 34-13 last weekend and are certainly worthy of the No. 1 label.

"We did everything we could possibly do wrong," UTEP coach Gary Nord said. "We didn't play well anywhere on the football field."

UTEP's woeful performance was enough to bump Buffalo from the top spot it held last week. The Bulls have the nation's longest losing streak at 12 games heading into Saturday's contest against mighty Colgate. Louisiana-Monroe is at No. 3 after losing to Stephen F. Austin last week.

"Baylor, Buffalo, UTEP and Kansas have been on the poll most of the last two years almost weekly," the editor said.

Had the folks at ESPN.com not wanted to spread the wealth, this weekend's schedule might have seen a pair of matchups featuring ranked teams -- Rice at Duke and SMU at Baylor. Both the Owls, who were off last week, and the Blue Devils, who took out their frustrations on Western Carolina, dropped out of the Bottom 10 this week.

As did SMU, which also took the week off after getting hammered by Texas Tech on Aug. 30. The Mustangs' game against Baylor on Saturday, which the Web site dubbed "the pillow fight of the week," will have major Bottom 10 implications. So will the Rice-Duke game, whose loser could very well find itself back in the Bottom 10.

"That's a solid bet," the editor said. "We realize that Rice isn't as bad as some of those others, and we like to flip people around."

Steve Harvey of the Los Angeles Times for years produced a Bottom 10 that was syndicated nationwide, but he ditched the idea about 10 years ago. ESPN.com revived the notion last year and crowned 1-11 Army as the nation's worst team at the end of the 2002 season.

"We hadn't seen it in a long time, and one of our editors came up with bringing it back, and we've had a lot of response to it," the editor said. "It's been fun to do."

Fun, of course, is what the Bottom 10 is about more than anything else, unless you happen to be one of the teams appearing on the list. The No. 5 spot each week is usually reserved for one of football's big boys who have had a rough week.

Coming off a 30-0 home loss to rival Georgia, Clemson was at No. 5 in the Week 1 rankings. Auburn's running game and Oregon's uniforms also received a mention on the "waiting list," the Bottom 10's answer to the Associated Press Top 25's "others receiving votes."

Auburn occupied the No. 5 spot this week, which came complete with some advice: "Hey Tigers, scoring a touchdown might help." Arizona's defense and Ohio State's offense are on this week's "waiting list."

"We have some fun with it," the editor said. "It's fun to poke some fun at somebody like Auburn. They're No. 5 but obviously not the fifth-worst team in the country. They won't be there long."

Even though their names and faces are withheld, the ESPN.com editors aren't immune to criticism. In fact, they encourage feedback.

Readers can e-mail the Bottom 10 with their opinions, a handful of which are put on the Web site the following week. As of Wednesday, ESPN.com had received 173 responses to this week's Bottom 10 to go along with nearly 300 last week.

With that kind of response, it's obvious the Bottom 10 has done its job by stirring the emotions of college football fans everywhere.

"As you can imagine, we can get all kinds of things," the editor said. "We'll always put a bigger school that had a bad game in the No. 5 spot, and you always hear from them in a negative way. In the case of Baylor, UTEP or Buffalo or someone like that, most of the e-mail we get from their fans think it's great. They realize that it's meant to be funny."

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