COTTRELL COLUMN: A disappointing year for plenty of teams

Virtually every college football season has a theme.

Sometimes it’s hard to identify, and sometimes it jumps right at you.

Some years you might not figure it out until the bowls are over, and some years it’s apparent by October.

While trying to figure out if this season’s theme had revealed itself yet, I began poring over the data and storylines.

And suddenly I found myself feeling really depressed.

If 2007 was “The Year of the Upset,” then 2008 may very well be “The Year of the Disappointment.”

Amidst the nice stories of Alabama, Texas Tech, Penn State and the three potential BCS busters — not to mention the wrecking crews known as Florida, Oklahoma and Texas — there has been some unexpectedly terrible football played in numerous places this season.

One of the most surprising — historically, if not from a talent standpoint — has been Michigan.

The Wolverines are 3-8 with their rivalry matchup with Ohio State coming up. This is the first time they haven’t gone to a bowl game since 1974 (and they were 10-1 that season when the Big Ten had its stupid rules about teams not being able to go to any bowl other than the Rose Bowl, and not being able to go to the Rose Bowl twice in a row), it’s their first losing season since 1967 and their most losses ever.

Most expected a down year in Rich Rodriguez’s first season with all the defections to the NFL and to other rosters around the country, but few could have expected Year 1 of the spread to go this poorly.

But Michigan has been far from the only disappointment.

Here in the SEC, preseason Top 20 teams Auburn and Tennessee are having terrible years after committing to — or dabbling in, in Tennessee’s case — the spread.

But the biggest disappointment in the SEC might be Georgia, in a way at least.

After entering the year with such high expectations, the Bulldogs are 9-2.

Nothing to be sneezed at, for sure.

But after half a season of passionate, fantastic football last season that put the Bulldogs where they were to start this one, they have reverted right back to the form that has made them a perennial also-ran.

Watching them in person Saturday really drove it home: The Bulldogs play undisciplined, nonchalant football. And that’s why they have yet to go undefeated under Mark Richt when they could’ve done it at least once or twice already.

You would think the disappointment would end there.

You would be wrong.

West Virginia, in what was widely viewed as its last, best chance to get to the BCS title game, is 6-3 with losses to ho-hum teams East Carolina, Colorado and Cincinnati.

Clemson, in a year that everything set up for it to finally win the ACC and maybe get to the title game, is 5-5 and has already fired its coach.

Kansas, in its follow-up to its breakout 12-1 season last year, is 6-5 and has suffered some pretty bad blowout losses.

Arizona State, which looked shaky but was thought to have enough talent to compete in the Pac-10, has lost six of its last eight and is sitting at 4-6 with two games still to play.

Wallowing in all this sadness is almost enough to drive a guy to drink.

Tim Cottrell is sports designer of the Opelika-Auburn News. He will write a weekly column on college football during the season. You can also read him on the O-A Sports Blog at oanow.com. He can be reached at 737-2511 or .