In college football, staying disciplined isn't just about the final score; it's about who controls the game. You might zero in on talent or play-calling, but penalties tell you plenty about a team's identity. To measure that, The Action Network built the Dirty Score, meaning a single number showing how undisciplined each team was from 2020 to 2025.
We tracked four stats per team:
- Penalty yards per game
- Penalties per game
- Penalty first downs per game
- Penalties per play
Each season, teams were ranked in those categories and given a Season Dirty Score: rack up more penalty yards or give up more first downs, and your grade slips. We then combined all six seasons into one overall Dirty Score, giving extra weight to teams that stayed dirty year after year. That way, one rough campaign won't drag you down; this is about long-term habits.
Final scores run from 0 (cleanest) to 100 (dirtiest).
The Dirtiest College Football Teams Ranking (2020–2025)
Looking at the 2020-2025 stretch, UAB takes the crown for most undisciplined, posting a perfect Dirty Score of 100.00. The Blazers averaged 7.90 penalties per game, 70.75 penalty yards per game and 1.72 penalty first downs per game, while flags flew on 6 percent of their snaps, the highest rate in the nation.
Right behind them, Toledo sits at 99.26, thanks to an NCAA-high 7.97 penalties per game and a constant stream of infractions. New Mexico (98.53), Pittsburgh (97.79) and Utah St (97.06) round out the top five. These are programs that didn't just have one bad year, but racked up flags season after season.
Further down the list, a couple of familiar names remind you that reputation and discipline don't always go hand in hand. Miami lands at 96.32 and Tennessee at 94.12, both firmly inside the bottom third of the country. Neither is a stranger to this list, and their staying power here suggests it's less bad luck than a pattern worth watching.
The Cleanest College Football Teams (2020–2025)
At the other end of the spectrum, Army stands out with a Dirty Score of just 0.74, making them the "cleanest" college football team in our analysis. The Black Knights averaged 3.72 penalties per game, 32.80 penalty yards per game and 1.18 penalty first downs per game over the six-season stretch, with flags on just 3% of their snaps. That's the lowest mark in the country in three of the four tracked categories, and it wasn't a one-year fluke: Army posted a top-five discipline grade in every single season we measured, the kind of week-to-week, year-to-year consistency that separates a clean team from a clean program.
Right behind Army:
- Air Force (1.47)
- Iowa (2.21)
- Michigan (2.94)
- Minnesota (3.68)
These squads kept costly penalties to a minimum year in and year out. Whether it's coaching emphasis or just the way they play, they proved you don't have to bend the rules to win.
How This Year's Rankings Shifted From Last Season
This isn't the first time The Action Network has run the numbers – the same Dirty Score study was conducted last year, which gives us a clean look at how the rankings have moved season over season. The Dirty Score shuffled at both ends of the table this year. UAB climbed from second to first overall, bumping last year's dirtiest team, New Mexico, down to third. Toledo also moved up a spot, from third to second, while Pittsburgh held steady at fourth – and Utah St cracked the top five for the first time, a sign this year's data shook up more than just the names at the very top. At the clean end of the spectrum, there's been a changing of the guard too: Army leapfrogged Air Force for the title of cleanest team in the country, edging out the Falcons by the slimmest of margins (0.74 to 1.47) after Air Force had held that top spot the previous year.
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Methodology
Here's how we built the Dirty Score to rank every Division I FBS team's discipline from 2020-2025:
- The analysis was conducted in August 2026.
- Goal: Capture on-field discipline with one number, the Dirty Score.
- Metrics (per team, per season):
- Penalties per Game
- Penalty Yards per Game
- Penalty First Downs per Game
- Penalties per Play.
- Normalization: We converted each metric into a z-score within its season, so 2020 numbers line up with 2025.
- Season Dirty Score: Weighted average of the four metrics:
- Penalties per Game – 30%
- Penalty Yards per Game – 40%
- Penalty First Downs per Game – 20%
- Penalties per Play – 10%.
- Final Dirty Score: We averaged each team's seasonal scores, giving extra weight to squads that competed in more seasons. Then we rescaled everything on a 0 (cleanest) to 100 (dirtiest) percentile scale.
