There’s only so much you can do to predict how the college football season is going to play out before things actually kick off, but voters around the country are tasked with doing exactly that in the AP Poll that’s responsible for ranking the Top 25 teams in the nation.
There weren’t a ton of major shakeups on that list following the conclusion of the first official week of the 2024 college football season, although there was one very notable exception in the form of a Florida State team that was sitting at No. 10 only to drop out of the Top 25 entirely after losing to Georgia Tech and Boston College.
There’s no telling where the Seminoles will end up when everything is said and done, but they wouldn’t be the first school to head into the season with high expectations only to find themselves licking their wounds when it ended.
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The AP Poll was first rolled out in 1936 (preseason rankings didn’t become A Thing until 1950), and there have been a number of teams who found themselves near the top of the list at some point during the season before things fell apart in truly dramatic fashion.
There’s no telling if Florida State will end up joining their ranks after the Seminoles got off to an 0-2 start in 2024, but if that ends up being the case, they can take a little bit of solace in knowing they won’t be responsible for the worst collapse in college football history.
#1 USC—2012
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2012 was Lane Kiffin’s third year as the coach at USC (and the first they were eligible for a bowl during his tenure thanks to NCAA sanctions stemming from the Reggie Bush scandal), and expectations were high after the Trojans finished the previous season with a 10-2 record.
USC was stacked on paper thanks to an offense that featured nine returning starters, including QB Matt Barkley (a preseason Heisman contender) and WR Marqise Lee as well as a defense defined by a stellar secondary.
The Trojans entered the year ranked as the No. 1 team in the country and got off to a 2-0 start before ending up on the wrong side of an upset to Stanford in Week 3. They bounced back by rattling off four straight wins but saw things fall apart in the second half of the season by losing five of their final six and ultimately finished unranked at 7-6.
In doing so, USC became just the second team in college football history to start the season at #1 only to be left on the outside looking in when the final poll was released, joining…
#1 Ole Miss—1964
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I admit I’m a bit less familiar with an Ole Miss team that was also ranked #1 heading into a season that transpired 60 years ago, but they still earned their spot on this list by making history for all of the wrong reasons.
In 1963, the Rebels finished the regular season with a 7-0-2 record while finishing as SEC champions before losing to Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. They were ranked at No. 7 in the final poll but managed to leap to the top spot by the time the 1964 campaign rolled around.
Ole Miss cruised to a victory over Memphis State and maintained their No. 1 ranking with the 30-0 win, but they disappeared from the poll entirely after a stunning 27-21 loss to Kentucky the following week and remained unranked for the remainder of the season before finishing at 5-5-1.
#3 Alabama—2000
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Mike DuBose led Alabama to a 4-7 record when he coached the Crimson Tide for the first time in 1997, but they improved to 7-5 the following year before capping off the millennium by going 10-2 while narrowly losing to a Michigan squad helmed by a Tom Brady in an Orange Bowl showdown decided in overtime.
In 2000, the Crimson Tide were sitting at No. 3 in the AP Poll when they kicked off the year against USC only to drop to No. 13 the next week following a loss to unranked UCLA. They did bounce back with a win against Vanderbilt, but a 21-0 loss to Southern Miss in Week 3 knocked them out of the rankings for good.
When everything was said and done, Alabama went 3-8 and DuBose was forced to resign in disgrace at the end of the season (a decision the school’s athletic director made public when he announced the head coach wouldn’t be invited back at the start of November after the Crimson Tide became the first P5 team to lose to UCF).
#3 Pitt—1984
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Pitt was a force to be reckoned with for the bulk of the decade following their national championship win in 1976—a victory that came near the start of a run that would see the Panthers appear in a bowl game nine years in a row.
In 1984, the team was ranked No. 3 in the AP Poll after going 8-3 the previous season (the first since the end of the Dan Marino Era), and their roster featured two guys who would be selected near the top of the NFL Draft the following year: guard Bill Fralic (who went second) and defensive end Chris Doleman (who ended up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame after going fourth).
However, Pitt didn’t manage to live up to expectations. A loss to an unranked BYU squad in Week 1 dropped them to No. 17, and it marked the start of a four-game losing streak they never came close to recovering from en route to going 3-7-1.
#6 Texas A&M—2022
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Texas A&M seemed poised to make a big leap forward ahead of Jimbo Fisher’s fifth year as the head coach of the Aggies.
The team finished with a respectable but fairly unremarkable 8-4 record the previous season. However, they headed into 2022 with the top recruiting class in the country, and the new additions were still expected to make a major impact despite their unproven status.
As you probably know, that did not end up being the case. The team was still sitting at No. 6 following a Week 1 win over Sam Houston before getting stunned by Appalachian State at home. It remained in the Top 25 and rebounded with a couple of wins, but a loss to Mississippi State kicked off a five-game skid that contributed to their 5-7 record.
#8 Michigan State—2016
This entry departs a bit from the formula I’ve been following so far, as Michigan State entered the season ranked 12th but was able to move up to No. 8 by following up an easy win over Furman in its season opener with a victory over #18 Notre Dame (more on that second squad in a second).
However, they suffered their first setback of the season the following week after #11 Wisconsin handed them an L at home and quickly found themselves unranked thanks to the seven-game losing streak that unfolded before the season came to a merciful end with the Spartans sitting at 3-9.
#10 Notre Dame—2016
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Brian Kelly had finished every single season at Notre Dame with a winning record by the time the 2016 campaign rolled around, and it was safe to assume that streak was going to stay alive when you consider the Fighting Irish headed into the year at No. 10.
That did not end up being the case.
The season got off to a rough start after Notre Dame lost to an unranked Texas team on the road to fall to No. 18, and they fell out of the Top 25 with a loss to #12 Michigan State in Week 3.
They posted a losing record in ACC play and also fell to Navy and USC before capping things off with defeat at the hands of USC to finish at 4-8.
#15 Georgia Tech—2015
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The final two entries on this list involve teams that failed to crack the Top 10 at any point but still deserve a mention based on how dramatic their fall from grace ended up being.
Georgia Tech finished with an impressive 11-3 record in 2014, and the Yellow Jackets were subsequently ranked #16 in the AP Poll before the 2015 season kicked off.
They rose to #15 after getting off to a 2-0 start, but a loss to #8 Notre Dame ushered in an absolutely brutal stretch that saw them lose nine of their last ten games before ending up at 3-9 (although they did get a bit of a consolation prize with a lone win over #9 Florida State team during that otherwise forgettable run).
#17 Indiana—2021
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Indiana has historically been viewed as a basketball school, but it looked like the Hoosiers had the chance to make a name for themselves on the football field in 2021 after finishing the previous season ranked in the AP Poll (#12) for the first time since 1988.
About that…
Indiana entered the year at No. 17 but was no longer ranked after losing to #18 Iowa in its season opener—a contest where Michael Penix Jr. was knocked out for the rest of the year after tearing his ACL.
That turned out to be a portent of things to come, as more than 30 players ended up missing at least one game due to an injury while 18 suffered setbacks that ultimately sidelined them for the remainder of a campaign where the Hoosiers finished 2-10.