Unexpected Sweetness vs. Caramel Onions
Which teams have given their fans the best and worst surprises in college football?
One month ago, I wrote about the college football season as a box of chocolates – you often don’t know what you’re going to get. I wanted to come back and update the list of colleges experiencing unexpected sweetness or - like the kids in this video told to eat a caramel “apple” that is actually an onion - shocking bitterness and disappointment.
Remember – Alabama and Ohio State would’ve expected sweet seasons…and no one thought Vanderbilt or, frankly, Syracuse, were going to do well. This is about the relative surprise of the season’s result so far for teams on the list.
Unexpected Sweetness:
Coastal Carolina (9-0 Sun Belt) – heading into an impromptu matchup with BYU (honorable mention for sweetness themselves), Coastal Carolina is flying high. While they were decent last year and people thought they’d have a good season, no one would have had them pegged for New Year’s Six Bowl competition in December. This game with BYU will basically be an elimination game for getting into one of the bigger bowls but no matter what, an incredibly sweet season for the Chanticleers.
Indiana – Big Ten East (5-1): From their opening last-second win to defeating Michigan for only the second time in 41 years, to taking Ohio State to the wire in Columbus, Hoosier fans are basically living their best life now. The only sour mark is the injury that happened to QB Michael Pennix in last week’s Maryland game which puts him out.
Northwestern – Big Ten West (5-1): Similar to Indiana above, Northwestern was thought to be in position to do okay this year (although they had gone a surprising 3-9 last year). But to burst out to 5-0 was very sweet for their modest but national fan base. Even an upset loss to Michigan State over the weekend can’t cloud that this has been an excellent rebound year for Pat Fitzgerald’s Cats and it appears likely they’ll be representing the Big Ten West in the conference championship game in two weeks.
Tulsa – AAC (5-1): The Golden Hurricane have gone from the outhouse to (almost) the penthouse for head coach Philip Montgomery in 2020. Montgomery entered the year on a lot of lists as “coach most likely to be fired”, at least in the G5 leagues, and instead, after a close loss to Oklahoma State to start the year, have rattled off 5 straight wins including beating very good SMU and UCF squads on the road. The AAC is really loaded top to bottom but Tulsa finds itself just one game back of leader Cincinnati.
Miami – ACC (7-1): They made the honorable mention list a month ago but they are on the list for good now. From the ashes of an extremely disappointing – and boring – 6-7 season last year with a listless minor bowl loss to 7-1 this year. Yes they’ve won some close games and got blown out at Clemson but the program really seems to be getting back on track. Only question will be if head coach Manny Diaz can sustain success if D’Eriq King does leave (he could take advantage of another year of eligibility due to COVID) and/or if new OC Rhett Lashlee gets a head gig somewhere.
Liberty – Independent (9-1): Liberty is a one point loss to N.C. State (also on this list) from being undefeated. Another “less than” Power 5 program having a whale of a year. It seems likely that Hugh Freeze will leave for an SEC or perhaps ACC job after this season but it’s not 100%. Liberty is now one more good season away from being a lot more attractive to a conference, and perhaps higher than the Sun Belt or CUSA.
Iowa State – Big 12 (7-2): The Cyclones have been perpetually frisky under Matt Campbell but this year has been magical for Iowa State fans, players and the community. Wins over Oklahoma and Texas as well as – with one more win this weekend – the chance to be in the Big 12 Championship Game have this as an unbelievably sweet season for the program which hasn’t won a conference title or even division since 1912(!)
Honorable Mention:
BYU – Independent (9-0), FAU – CUSA East (5-1), N.C. State – ACC (7-3), San Jose State – Mountain West (4-0), Colorado – PAC 12 South (3-0)
Caramel Onion:
Penn State – Big Ten East (1-5): Starting the season as the team considered most likely to challenge Ohio State for the Big Ten title and get a spot in the College Football Playoff, Penn State has been straight up awful. Only a win this past week against equally forlorn Michigan has kept them from an 0-6 start which would have been absolutely unthinkable in late September. Hard to place what went wrong but with COVID such an overbearing presence (health issues, protocols, schedule changes) when it rains on a team it tends to pour.
LSU – SEC West (3-4): As I wrote a month ago, “after fielding perhaps the best team in the history of college football last year and concluding a 15-0 national championship run, the Bayou Bengals lost both coordinators, their Heisman Trophy winning QB Joe Burrow and a number of other players. A step back was expected…but not this.” LSU has never really looked right on defense, has had numerous players opt out and dealt with injuries at the quarterback position just when Brennan seemed to be putting it together. The delay in playing Alabama looks to have hurt the Tigers, not helped them. Orgeron will need to make quick changes to avoid disaster next year. I expect the pain to get worse this weekend against the Tide – and that ain’t the homer in me talking.
Michigan – Big Ten East (2-4): They thought they had the quarterback position figured out to start the year…and boy were they wrong. It took three overtimes to beat RUTGERS! That’s really all you need to know about the Wolverines. Harbaugh is on the hot seat and probably glancing more and more at the NFL and the team’s heart has been questioned. Just when you’d think it couldn’t get any worse, they were beaten by the Nittany Lions for that underwhelming team’s first win. The aroma of onion is strong here.
Tennessee – SEC East (2-5): It’s getting pretty grim around Rocky Top with talk of firing Coach Jeremy Pruitt a year after what was thought to be a breakthrough 9-win season. Tennessee has now lost five straight games by double digits which, even at the depths of the Derek Dooley experience earlier this decade didn’t happen. It seems Pruitt has struggled to adapt to the new syle of SEC play where you can’t out-defend the other team to victory – you need some explosive offense. Quarterback has just been a black hole and it’s no disrespect to the fifth-year senior Guarantano who clearly gives it all he has – just not good enough at that position to compete and the offensive line has been disappointing too. Pruitt probably needs to win the last two games of the year to avoid firing – although that’s just my conjecture.
Nebraska – Big Ten West (1-4): Woof. After being the most outspoken school against the Big 10’s original plan to delay play until Spring 2021 (which I agreed with the Huskers on), and then complaining about their schedule, Nebraska and thought-to-be-wunderkind coach Scott Frost have not been good. They were actually marginally competitive against Ohio State and had a close loss against Iowa on the road but blowouts in their other two losses and a narrow win over Penn State have led to another depressing season in Lincoln. Nebraska fans have got to be at their wits’ end – and they deserve better.
Dishonorable Mention:
Texas – Big 12 (5-3), FIU – CUSA (0-5), Louisville – ACC (3-7), Baylor – Big 12 (2-5)