Stephen Garcia and College Football's 10 Biggest Disappointments of 2011

The saga of Stephen Garcia is over at South Carolina. Stever Spurrier announced yesterday that Garcia had been dismissed from the team for failing an alcohol test and, according to ESPN, a marijuana test, as well.

But it’s not like he had been an all-star on the field this year. Like some other players, coaches and teams, he has seriously underwhelmed in the 2011 season.

Here are some of the other biggest disappointments of college football.

Honorable Mention

Mississippi State—The Bulldogs came in with a lot of momentum and a preseason ranking of 20 after pounding Michigan in their bowl game. They’re now 3-3 and needed overtime to beat Louisiana Tech

Doug Martin—Martin was supposed to bring an explosiveness to the Boise State running game that they hadn’t seen before. Five games in he has only rushed for over 100 yards once and is averaging just 4.7 yards per carry.

Missouri—The Tigers were ranked 21st in the polls before the season started and returned nine starters on offense and six on a defense that ranked sixth in the country in points allowed. They are 2-3 and lost to every ranked team they’ve played.

Big East—No one expected the Big East to do well this season but they got a shout out here because of the pathetic way they’ve handled conference expansion. Losing three teams to other conferences in a month is inexcusable.

Dayne Crist—Crist was supposed to come back from injury and lead Notre Dame back to its former glory. He was benched in favor of Tommy Rees after two quarters of play against South Florida.

Greg Childs

Arkansas’ pass attack has not missed a beat since losing Ryan Mallett. But Childs has not been a part of that in any capacity.

After getting 1,556 yards the past two years, Childs has a combined nine catches for 109 yards which puts him on pace for about 250 yards on the season. Even their running back Ronnie Wingo has more catches.

Jarius Wright has taken over as the primary receiver and between him, Cobi Hamilton and Joe Adams, there is no way this senior sees the ball much for the rest of the season.

Nebraska’s Defense

The Blackshirts were poised for great things in their first year in the Big Ten. They had one of the best defenses in the country and returned seven starters from it.

Somehow this group has fallen off the deep end, allowing 27 points per game, including 29 to Fresno State and 27 to Ohio State, who rank 76th and 86th in the country in points scored, respectively.

Jared Crick only has one sack on the season and they are allowing 167 yards per game on the ground. That’s bad news in the run-heavy Big Ten.

Bruce Irvin

Irvin had 14 sacks last season and paced one of the most underappreciated defenses in the country at West Virginia. So far this season, he has 11 solo tackles and two sacks.

Yes, he’s seen more double teams than he did last year but he has become a complete non-factor in the pass rush. The Mountaineers rank 94th in sacks this season which is a huge difference from last year when they averaged 3.46 which was second in the country.

Stephen Garcia

We’ve seen the last of Stephen Garcia though he has yet to publicly say anything about his dismissal.

But even prior to that he would have made this list. His touchdown to interception ratio was an awful 4-9 and his completion percentage went down by 13%.

Garcia was benched in favor of Connor Shaw last week and he threw for 311 yards and four touchdowns. There was no way Garcia was getting his job back anyway after such a poor season.

TCU

The Horned Frogs started the season ranked 14th in the country despite losing a bunch of talent on defense. Everyone assumed that Gary Patterson would reload and put out another great defense.

Wrong.

TCU gave up 50 points in their opener to Baylor and 40 points to SMU and are giving up 257 yards through the air per game. That’s 29 more yards than they allowed last season total.

And they still have to play Boise State on the road.

Luke Fickell

Fair or not, Ohio State’s new head coach had a lot of pressure to do well. He had to deal with all of the suspensions and a defense that lost a ton of talent from last year’s Sugar Bowl team.

Now the Buckeyes are 3-3, unranked and nearly lost to Toledo at home.

The defense has performed well but there is absolutely no threat in passing with either Joe Bauserman or Braxton Miller so defenses are just stacking the box. And without Dan Herron back from suspension, the running backs don’t have enough talent or experience to carry the load.

This team may not get to a bowl, assuming they can even play in it.

Garrett Gilbert

It was hard for Gilbert to disappoint more than he did last year but he found a way to do it in 2011. His completion rate went down from 59% to 48% and he nearly cost Texas a game against BYU when he completed the same number of passes to his team (two) that he did to the Cougars.

He got benched in the middle of that game and Case McCoy has not looked back since.

And now Gilbert is transferring from Texas after playing for them in the National Championship two short years ago. How the mighty have fallen.

Florida State

Everyone was convinced that 2011 would be the resurgence of Florida State. Then they lost Oklahoma by ten at home—reasonable. Then they lost to Clemson by five on the road—alright, Clemson is pretty good this year. Then they lost to Wake Forest—oh, they’re bad.

The play on the offensive line has been horrific, allowing nearly three sacks per game and they can’t open any lanes for their running backs who are averaging 85 yards per game combined.

The Seminoles also have one of the worst turnover margins in the country and, after giving away the ball five times to the Demon Deacons last week, it seems as if this team has given up on the season entirely.

Edwin Baker

Baker was named a preseason All-Big 10 running back after rushing for over 1200 yards last season. He now doesn’t have the most rushing yards on his own team.

After going for 91 yards against Youngstown State, he has not rushed for more than 50 yards in a game and has only one touchdown on the season with a 4.06 yards per carry average. He had five 100 yard games last year for an average of 5.8 yards per touch.

Tim DeRuyter

DeRuyter was the defensive coordinator at Air Force before Texas A&M plucked him for the same job at College Station.

The “Wrecking Crew” was on its way back last year giving up less than 22 points per game. They were looking to build on that success with the return of eight starters from that unit including the entire secondary.

Well, apparently, that doesn’t matter because the Aggies are ranked dead last in passing yards allowed with an incredibly bad 347 yards per game. Play in the defensive front seven has been outstanding, even without Von Miller, but either the entire secondary got worse after working together for a year or DeRuyter is setting them up for failure.