Top 25 College Football Teams Who Exceeded Expectations the Past 10 Years

West Virginia Mountaineers. 13. team. 2391. <p>Rich Rodriguez had slowly been building back the West Virginia Mountaineers football program from 2001 to 2004, and he was going into the 2005 season on the heels of an 8-4 year.</p> <p>The year was supposed to be a rebuilding season with so much talent gone on offense, and coming into the program was a new quarterback in Pat White to run Rodriguez’s new spread offense. It turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to the Mountaineers.</p> <p>West Virginia started the year 4-0 before losing 34-17 to No. 3 ranked Virginia Tech. But after that, they ran the table, reeling off victories against Rutgers, Louisville, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and South Florida. So much for a rebuilding season and starting the year unranked.</p> <p>The Mountaineers were now 10-1, Big East Champs, and had secured a spot in the Sugar Bowl. But that is when the real story of the season hit.</p> <p>The Sugar Bowl had been moved to Atlanta due to Hurricane Katrina’s impact on New Orleans, and West Virginia was playing Georgia in what was basically a road game. But they shocked the world by knocking off the Dawgs 38-35, finishing the season 11-1 and ranked No. 5 in the country.</p> <p>And just like that, West Virginia was back.</p>. 2005. Previous: