Yesterday, we looked at the biggest surprise teams in college football this season. Unfortunately, not everyone exceeded expectations.
While Indiana and Miami prepare to meet in the national championship game, these programs are left wondering where it all went wrong. Each began the year with legitimate hopes, some even with playoff aspirations, but for one reason or another, none were able to put it together in 2025.
Penn State Nittany Lions
It’s hard to imagine a bigger fall from grace than Penn State this season. The Nittany Lions entered 2025 ranked No. 2 nationally after a College Football Playoff semifinal appearance the year before. This was supposed to be the year they finally took the next step.
Instead, everything unraveled the moment adversity arrived. A home loss to Oregon triggered a collapse. Losses to UCLA and Northwestern followed, part of a six-game skid that ultimately cost James Franklin his job. Penn State had to win its final three games just to reach the Pinstripe Bowl against Clemson.
From No. 2 in the nation to a 7–6 finish in New York, this season will go down as a major disappointment for a program with championship expectations.
Clemson Tigers
Clemson wasn’t supposed to be playing in New York either. The Tigers opened the season ranked fourth nationally, but nothing ever clicked for Dabo Swinney’s team.
Clemson beat only two teams with winning records, Louisville and Troy. Early on, a competitive game against LSU seemed to offer promise, but Swinney’s postgame remark that both teams had “failed their opening-week exam” turned out to be prophetic. Syracuse later exposed Clemson in a 34-21 loss that wasn’t even as close as the score suggested.
If not for Louisville’s kicking problems in a narrow escape, Clemson might have missed a bowl altogether. This marked Swinney’s worst season since 2010 and finally forced him to embrace the transfer portal. If he doesn’t adapt, Clemson’s place among the elite will continue to erode.
LSU Tigers
After defeating Clemson early, Brian Kelly famously said LSU deserved a “65” and Clemson a “58.” That grade turned out to be generous.
LSU never improved, tumbling to a 7-5 regular season and ultimately costing Kelly his job. While the Tigers avoided losses to unranked opponents, their wins against teams with winning records were limited to Clemson, Louisiana Tech, Western Kentucky, and FCS Southeastern Louisiana.
For a program with LSU’s talent and expectations, that simply isn’t good enough.
South Carolina Gamecocks
What a difference a year makes. South Carolina was one of the feel-good stories of 2024, but in 2025, everything went backward.
An opening win over Virginia Tech masked deeper problems. Vanderbilt and Missouri quickly revealed just how flawed the Gamecocks were. Outside of one strong half against Texas A&M, South Carolina failed to score more than 22 points in any of its seven losses.
The running game was nonexistent at just 3.2 yards per carry, leaving the offense completely one-dimensional. If the Gamecocks are going to rebound in 2026, the ground game must be fixed.
Florida Gators
Billy Napier arrived in Gainesville with enormous promise, but it never materialized. The Gators were undisciplined from the start, and those issues never disappeared.
After a strong finish to 2024, expectations were high. Instead, Florida collapsed to a 4-8 season that included an embarrassing 38-7 loss at Kentucky. With Florida State also down, the path should have been clearer. But Napier never got the talent to mesh.
He became the first Florida coach to finish below .500 since 1949, a stunning statistic for one of college football’s most resource-rich programs.
Colorado Buffaloes
A step back was expected without Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders. But what happened in Boulder went far beyond a simple regression.
Colorado went 3-9 and rarely looked competitive. Only three of their losses came by seven points or fewer, while five defeats were by two touchdowns or more. Deion Sanders suffered his worst season as a head coach, and the results raised an uncomfortable question: can Colorado win without his sons and Hunter on the field?
For the first time in the Sanders era, that answer feels very much in doubt.
Oklahoma State Cowboys
How much worse could things get in Stillwater? After a 3-9 season in 2024, expectations were modest, but nobody anticipated a complete collapse.
Oklahoma State went winless against FBS competition in 2025, losing all 11 such games, including a damaging 19-12 loss to Tulsa that ended Mike Gundy’s tenure. The Cowboys didn’t do anything particularly well, and the results reflected that.
If new coach Eric Morris is going to reverse the program’s 18-game Big 12 losing streak, Oklahoma State will have to modernize, starting with a serious commitment to NIL investment.
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