Every college football team’s fandom thinks their favorite squad must be despised by opponents. Everyone else is out to get them. And while it’s rarely true, sometimes, the reality hits close to home.
Over at CBS Sports this week, Brad Crawford wrote about the 10 teams in modern college football history he believed are among the most hated. Not the programs, mind you, but teams specific to one year in particular. Oklahoma made the list.
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It’s probably the team you figure, too, as the 2017 Sooners ranked No. 5 on Crawford’s list. That’s the year Baker Mayfield planted the OU flag at the Ohio State 50.
“The first of several in-season stunts in 2017 that also included a crotch-grab during a win over Kansas, Mayfield was easy to despise. He was a damn good football player — and winner — too,” Crawford wrote.
Before the season even began, Mayfield was arrested for public intoxication after a night on the town in Fayetteville, Arkansas. That came after he took off running from the police, earning him plenty of justified disdain. His continued, albeit less serious, antics during the season earned him a slew of haters. Some were giddy when it looked early on like his professional career would not pan out. The struggles of the early 2020s have since subsided and statistically he’s become one of the top quarterbacks in the NFL.
Oklahoma made the College Football Playoff that season, falling to Georgia in double-overtime in the semifinals and cementing Lincoln Riley’s status as one of the top young coaches in the sport.
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The four teams ranked ahead of Oklahoma on the list? The 1996 Florida Gators, the 2010 Auburn Tigers, the 2014 Florida State Seminoles, the 2005 Southern California Trojans and the 1986 Miami (FL) Hurricanes.
This article originally appeared on Sooners Wire: Ten most hated college football teams, according to CBS Sports
