College Football: 10 most disappointing teams of 2018

6. Louisville

A step back was expected for Louisville after losing Heisman Trophy winning QB Lamar Jackson, but the depths to which the Cardinals fell in 2018.

They weren’t expected to be ACC contenders, but most expected Louisville to be a solid bowl team with seven or eight wins being a possibility. Instead, after a 2-1 start, the Cardinals lost their final nine games by an average margin of 50-19.

Louisville finished with the 111th ranked offense and 110th ranked defense, per S&P+. They gave up 44.1 points-per-game this season, which ranked ahead of only Oregon State and UConn.

The season went bad enough that Louisville parted ways with Bobby Petrino after 10 games, a coach that didn’t enter the season on anyone’s hot seat watch list, and the university was willing to pay a high buyout to move on from him. The Cardinals bottomed out spectacularly in 2018, and look like more of a rebuilding job than anyone would have imagined for whoever ends up replacing Petrino.

The truth is that Jackson hid some major flaws for a couple of years, and even with a generational QB they were unable to win like they should have.

The next coach will be tasked with developing a young QB like Jawon Pass or Malik Cunningham, as both struggled when called upon this season.