College football’s 10 most disappointing teams, from Auburn to USC and several places in between

Eight weeks into the 2024 college football season, clarity is still hard to come by. 

Who will win the Heisman Trophy? Who will make the College Football Playoff? The candidates pool for both has shrunk, but it still feels as wide open as it has in a long time, a credit to the new 12-team CFP format keeping more teams in the hunt than ever before. 

Where we lack clarity on who will win college football’s most important trophies, we have lucidity on the ones that expected to be in those mixes but will fall far short. More than midway through the season, these are the 10 programs that have disappointed the most so far. 

Auburn (2-5)

In Year 2 of the Hugh Freeze regime, Auburn was supposed to take a leap into the eight or nine win territory. Auburn heavily invested in acquiring top position players, believing with the right surrounding cast, quarterback Payton Thorne would return to the version that guided Michigan State to a 11-2 record in 2021. Instead, Auburn has regressed, TV cameras keep showing Thorne and Freeze bickering at each other on the sideline and the Tigers are all but assured of missing a bowl game. Like another team on this list, Auburn has displayed an incredible ability to blow games it should have won. It all builds to Freeze having a worse record (8-12) than his predecessor Bryan Harsin (9-11) had through 20 games. Harsin, of course, was fired after his 21st game. 

Arizona (3-4) 

Preseason AP ranking: No. 21

With super duo Noah Fifita and Tetairoa McMillan coming back after a 10-3 season, the Arizona Wildcats were a popular pick to win their first year in the Big 12. The transition to first-year head coach Brent Brennan, though has been bumpy, magnified in a 34-7 loss to Colorado last weekend. Brennan quickly yanked play-calling duties away from offensive coordinator Dino Babers, but what was supposed to be a high-powered offense still looks out of sync. All the hope and goodwill Arizona had riding into this season has quickly evaporated. 

Florida State (1-6)

Preseason AP ranking: No. 10 

The Seminoles win the ignominious honor of being the most disappointing team in the country if we had to single out only one of these 10 programs. A step back was expected after a 13-1 2023 season, but no one could have imagined it’d include losses to Boston College, Duke and Memphis. In this new era of college football, Florida State offers a good warning of the danger of trying to build too much of your roster through the transfer portal. It can work wonders as Mike Norvell proved in 2023, but it is difficult to have success year-over-year if the bulk of your key contributors are coming out of the portal each year. 

Kansas (2-5) 

Preseason AP ranking: No. 22

A pleasant surprise a year ago, Kansas crashed back to earth in a season that keeps getting worse. It is painfully obvious watching the Jayhawks’ wretched offense how much they miss offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki, who is dialing up exotic play calls for Penn State now. Poor Kansas has an absolutely brutal upcoming schedule, too: at No. 16 Kansas State, No. 10 Iowa State, at No. 11 BYU and Colorado. This is likely a nine-loss team a year after winning nine games. 

Michigan (4-3)

Preseason AP ranking: No. 9 

This one was easy to see coming, but disappointing nonetheless for Wolverines fans hoping to bask in last season’s championship for a little longer. The awkward timing of Jim Harbaugh’s departure for the NFL left Michigan with limited ability to add a badly-needed transfer quarterback as my colleague Chris Hummer detailed well here. Michigan’s offense has been a mess under first-year head coach Sherrone Moore who has had to rotate between Alex Orji, Jack Tuttle and Davis Warren to limited success. Michigan fell out of the Top 25 following its loss to Illinois last weekend, and with a schedule that still includes Oregon, Ohio State, Michigan State and Indiana, there’s no guarantee the Wolverines will even go bowling this season. Michigan has no choice but to be aggressive in the next transfer portal window to upgrade its offense starting at the QB position. 

Ole Miss (5-2)

Preseason AP ranking: No. 6

In a playoff-or-bust year, Ole Miss hasn’t lived up to the lofty expectations. The Rebels went all-in this offseason, grabbing the top transfer portal class in the country, in a bid to capitalize on the expanded 12-team playoff. That dream isn’t dead, but there is no margin for error now after already losing to Kentucky and LSU. That loss to a 15.5-point underdog Kentucky team that has since lost to Vanderbilt and Florida is especially egregious. The bad news is No. 2 Georgia is coming to town next month. Lane Kiffin has struggled to win the big games as a head coach, but he’s going to have to find a way to beat the Bulldogs. It’d help if he can make the offense more efficient. The Rebels lead the SEC with 41.4 points per game, but have yet to score a second-half touchdown in SEC play. 

Oklahoma State (3-4) 

Preseason AP ranking: No. 17

Oklahoma State is winless (0-4) in Big 12 play after losing in the last minute to BYU last weekend. A dejected-looking Mike Gundy after the game embodied what this year has been like for the Cowboys. Returning one of the nation’s top offensive players, Ollie Gordon, who rushed for 1,732 yards and 21 touchdowns a year ago, Oklahoma State was billed as a preseason Big 12 and CFP contender. Gordon, however, hasn’t looked himself this season, breaking the 100-yard mark in only two of his seven games. He got banged up in the BYU loss. Injuries, inconsistent QB play and a defense that gave up 255 rushing yards to BYU have Oklahoma State on a skid that needs to end this week against Baylor. 

USC (3-4) 

Preseason AP ranking: No. 23 

The hits keep on coming for Lincoln Riley who has excelled at finding new and dumb ways to blow games the Trojans should win. The latest Hollywood bust is the centerpiece of Tom Fornelli’s B1G Time this week, with Fornelli writing:

There is plenty of blame to go around for the slow decline of a once-great college football program, and Riley’s played a much smaller role than many. But right now, it’s Riley’s job to put an end to it, and he’s not. The Trojans are 1-4 in conference play and 5-9 overall since starting last season 6-0. How do they fix it?

USC started the year with a win over LSU in Las Vegas that immediately raised the bar of expectations. Riley was all too eager to implode those vibes, blowing games late against Michigan, Minnesota, Penn State and, most recently and grievously, Maryland. It’s almost incomprehensible how USC keeps blowing late leads, but it’s the reason what could have been a return to national prominence instead lands the Trojans back to the island of biggest disappointments. That’s not what USC thought it was getting when it committed to paying Riley $10 million a year. 

Utah

Preseason AP ranking: No. 11 

Utah was the media’s preseason pick to win the Big 12 and for good measure. Kyle Whittingham, ranked as college football’s sixth-best coach in our preseason rankings, took Utah to back-to-back Rose Bowl appearances in 2021-22. Cam Rising was coming back for a seventh year and had an argument as the Big 12’s best quarterback. But the Rising situation has been a perplexing will-he-or-won’t-he-play mess, offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig resigned Sunday after a loss to TCU and the Utes look completely out of sorts. In a wide-open Big 12, Utah felt as good a bet as any to emerge as the conference’s playoff participant, but now there are real questions about whether it will even qualify for a bowl game.

Virginia Tech (4-3)

The Hokies were a trendy preseason playoff pick to win the ACC, though the bandwagon emptied fast after a Week 1 loss to Vanderbilt. Virginia Tech had a controversial call go against its way in what could have been a win against Miami that would have us viewing this season in an entirely different light. Still, the Hokies shouldn’t have three losses this soon into the season, especially with games against Clemson and Syracuse still to come. In Year 3 of Brent Pry’s time in Blacksburg, fans rightfully were expecting more than what they’ve seen so far this season.