College football's preseason disasters 2000-present
Oct 13, 2008
With their uninspiring 12-7 loss on Thursday night to Wake Forest and Tommy Bowden’s subsequent ouster, Clemson’s football team is on the precipice of complete collapse. Through six games, the preseason No. 9 team in the country is 3-3 overall and 1-2 in the ACC.
The Tigers got off to an inauspicious 0-1 start against a young Alabama team in Atlanta and have never recovered. That got me thinking, who else has gone from preseason darling to regular season disaster?
A review of every preseason ranking dating back to 2000 revealed the pollsters (and coaches) have grossly over-estimated multiple teams almost every year. If a preseason top-10 team had four-plus losses and fewer than ten wins, that equaled a disaster in my estimation.
2000: For the sake of continuity, let’s start first with Alabama, the team that sent Clemson into its tailspin. The 2000 Tide squad has been by far the biggest preseason failure since 2000. After the 1999 season, the Crimson Tide were coming off an SEC Title and a BCS appearance. They were picked No. 3 to start the season. As it turns out, that ranking equaled the number of wins they had. Alabama went 3-8, effectively ending the Mike Dubose era in Tuscaloosa.
Wisconsin began the season a spot behind Alabama at No. 4. The Badgers didn’t have a horrible season. But 9-4 isn’t top-10 worthy. No. 10 Georgia finished 8-4 as Jim Donnan joined Dubose in the unemployment line.
2001: This was not a good year for three current ACC teams. Preseason No. 6 Florida State went 8-4. A year removed from playing for a third straight National Championship, this season began a slide that has not yet stopped in Tallahassee. The team the Seminoles beat for the 1999 Title, Virginia Tech, finished with an identical 8-4 mark after starting the year ranked No. 9. Preseason No. 10 Georgia Tech finished the season at 8-5.
2002: Not a good year for expectations. Half of the preseason top-10 finished the season with five or more losses. No. 3 Florida State didn’t rebound from the previous season, going 9-5. No. 4 Tennessee stumbled to an 8-5 finish and a forgettable 30-3 loss to Maryland in the Peach Bowl. No. 5 Florida began Ron Zook’s tenure with a Ron Zook-like 8-5 record. In a busy Big-12 campaign No. 7 Colorado went 9-5 and No. 10 Nebraska went 7-7.
2003: As it turned out, Auburn was still a year away from being what the pollsters thought they were going to be. The Tigers went 13-0 in 2004. However, a preseason No. 6 ranking preceded an 8-5 year in 2003. No. 9 Virginia Tech and No. 10 Pittsburgh went 8-5, too.
2004: No. 9 Ohio State and No. 10 West Virginia went 8-4.
2005: A pair teams who have recently fallen on hard times had great expectations to begin this season. Phillip Fulmer’s first losing season in Knoxville came the same year his Volunteers began the year at No. 3. Despite starting the year behind only Texas and USC, Tennessee went 5-6. The Longhorns and Trojans went on to play for a national championship in arguably the greatest college football game ever. Preseason No. 4 Michigan was a pedestrian 7-5.
2006: Here is the exception to the rule. Every preseason top-10 team managed to win 10-plus games. And nobody lost more than three. The combined record of the preseason top-10 at the end of the year was 110-22. Six of the ten teams went on to BCS games, too.
2007: No. 5 Michigan was the biggest disappointment here. Sure, they won their Bowl game against Florida. I’m sure a few people remember that. However, everyone recalls the day Appalachian State walked out of the Big House with a win over the Wolverines. Oregon’s 39-7 win in Ann Arbor the following game made a bad situation worse. The maize and blue finished 9-4 and sent Lloyd Carr out on a good note. Yet, the reason this was Carr’s last season rests on the team’s first two games.
2008: This season is already shaping up poorly for at least three preseason top-10 teams. We’ve already chronicled the troubles at Clemson. However, Auburn and West Virginia aren’t doing much better and neither is out of the woods yet.
Preseason No. 10 Auburn is 4-3. Yet, they’re an eyelash away from being 2-5. The Tigers have lost to LSU and Vanderbilt, two top-15 programs as the current rankings indicate. Their loss to Arkansas this past weekend is borderline inexcusable. But a 3-2 win over Mississippi State? And a 14-13 victory against Tennessee where the offense could only muster a single touchdown? The offensive ineptitude has already forced Tommy Tuberville to fire Tony Franklin. The Tigers still have to go to West Virginia, Ole Miss, and Alabama. A home game versus Georgia won’t be easy either.
Speaking of West Virginia, the Mountaineers opened up the year as the No. 8 team in the nation. Five games later and they’re 3-2 with losses at ECU and Colorado. Games at UConn and at Pittsburgh still loom. They also get to host Auburn and South Florida.
