![Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian, left, and Florida head coach Billy Napier meet mid field before an NCAA football game in Gainesville, FL on Saturday, October 4, 2025. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,x_0,y_209,w_2579,h_1450/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/194/01k6spwtbcgsj8gx4ryh.jpg "Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian, left, and Florida head coach Billy Napier meet mid field before an NCAA football game in Gainesville, FL on Saturday, October 4, 2025. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]")
Coming into every College Football season, we rank and judge teams off of their projected roster and what we saw the year prior which is always a flawed concept. Sometimes the teams turn out to prove the predictions right with a case in point being the Ohio State roster everyone talked about being the highest paid winnng the National Championship.
While some teams live up the lofty goals, we often forget about the teams who fell flat on their face. Coming into this season, Texas, Penn State, and Clemson were three of the top four teams in the preseason polls and this season is proving to be a disaster for all three.
At this point, the teams have a combined 8-7 record with 7 of the wins coming against non Power 4 opponents. Even if these teams go on great runs to end the season, it'll be almost impossible to not call their season a massive disappointment.
Ranking the 3 biggest disappointments of the College Football season
The Clemson Tigers have the worst record of out three biggest disappointments but, they're also the only one of the three to pick up a win against a Power 4 opponent. When you look at Clemson, there's only one loss you can truly beat them up over as LSU is a projected playoff team while Georgia Tech needed an incredible field goal to win the game.
There were clear flaws with this Clemson roster and the AP ranked them far too high without acknowledging them. This team still has the talent in a wide open ACC to make a run to the Conference Championship game but, it's clear they have some flaws that will hold them back.
This season was supposed to be the year where we finally judged James Franklin on the right scale as he finally had the level of talent he needed to win the big games. Last weekend, the Nittany Lions lost another big game to Oregon but, considering it was an overtime loss it was hard to kill him for the loss.
If anyone held out hope for this team, the group made sure to make them regret it as they came out flat against UCLA and the Bruins never looked back winning the game. The biggest hole was addressed as Drew Allar was given the wide receivers he needed to hit the next level but, he still can't create big plays. There is no world where Penn State's offense shouldn't be better with a solid offensive line, a projected first round quarterback, and a two headed monster at running back yet, it seems hard to move the ball.
It's impossible to name any other team the biggest disappointment of the season than the Texas Longhorns. This team is coming off of a deep run in the College Football Playoff and everyone assumed the offense would actually get better inserting Arch Manning into the offense for Quinn Ewers. The hype around this team was so high they were the top ranked team in the AP Poll to begin the year while Arch Manning was the Heisman favorite.
Thus far, Arch Manning has been underwhelming to say the least as he's been abysmal in their two games against Power 4 opponents. Manning hasn't been the lone problem as the new receiving core hasn't helped him out much while the offensive line hasn't gelled well. Steve Sarkisian's team will have to win out to make the College Football Playoff but, that seems unlikely to say the least.