College Football's Biggest Disappointments: Florida State, Florida and 3 More

Sometimes our expectations coming into a season just don't materialize on the field. At times, things even look pretty rosy during the first few weeks. Then the wheels come off the cart and we're left holding a cart of rotten apples.

Florida and Florida State might fit that bill. As highly as they were touted, or as good as they looked coming into the early parts of the season, they haven't lived up to the hype.

In the case of the Seminoles, the word "disappointing" may not even describe what this season is transpiring to be.

They're not alone though. Around the nation, there are plenty that have failed to live up to expectations and have left fans with a very sour taste in their mouths.

We'll look at a few of them.

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Florida Gators Have Failed to Win the Big One

The Gators looked to re-assert themselves as a true power in the loaded SEC. While their season hasn't been bad, they've been unable to get the big wins that would put them legitimately in the chase for an SEC title.

The Gators started their season 4-0 and moved their way up the ranks. However, their biggest wins were against Tennessee and on the road at Kentucky.

When they finally got a shot at a conference front-runner—Alabama—they lost 10-38. That loss was followed up by a trip to the bayou to take on LSU. As I write this, the Gators are trailing 27-11.

There's no doubt that losing to the No. 2 and No. 1 teams respectively is no embarrassment. There are very few teams in the nation that could beat either of those teams, especially LSU on the road.

The problem is, Florida isn't even keeping it that close. They're not coming up with finishes that would indicate their ability to take the conference title away from either of those teams, should they meet in the title game.

The best Florida is showing right now is that they might be able to steal away the East Division title, but even that is somewhat questionable. South Carolina keeps winning and Florida hasn't beaten a ranked team yet.

It hasn't been a bad year for Florida, but they haven't played very many SEC opponents yet and their future is murky.

Why Were the Florida State Seminoles Still Ranked Coming into This Week?

If you don't consider Florida State to be a disappointment, you must have had exceptionally low expectations. Certainly, they must have been much lower than the people putting together the weekly rankings.

Florida State started the season well enough, picking up easy wins over Louisiana-Monroe and Charleston Southern. Those victories were enough to catapult this team into the Top Five in the nation.

How they got that high based on those wins is beyond me, but okay. Maybe the "experts" saw something I didn't.

They supported that lofty ranking by hosting No. 3 Oklahoma and lost 13-23. Okay, that's not so bad, right?

After that, they went on the road to take on No. 8 Clemson with a chance to show that they were the real deal and that Clemson was just a flash in the pan. Instead, they lost again 30-35.

I suppose you could still make the argument that they lost narrowly to another Top 10 team. That would be fair, though it still doesn't help make the case that the Seminoles are an exceptional team.

However...this week...

If losing to a pair of highly ranked teams isn't bad, losing to Wake Forest does no one any favors. The Demon Deacons are now 4-1 with a victory over a ranked team (for today, anyway). However, they're still no powerhouse team. They might find themselves ranked on the heels of this game, but they probably shouldn't.

Florida State now falls to 2-3 and have yet to beat a team with a pulse.

Ohio State Could Be in Free-Fall

Anyone who wasn't an Ohio State homer had a strong feeling that this team would take a step back this year. However, this is the Ohio State Buckeyes we're talking about. They always just reload and win Big Ten Championships.

That history was enough to allow them to start the season ranked inside the Top 20.

Not this year.

Things started looking shaky when Ohio State barely got past Toledo 27-22 in the second week of the season. Fans argued that Toledo was actually pretty good and Ohio State had recovered from near-misses to in-state rivals before and gone on to win conference titles.

Then however, the Buckeyes traveled to Miami to take on the Hurricane and were embarrassed 6-24.

That was just one game though, right? There was still plenty of time to recover and put together a strong season.

A 37-17 win over Colorado was nice, but Colorado is 1-4. If they hadn't won by at least two scores, there would have been real trouble in Columbus.

The Buckeyes have followed that up with another 7-10 flop to Michigan State.

Now, the Spartans could be a pretty good team. We don't really know yet. They've won most of their games, but dropped a doozie to Notre Dame that was embarrassing for that program.

However, it's been quite a while since Ohio State had two losses on their record this early in the season and they still have a lot of tough play in front of them.

The game in Lincoln, Nebraska tonight will tell us a lot about this Buckeye team, but they haven't looked very good thus far. Their offense is struggling to break in freshman QB Braxton Miller and their defense has looked more porous than I've ever seen it.

Off-field issues have created quite a distraction and new coach Luke Fickell has yet to show he can lead this program through the turmoil.

There's still time to make something of the season, but it's been a terrible disappointment so far.

The Big Ten Conference Has Looked Weak

I say this as a fan of the Big Ten football conference. This year has largely been a big disappointment.

Sure, Wisconsin is looking like one of the best teams in the country. They're arguably playing some of the best football anywhere around, and it's showing on the score boards.

And Michigan has taken lengthy strides forward. Brady Hoke made a masterful move in bringing defensive coordinator Greg Mattison on board and Mattison has dramatically improved the Wolverine defense, allowing the offense more room to breathe and pull down quality wins.

Illinois is looking very impressive considering two years ago they were a miserable 3-9.

The jury is still out on Nebraska, but we'll learn more in the coming few weeks.

As for the rest of the conference though...blech.

Iowa has turned from a defensive juggernaut to a thoroughly mediocre shell of their former selves. Yes, they lost a ton of talent, and it's showing. They're currently 3-2 but have a triple-overtime loss to Iowa State and a defensive clunker against Penn State weighing them down.

Michigan State is putting up wins, but the only quasi-quality victory came on the road against an Ohio State team that isn't even a shadow of the team it was just a year ago. They also have a thoroughly embarrassing dismantling at the hands of Notre Dame.

Penn State picked up a win over Iowa today, but other than that, they struggled to put away Indiana last week, sneaked past Temple and was manhandled by No. 2 Alabama.

Minnesota? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Sorry, I'll try to keep myself composed.

Indiana grabbed a quick lead over Illinois earlier today, but ultimately succumbed 20-41 in what was arguably their best showing of the year. They're currently 1-5 on the year.

Northwestern continues to be a scrappy little team that plays everyone fairly tough, but is 2-2 and trailing Michigan 7-0 as I write this.

Purdue is 3-2, but only because they beat up on hapless Minnesota and a couple of lesser opponents. Their losses are to Notre Dame and Rice. Rice!

At the very top of the conference, Wisconsin is playing great football. Just below them, there are a few teams playing decent football.

But then things get pretty depressing. For a conference that tried to put its money where its mouth is by grabbing a stranglehold on New Year's Day bowls—most of them against the SEC—this is a very disappointing season that's developing.

The State of Florida Continues to Feel the Pain with Miami

Few picked the Hurricane to win the ACC title. Those predictions largely went to in-state rival Florida State and Virginia Tech.

However, hopes were high for the faithful fans of "the U." Miami entered the season ranked inside the Top 25 and had an opportunity to steal away some of the attention from their neighbors, the Gators and Seminoles.

Instead, they dropped their opening game on the road against the team still drawing ugly reviews for their uniforms—Maryland. They temporarily righted the ship by taking down Ohio State, but it was short lived as they turned around and dropped a home game to No. 20 Kansas State.

A win over Bethune-Cookman raised no one's eyebrows and just today they dropped their third game of the season in a shootout against No. 21 Virginia Tech.

Much like Ohio State, Miami has been smothered in controversy and suspensions. They could have silenced all of that with solid play on the field, but those issues were more than they could handle.

Once again, we were force-fed a measure of hype surrounding a historic program that is nowhere near what it was at the height of its power.

At 2-3, this Miami team is much less than expected.