- Several preseason college football favorites, including Clemson, Florida State, and Penn State, have underperformed in the first half of the season.
- Texas quarterback Arch Manning has faced scrutiny for the Longhorns’ slow start and inconsistent play.
- Coach Bill Belichick’s move to North Carolina has been labeled a historic bust, with the team struggling significantly against Power Four opponents.
No. 12 Georgia Tech and No. 19 Virginia have climbed to the top of the ACC at the expense of Clemson, Florida State and North Carolina, which head into the heart of the regular season a combined 2-6 in conference play.
The ACC doesn’t have a monopoly on disappointment. Flops, failures and fiascoes dot every Bowl Subdivision conference at the year’s midway point, redrawing a College Football Playoff race that no longer includes preseason favorites such as Penn State, Kansas State and Florida.
No player has come under more scrutiny than No. 17 Texas quarterback Arch Manning, who has shouldered the blame for the Longhorns’ slow start.
No coach has been a bigger bust than 73-year-old Bill Belichick. North Carolina hasn’t even come close in three games against Power Four teams and could be headed for a historically unsuccessful finish.
These teams, players and coaches lead the biggest disappointments from the first half of the regular season:
Clemson leads most disappointing teams
Clemson dropped three of four to open the year but has rebounded with a pair of ACC blowouts against North Carolina and Boston College. Now up to 2-2 in league play, the Tigers could make a run to the ACC championship game.
Those two wins could signal an in-season turnaround similar to the one that landed the Tigers in last year’s playoff. Then again, the Tar Heels and Eagles are terrible. Based on the first half, Clemson is the biggest disappointment in the FBS.
The notable flops from other FBS conferences include:
American: Army lost to Tarleton State and was blown out by East Carolina in one of the program’s worst starts under longtime coach Jeff Monken.
Big 12: Kansas State’s four losses have come by a combined 11 points thanks to careless play in the second half.
Big Ten: While not the only contender for the distinction, Wisconsin gets the nod for the pure level of incompetence in three league games.
Conference USA: After going 10-3 last season, Sam Houston State are one of three winless teams in the FBS under new coach Phil Longo.
Mid-American: Toledo is 1-2 in the MAC after a loss to rival Bowling Green and has dropped all three road games.
Mountain West: Air Force has given up 8.1 yards per play and nearly 500 yards per game in a 1-5 start.
SEC: Florida was No. 17 in the US LBM Coaches Poll heading into the season but has gone 1-4 against FBS teams.
Sun Belt: Texas State started fast, putting coach G.J. Kinne on the map for openings such as Oklahoma State, but have since dropped a pair of Sun Belt games and are sitting near the bottom of the West division.
Bill Belichick hits rock bottom at North Carolina
The six-time Super Bowl champion has been a historic bust.
Belichick’s résumé is one reason why his foray into college football has outsiders rubbernecking the scene in Chapel Hill. Another is a landscape that allows for new coaches to overhaul their rosters in a single offseason instead of the more laborious, multiple-year rebuilding projects of the recent past.
Given the chance to build a competitive roster — after all, he said UNC would be the NFL’s “33rd team” — the group Belichick constructed has weaknesses nearly across the board. Despite his reputation, he hired an unimpressive staff that seems to have no answers for the Tar Heels’ issues.
UNC has won twice, against Charlotte and Richmond, and been outscored by 87 points in losses to Clemson, Central Florida and TCU.
Arch Manning fails to match unrealistic hype
Manning has not completed every pass he’s thrown as the Longhorns’ starter. In fact, he even completed less than half of his attempts in last month’s win against Texas-El Paso.
He hasn’t won every game he’s played. Texas has lost twice, actually, and have dangerously little room for error in the second half.
Manning is in part a victim of oversized expectations. It’s also true that he’s missed the mark more often than not, putting up duds against No. 1 Ohio State and Florida but rallying for his best start to date in last Saturday’s win against No. 13 Oklahoma.
The redshirt sophomore has thrown for 1,317 yards and run for 194 yards with 17 total touchdowns. He’ll need to step up his game in the second half to get the Longhorns back into the playoff mix.
Penn State’s historic disappearing act
In the span of just over two weeks, Penn State went from No. 2 in the US LBM Coaches Poll to unranked and in the market for a new head coach.
Few promising seasons and even fewer established coaching tenures have unraveled with such speed. But the cracks were showing during non-conference play, when the offense really struggled, and then were fully revealed in Big Ten play.
The search for Franklin’s replacement is now the dominant storyline of Penn State’s season, replacing the quest for the program’s first national championship since 1986.
The schedule does play out nicely for interim coach Terry Smith, though, and the Nittany Lions could still win seven or eight games in the regular season even after losing quarterback Drew Allar to injury.
Another lost season for Florida State
Florida State seemed revived during a win against No. 6 Alabama to open the year. What’s followed has been more the same, unfortunately, and the lack of progress could result in massive offseason changes.
The Seminoles are winless in the ACC and have virtually no shot at playing for the conference championship, which would be the only way they’d make the playoff.
To have another season run off the tracks by the midway point should make coach Mike Norvell very antsy about his job security nearly two years after he was at or near the top of the list for Alabama opening.
Worse yet, the Seminoles are sliding while rival Miami has climbed to No. 2 in the US LBM Coaches Poll and is looking more and more like one of the teams to beat for the national championship.
Time runs out on the Luke Fickell era
The next Big Ten program to make a coaching change will be Wisconsin, which hit a new low with last weekend’s 37-0 loss to Iowa at Camp Randall Stadium. Amid injuries and general inexperience, the Badgers have dropped four in a row, three in the Big Ten, and are almost definitely not going to make the postseason.
The next two games are against No. 1 Ohio State and No. 9 Oregon. After hosting Washington, the Badgers go to No. 3 Indiana and then end the year against Minnesota and Illinois. Winning two of this group is unlikely; winning three seems impossible; winning the four needed to reach bowl eligibility is just unimaginable.
Falling short of six wins should spell the end of the line for Luke Fickell, who in the span of three seasons has gone from one of the most foolproof hires the Group of Five has recently produced to a cautionary tale about finding the right Power Four fit.
Nothing is working for Hugh Freeze
One of four teams still winless in SEC play, Auburn will need to hold serve against Arkansas, Kentucky and Mercer simply to reach bowl eligibility in Freeze’s third season.
Picked as a dark-horse contender in the preseason, the Tigers have been ruined by an abysmal offense that ranks second from the bottom in the SEC in yards per game and yards per play. The Tigers have managed just four touchdowns in three conference games.
If not to Fickell’s level, the odds of Freeze’s tenure continuing past this season are dropping by the week. Beyond a nonsensical offense, supposedly his area of expertise, Freeze has completely failed in building a roster through normal recruiting and the transfer portal.