Fandom is what separates college football from the rest of the sports world. Which program boasts the best college football fans?
There’s no easy way to sift through 130 FBS fan bases and rank the best of the best, but there are a few guidelines that help make sense of the chaos. For the purpose of this exercise, we ranked every program on five unique factors:
1. Tradition – The unique things that make a program and its fans different from anywhere else
2. Passion – Win or lose, is the stadium full? An honest assessment of how much the fans care
3. Perception – The level of respect (or lack thereof) on a national level given to a fanbase by those on the outside.
4. Saturation – Size matters. The geographical reach of a fanbase and how far it spreads is indicative of what sort of impact its fans tend to have on the largest stages of the sport
5. Success – At the end of the day, college football boils down to wins and losses.
Given those guides, there were five programs who earned honorable mentions. So before the Top 50 begins, a tip of the cap to the fans of Wake Forest, Minnesota, Arizona, Cal and Missouri who just missed out. Now onto the list.