WVU, Penn State among ‘Worst Sports Fans in America’

For once, the SEC has failed to come out on top of a set of rankings related to college football.

In a “piece” that appears on the website of GQ magazine, the gentleman’s quarterly has decided to stir the pot a bit by ranking the 15 Worst Sports Fans in America. The magazine states, with tongue somewhere in the vicinity of their cheek we assume, that their endeavor is a “heavily researched, highly scientific accounting of the bleacher creatures, bottle-throwers, couch-torchers, sexual harassers, projectile vomiters, and serially indifferent bandwagon-hoppers marring our national landscape.”

Suffice to say, college football is very well represented on GQ’s list. All told, more than a quarter of the fan bases listed -- four -- are of the collegiate football variety, although, somewhat surprisingly, a certain Columbus school failed to make the cut.

West Virginia -- in all sports, not just football -- comes in at No. 3 on the list behind a pair of Philadelphia franchises -- the NFL’s Eagles and the MLB’s Phillies. Next collegiately is Penn State football at No. 7, followed by LSU football at No. 10 and Wisconsin football at No. 13.

Here’s the magazine’s reasoning behind the Mountaineers’ lofty ranking:

Yeah, sure, they’ve been condemned by the local mayor for shouting obscenities on national television broadcasts. And yes, given their history, it wasn’t really surprising last season when Pitt’s assistant basketball coach got pegged in the face with a metallic object (specifically, a quarter). But what really defines the West Virginia University faithful is their devotion to celebratory arson. The school led the nation in intentionally set street fires from 1997 to 2003, lighting up an unmatchable 1,120 blazes. That includes 120 in a single night to celebrate a football win over Virginia Tech in 2003 and sixty infernos set to celebrate advancing to the second round of the NCAA basketball tournament in 2005. When school is in session these days, the local fire department reports that it extinguishes as many as twelve Dumpster fires in a week. It’s all in keeping with the school’s (real) unofficial fan motto: Win or lose, we still booze!

At least based on my own personal experiences, the fact that WVU makes the list at all is surprising, let alone the fact that they’re sniffing Philly’s rarefied air. And, again based on my own personal experiences, the Badgers are too low.

And Boston Red Sox fans at No. 6? I’ve lived in Western Massachusetts; that’s obnoxiously low.

So, what say ye? Who has the “worst” fan base in college football? Spout your vitriol in the comments below.