Championship Game Droughts

The New York Jets have not been to a Super Bowl since 1968 which is the longest drought of any team that has been to a Super Bowl. They were attempting to end that drought today, but feel short to the Colts 30-17. If they would have won, they would have also broke the record for the most number of years between consecutive Super Bowl appearances at 42.

As I said before, this is not an NFL blog, but this leads me to wonder what the longest current drought of championship appearances are and what the most years between championship appearances are in tournament history.

First, the longest drought belongs to the very first champion Oregon. They have not returned to the championship game since the first tournament. They won the tournament in 1939, so their current drought stands at 71 years and most likely will continue beyond this year.

The top five longest droughts for championship game appearances are

1. Oregon 1939
2. Wisconsin 1941
2. Washington State 1941
4. Stanford 1942
5. Wyoming 1943

When Utah went to the championship game in 1998, it was their first appearance since 1944 ending a 54 year drought. That broke the record for most years between championship game appearances which was at that time held by Oklahoma at 41. Here is the list of the top 10 longest droughts between consecutive championship game appearances.

	Team	Years	First	Second
1	Utah	54	1944	1998
2	Ohio State	45	1962	2007
3	Oklahoma	41	1947	1988
4	Georgetown	39	1943	1982
5	Memphis	35	1973	2008
6	Kansas	31	1957	1988
7	Indiana	23	1953	1976
8	Michigan State	21	1979	2000
9	Ohio State	21	1939	1960
10	Kentucky	18	1978	1996

Ohio State is the only school to have more than 20 years between championship game apperances twice. Ironically, the went three consecutive years from 1960 to 1962 after their first drought and before their second drought.