College football’s 5 biggest disappointing teams of 2019

Many teams had lofty expectations this college football season. Here are the five teams that were the most disappointing from the 2019 campaign.

For many reasons, some college football teams fail to live up to lofty expectations annually. Some years it has to do with a tough 12-game schedule. Other times it might have to do with a star player getting hurt or the starting quarterback not being as good as we all thought he should be. And then, there are times when the coaching staff underwhelmed us every Saturday.

Sure, all are reasons for teams coming up short, but frankly, they aren’t great ones. Football isn’t a game of excuses. Shoulda, woulda, coulda doesn’t suffice boosters with deep pockets or the most rabid factions of a fanbase. If you win enough on Saturday, you can hope to keep those seemingly never satisfied wolves at bay. Do know that one day they will, unfortunately, eat you alive.

No, not every team that comes up short of lofty expectations deserves to see its head coach go. A lot of times, it could just be a year from hell and a near-blue-blood team will bounce back from mediocrity into something resembling respectability within a year. Other times, a serious rebuild is occurring and you’re going to have to let that cake bake in the oven and not pull it out too soon.

But for whatever reason, these Power 5 teams were the ones that left us more disappointed than any this season. Whether it was not contending for a conference championship or even showing the mildest signs of getting back to relevancy, these five teams underwhelmed in 2019. Maybe next year will be their year because 2019 absolutely, most certainly was not.

2019 was Scott Frost‘s second year back at his alma mater. The former Nebraska Cornhuskers quarterback under the legendary Tom Osborne in the 1990s was set to bring Big Red back to college football prominence. If he could orchestrate an undefeated season at UCF, he could surely turn his alma mater’s program back into being the Midwestern blue-blood it should always be.

Flash forward two seasons and Nebraska has to beat a ranked Iowa Hawkeyes team at home if the Cornhuskers even want to dream about bowling in 2019. Nebraska went 4-8 in Frost’s first year back in Lincoln in 2018 and is poised to go 5-7 this year. A one-win improvement, fantastic!

Nebraska has just three wins in Big Ten play this season: at the Illinois Fighting Illini before Lovie Smith got his team cooking, home vs. the Northwestern Wildcats and at the Maryland Terrapins. Illinois is going bowling, but Northwestern is the worst team in the Big Ten West and Maryland is the second-worst team in the Big Ten East, ahead of only the dreadful Rutgers Scarlet Knights.

Add in an early-season non-conference road loss to their former Big 12 rival Colorado Buffaloes and there’s nothing to be proud of or excited about Nebraska football in 2019. Defensive issues and offensive inconsistencies have made Nebraska football the worst team in the Big Ten West over the last two seasons. Frost should have this team at 8-4, possibly 9-3 by now. It’s not great.