Most Overachieving, Underachieving Power 5 CFB Programs of the Last Decade
Every year around the time preseason polls are released ahead of a college football season, debates across the country flare up over which teams will prove in the fall that they were underrated—or overrated—heading into the year.
Some teams have a reputation for failing to live up to their always-lofty preseason rankings each year, while others have continued to defy expectations and become new-school powers in the world of college football.
With the preseason AP poll coming out earlier this week and the countdown to kickoff now just six days away, let's take a look at the teams who have overachieved and underachieved the most in college football over the last decade.
Using detailed AP poll information from College Poll Archive, I've compared each Power Five team's preseason ranking—or lack of a preseason ranking—to where they finished that season in the final polls. Those differentials have been added up to give the results of the teams that have made the biggest rises and the biggest falls in the sport over the last 10 seasons. Check out the full results here.
While preseason polls are far from an exact science, they are a good way to determine the perceived strength of a team heading into a season and what neighborhood it should expect to finish by season's end. Fluctuations are almost guaranteed, but what this list shows is the teams who have been the biggest surprises—in the positive and the negative.
Which Power Five team do you think is the biggest overachiever or underachiever in college football? Make your voice heard in the comments below.
Overachievers
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The next 10 slides contain the 10 most overachieving Power Five teams of the last decade, according to where they placed on final AP polls compared to their preseason rankings.
As this spreadsheet shows, most of the big overachievers in college football come from teams who are currently in the "Group of Five" conferences. Schools such as Cincinnati, Northern Illinois, Tulsa, Nevada and UCF posted some of the biggest gains from preseasons to postseasons—many of them going from unranked to firmly in the Top 25 several times in the last decade.
Also included on the spreadsheet are bright-green highlights for teams who didn't receive any preseason votes but finished in the Top 25. For example, several unranked schools have the preseason spot of "No. 51" in the 2014 poll column because 50 teams received votes ahead of last season.
T-9. Clemson (+32)
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Dabo Swinney's Clemson team won't be vastly underrated heading into the 2015 season. The Tigers, who were the media's pick to win the ACC title this year, will open the season at No. 12 in the AP poll.
Clemson has reached this year's levels of preseason hype thanks to the consistency it has shown for most of Dabo Swinney's tenure in Death Valley. In Swinney's first full season as head coach, Clemson went from unranked in the preseason to the Top 25 by winning the ACC Atlantic Division title. The Tigers bounced back from a disappointing 2010 season with another jump into the final Top 25 in 2011.
Since that 2011 season, Clemson has posted four straight 10-win seasons and has been a staple of the preseason—and final—Top 20s. "Clemsoning" may crop up in a game or two, but Swinney has turned the program into a consistent winner.
T-9. Michigan State (+32)
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Mark Dantonio has built a Michigan State program that can't be overlooked anymore in the Big Ten, even though it shares a neighborhood with rivals Michigan and Ohio State. Since the start of the 2010 season, the Spartans have finished in the Top 15 after starting the season outside the Top 25 twice, including 2013's jump from "No. 26" in the preseason poll all the way to No. 3.
"Our guys have always tried to play with a chip on their shoulder," Dantonio told Bill Bender of Sporting News in April. "Our feeling is that's sort of the way we've been built here."
Michigan State now looks to be a fixture in the Top 10 thanks to its elite play in the trenches and underrated talent at the skill positions. This season, Sparty opens the year at No. 5 nationally with eyes on knocking off defending champion and unanimous No. 1 Ohio State.
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8. Oregon State (+36)
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Oregon State hasn't finished a season inside the Top 25 since 2012, but the Beavers put together an impressive run of overachieving performances in the Pac-12 under former head coach Mike Riley.
The Beavers jumped from unranked before the 2006 season to No. 21 by season's end, planting themselves in the "receiving votes" category for the next three years. From 2007-2009, Oregon State improved its ranking from the preseason to the postseason behind the play of quarterback Sean Canfeld and some solid run defense.
In 2014, two years after a 9-4 season, Oregon State went 5-7. With Riley moving on to take the head coaching job at Nebraska, the Beavers will get busy building under new head coach Gary Andersen, who came from a consistent Wisconsin program.
7. Maryland (+39)
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Maryland's spot in these findings is perhaps the oddest one. The Terrapins have only finished near the AP's final Top 25 twice in the last decade, with both of those coming under former head coach Ralph Friedgen.
In 2006, Maryland bounced back from a losing season to go 9-4 under Friedgen, win the Citrus Bowl and finish just outside of the Top 25. Four seasons later, the Terps pulled off another shocker, rallying from 2-10 in 2009 to 9-4 in 2010.
Even with the dramatic turnaround, Maryland stunningly bought out Friedgen's contract at the end of the year. Friedgen's replacement, Randy Edsall, has gone 20-30 at Maryland with back-to-back bowl losses.
6. Kansas State (+43)
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Kansas State's surge to this position as an overachiever has been quite recent. In 2011, Kansas State was not one of the 48 teams who received at least one vote in the AP's preseason poll. But by the end of the season, the Wildcats were ranked No. 15, with only three losses against teams ranked No. 11 or better.
"How unlikely was Kansas State’s 10-win party in 2011?" Steve Greenberg of Sporting News wrote in 2011. "It was merely the biggest and best team surprise of the season. Needless to say, it caught the Big 12 media—who picked the Wildcats eighth in the 10-team Big 12 before the season—like a haymaker to the chin."
The Wildcats made a smaller leap under the ageless Bill Snyder the next season, finishing No. 11 nationally with an 11-2 record and a share of the Big 12 title. Although it appears some experts are doing it this season, never sleep on Kansas State.
5. Missouri (+47)
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Gary Pinkel's Missouri program has taken the SEC by storm in the last two seasons, winning the conference's Eastern Division title and posting a 23-5 record. But the Tigers' surprises in their new conference weren't their first climbs to national prominence under Pinkel.
Back in 2007, Missouri opened the season just outside the Top 25 as the top team in the "others receiving votes" category. Behind the prolific offense of quarterback Chase Daniel and wide receiver Jeremy Maclin, Missouri only lost two games that season—both to Big 12 champion Oklahoma—and defeated then-No. 2 Kansas in an instant classic.
If the Tigers do the improbable yet again and win the SEC East title for a third straight season, they'll undoubtedly make another major leap into the final rankings. Missouri wasn't one of the 44 teams that received preseason votes in 2015's inaugural AP poll.
4. Utah (+53)
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Kyle Whittingham had a tough act to follow in Utah after Urban Meyer left to become the head coach of Florida. But after three solid seasons to start Whittingham's coaching tenure, the Utes shot back up to the ranks of the unbeaten in 2008.
Utah started the 2008 season unranked but finished as the No. 3 team in the country—and the only one that year to complete a perfect record. The Utes were balanced with great offense and great defense out of the Mountain West, and they closed the campaign with a stunning 31-17 Sugar Bowl win over Alabama that began with a 21-0 run.
The Utes, now members of the Pac-12, completed a smaller but nonetheless impressive move into the final Top 25 last season. Utah started the season without a single preseason vote to its name but went 9-4, upsetting both Los Angeles schools and dropping three of their four losses to Top 15 opponents.
3. TCU (+58)
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Gary Patterson's first few surprising ventures into the top half of the AP's final rankings were when his Horned Frogs were members of the Mountain West. But, last season, TCU proved it still had plenty of that magic when it bounced back from a 4-8 season into one in which it contended for a College Football Playoff berth.
In 2005, TCU went from unranked to No. 11 in the final poll, completing an unbeaten run through the Mountain West and falling only to a ranked SMU team away from home. Three seasons later, the Horned Frogs did it again, jumping this time into the final Top 10—their only two losses on the season were at then-No. 2 Oklahoma and then-No. 10 Utah.
But 2014 might have been the program's biggest surprise yet, as a new-look spread offense and a veteran defense picked up 12 wins, including a season-ending rout of Ole Miss in the Chick-fil-A Bowl. Now TCU will open the season at No. 2 with star quarterback Trevone Boykin, a top favorite to win the Heisman, according to Odds Shark.
2. Mississippi State (+60)
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Last season felt like the completion of everything Dan Mullen has built toward at Mississippi State. After starting 2015 unranked, the Bulldogs went on an unbelievable tear that featured a four-week run as the No. 1 team in the country. Even with three losses in their final four games, the Bulldogs finished No. 11.
Mississippi State made another major leap back in 2010, Mullen's second year in Starkville. The Bulldogs rebounded from a losing record to finish 9-4 in a cutthroat SEC West—all four of their losses came to higher-ranked teams, and two were one-possession thrillers.
While Sylvester Croom moved into the Top 25 discussion back in 2007, Mullen has taken what was once the doormat of the division and taken it to five straight bowl games. Outside of a 2011 season in which the Bulldogs started at No. 20 and finished unranked, Mississippi State has been a constantly overachieving program under the former Florida offensive coordinator.
1. Baylor (+61)
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TCU's revived rival, Baylor, ranks highly on the list of overachievers because the Bears have done nothing but exceed expectations each of their last five seasons. Since 2011's move from unranked to No. 11 behind Heisman-winning quarterback Robert Griffin III, Baylor has climbed all the way into a justified No. 4 preseason ranking this year.
Although Baylor only went 8-5 in 2012, it moved up to the "No. 26" team in the AP's final poll. The Bears have improved their preseason rankings by 14 and three spots, respectively, in each of their Big 12 championship campaigns.
"Our image and our perception are changing," Briles told Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports earlier this year. "...That's what excites me. I certainly think you have to earn it, but we're in the stages of trying to earn that new image, that new brand."
Underachievers
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The next 10 teams are those Power Five programs who have underachieved in terms of their preseason and final AP rankings over the last decade.
Not all falls out of the Top 25 are created equal, and seasons where a team started inside the Top 25 but fell out of the final poll altogether—including the "receiving votes" category—have been highlighted in bright red in the spreadsheet. For example, Texas' fall from No. 15 to unranked in 2013 was a net loss of 25 spots to "No. 40," but only because there were 39 teams who received votes in the final poll that season.
Another note to consider is the number of teams with preseason votes is larger than the number of teams that receive final votes. In that case, a team that received preseason votes but not any final ones can't "fall up" to a higher spot just because of the difference in numbers.
10. Tennessee (-59)
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Tennessee is back to getting the buzz of a ranked team this year under head coach Butch Jones. It's come as a relief for Vol Nation, as Tennessee suffered through some highly disappointing seasons over the last decade.
Back in 2005, Tennessee was fresh of a second-straight SEC East title and opened the season as the No. 3 team in the country. A brutal schedule led to some losses against Top 10 opponents, and the campaign bottomed out with upset defeats at the hands of South Carolina and Vanderbilt. A national title contender fell all the way down to a 5-6 record.
Three seasons later, Phil Fulmer was fired after Tennessee opened the season at No. 18 but finished with another 5-7 campaign. Throw in Derek Dooley's disastrous five-win campaign in 2012 that featured a brief trip into the Top 25, and the Volunteers make this unfortunate cut.
9. USC (-60)
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In an ironic twist, USC is slightly ahead of Tennessee—the team Lane Kiffin left in the middle of the night to become the head coach of the Trojans back in 2010. USC was locked into the Top Five for the first half of the past decade, but the slip down to No. 22 in 2009 under Pete Carroll started a slide of underachievement.
USC fell out of the final poll entirely in Kiffin's first year with an 8-5 record. The Trojans bounced back with a 10-win campaign in 2011, but a preseason No. 1 ranking gave way to a bad 7-6 record in 2012, making USC the only No. 1 preseason team of the past decade to finish the year unranked.
If it weren't for Ed Orgeron's rescue job in 2013, USC would probably be higher up on the list. The Trojans are always a favorite for high preseason rankings—they will open the 2015 season at No. 8—and the bigger they are, the harder they fall.
8. Georgia (-64)
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Because of their national prominence and a lack of championships over the last decade, Mark Richt's Georgia program is commonly referred to as one of the biggest underachievers in college football.
"It’s an SEC school that’s done well, but I think it should be better," Bruce Feldman of FOX Sports said recently, per Bill King of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "They’ve won one national title in, like, the last 70 years. And that’s pretty surprising given the talent that’s there, the resources, and everything ... Mark Richt’s done a good job there, but in the last 30 years they should have won more."
In terms of the numbers for this list, Georgia hasn't had as many massive drop-offs over the last decade—Richt's teams have had several 10-win seasons—but the falls out of the Top 25 in 2009, 2010 and 2013 were enough to place them here.
7. California (-67)
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California might be a surprising name on this list, but the Golden Bears were in the preseason Top 20 four different times from 2005 to 2009. And in two of those seasons, Cal went from a national dark horse to a middle-of-the-road team.
Cal's 10-win season in 2006 with the likes of DeSean Jackson and Marshawn Lynch put the Golden Bears at No. 12 in the 2007 preseason poll. The program rose all the way to No. 2 in the middle of the season before dropping six of its final eight games, with four of them coming by single digits.
Jeff Tedford's team reached the Top 10 again in the 2009 season before running out of steam against Oregon and USC, later falling to Oregon State, Washington and Utah. Since that fall out of the Top 25 in 2009, Cal has only been to a bowl game once.
T-4. North Carolina (-68)
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North Carolina gets an infamous spot on this list because it has been ranked in three preseason polls since 2009 and has finished each of those seasons without garnering a single vote in the final rankings.
The 2009 team only won eight games—which were later vacated—after starting the season at No. 21. The next season, North Carolina had a higher preseason rank, lost its first two games of the year and never came close to the poll in another 8-5 year.
Last year, under head coach Larry Fedora, North Carolina opened at No. 23, but the nation's No. 120 defense doomed the Tar Heels to four straight high-scoring losses. The Tar Heels dropped three more games before season's end to finish with a losing record.
T-4. Miami (-68)
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Miami hasn't been ranked in a preseason Top 25 since 2010, which was Randy Shannon's final season in charge of his alma mater. An early-season loss to No. 2 Ohio State didn't kill its momentum in the polls, but an ugly blowout loss to Florida State a few weeks later sent the Hurricanes spiraling toward a 7-6 record.
That season wasn't Miami's first bout with big disappointment. In 2006, under Larry Coker, the Hurricanes lost an opener to Florida State as the No. 11 team in the country and fell out of the poll a few weeks later with a loss to Louisville. Four straight defeats later in the season sent Coker out the door.
Under current head coach Al Golden, Miami has received votes in a couple of preseason polls, only to finish empty-handed by the end of the year. Perhaps the biggest show of underachievement under Golden came earlier this year, when seven Hurricanes were drafted into the NFL after a 6-7 campaign.
T-4. Florida (-68)
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Florida is one of the few teams on this list that has garnered votes in every single preseason poll of the last decade. But after the Urban Meyer era ended with a preseason No. 4 ranking and an 8-5 final record, the Gators went on a slide under Will Muschamp.
In Muschamp's first season, Florida was No. 22 in the preseason AP poll but later finished 7-6. The 2012 season wasn't always pretty to watch for Gators fans, but Muschamp's team went 11-2 and reignited the hype in Gainesville.
In 2013, the preseason No. 10 Gators lost their second game of the year to fellow underachiever Miami and later dropped seven straight games. Muschamp was retained, but he didn't last after a team that received preseason votes in the 2014 AP poll finished 7-6 last season. This year, Florida grabbed four votes in the AP poll—so, good luck with the rebuild, Jim McElwain.
3. Florida State (-71)
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Florida State finally made its big breakthrough in 2013 under head coach Jimbo Fisher, winning a national championship and ending a streak of lower-than-expected finishes in the final AP poll. From 2005 to 2014, the Seminoles only finished with a better ranking than it started with three times.
In 2006, 2007 and 2009—the final few years of the Bobby Bowden era—Florida State opened the year inside the top 20 but won only seven games in each of those seasons. Jimbo Fisher's second season in charge started with a No. 6 preseason ranking but ended just inside the Top 25 after a campaign that featured three straight early-season losses.
The Seminoles' embarrassing loss to Oregon in the inaugural college football playoff was a tough break for them on this list, as the preseason No. 1 team in the country slipped down to No. 6. This year, Fisher's young team will battle high expectations once again as it opens 2015 in the Top 10.
T-1. Oklahoma (-86)
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High preseason rankings and disappointing seasons have become all too common for Oklahoma under Bob Stoops, especially after a run of Top Six finishes from 2000-2004. In the last 10 years, Oklahoma has improved upon its preseason ranking only twice and has fallen at least 20 spots from a Top Five ranking on two separate occasions.
"It was never realistic that Stoops would keep playing for national titles virtually every other year, but Stoops as of last year was one of the five highest-paid coaches in the country," Stewart Mandel of FOX Sports wrote last year. "I don’t think it’s being unreasonable to ask for 'truly exceptional' once in a while."
Last season, Oklahoma was No. 4 in the preseason poll and was widely considered to be a national championship contender. After a major drop-off to 8-5 and some major coaching moves in the offseason, Stoops will have to play the rare underdog role this year in the Big 12 behind overachievers Baylor and TCU.
T-1. Texas (-86)
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Misery loves company, and both Red River rivals finished with the exact same plus-minus number in these comparisons of preseason to final AP polls over the last decade. From 2005 to 2009, Texas was a Top 10 mainstay without a major drop—and then 2010 happened.
Coming off a national runner-up season, Texas opened 2010 at No. 5 in the country and quickly posted three straight wins. But the Longhorns would only win two of their next seven games, finishing with their first losing record since 1997.
That major fall led to a couple of small drops in the polls in 2011 and 2012, and 2013 turned out to be the final straw for Mack Brown. The No. 16 Longhorns got the full brunt of a Taysom Hill-led BYU rushing attack in Week 2, lost in blowout fashion to Ole Miss and finished the year unranked at 8-5. So not only do the Longhorns and the Sooners share a major rivalry—they've shared major disappointment nationally over the last few years.
Justin Ferguson is a college football writer at Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @JFergusonBR.
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