Misery Index Week 11: Sulking in South Bend

Dan Wolken | USA TODAY Sports

Show Caption Hide Caption USA TODAY Coaches Poll: Week 11 Alabama keeps its hold on No. 1 after a big win against LSU.

Notre Dame lost to Pittsburgh 28-21 on Saturday and fell out of the USA TODAY coaches poll

Michigan lost its first game at home since Brady Hoke took over%2C falling 17-13 to Nebraska

Maryland lost to Syracuse 20-3 on Saturday%2C falling to 5-4 after starting the season 4-0

After 20 years of mediocre football, logic would dictate that Notre Dame fans would be appreciative of Brian Kelly's efforts to quickly get the program back on the national stage and excited about the direction of the program, even though the results this season haven't been great.

Then again, logic and Notre Dame fans are rarely related to each other.

Just 12 months ago, Brian Kelly was the hottest coach (non-Nick Saban division) in college football, defensive coordinator Bob Diaco was the national coordinator of the year and the Fighting Irish had enough recruiting cachet to go battle the SEC on an annual basis.

Gauging reaction on Twitter, however, you'd think Saturday's 28-21 loss to Pittsburgh was reason enough to shut down the program. Honestly, it was one of the more impressive freak-outs The Misery Index has observed this season and plenty of reason to put Notre Dame at No. 1 this week.

While it's pretty clear some tweaks may be necessary, and Notre Dame has indeed underperformed in a few areas this year, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with what Kelly is doing. Notre Dame caught a big-time wave last year to reach the BCS championship game, and now all those breaks seem to be evening out. What's happened this year may be mildly disappointing, but anyone who didn't expect the Irish to take a significant step back was delusional.

Not only did Notre Dame lose quarterback Everett Golson unexpectedly to academic issues, but the defensive line – which was supposed to be the strength of the team – has never been fully healthy or together. And the Irish's secondary, which performed way above its head last year, has undoubtedly experienced a market correction.

We'll see what happens going forward, but this does not appear to be a program collapsing or on a permanent downward trend. So relax, Notre Dame fans, everything will be fine.

(Disclaimer: This isn't a ranking of worst teams, worst losses or coaches whose jobs are in the most jeopardy. This is simply a measurement of a fan base's knee-jerk reaction to what they last saw. The way in which a team won or lost, expectations vis-à-vis program trajectory and traditional inferiority complex of fan base all factor into this ranking)

(Disclaimer No. 2: By virtue of firing their coaches, Connecticut and Southern Cal are hereby excluded from this and future editions of the Misery Index since fans can now look forward to a new regime taking hold in 2014.)

(Disclaimer No. 3: Southern Miss has been granted emeritus status for the Misery Index until it wins another game. At 21 straight losses and counting, putting the Golden Eagles on this list would be cruel.)

(Disclaimer No. 4: Florida would have easily made this week's list, but the Gators' problems are big enough that we addressed them separately here.)

1. Notre Dame: This is looking like an 8-4 season for the Irish (assuming it beats BYU on Nov. 23, which isn't a given, and loses to Stanford). That's neither great, nor a disaster, even though Notre Dame clearly had hopes of making a BCS bowl this season. When Notre Dame looks back, it will undoubtedly regret losing to Michigan (a very average team) and Oklahoma (another very average team). Then again, Notre Dame wasn't going to go unbeaten this year. It just had too many holes. The difference between 8-4 and 9-3 isn't huge, but it would've been big for perception, so that's something Kelly will have to address. And next season might be another step sideways with some significant personnel losses on the defensive line. On the other hand, Notre Dame is recruiting at a high level and Kelly has things very much on track. The biggest problem he faces is fan base that saw the national championship appearance not as a great (over)achievement last season but a birthright. It's just not that easy, guys.

2. Michigan: We have reached the point in the Brady Hoke era where it is reasonable to ask if he's the guy to get this thing fixed. After providing an initial jolt of energy in 2011, when Michigan went 11-2 and won the Sugar Bowl, it's hard to dispute that the program has regressed each of the last two years. Saturday was another milestone of deterioration when Hoke lost for the first time in the Big House, 17-13 to Nebraska. Though Hoke was going to lose a home game eventually – heck, it should have happened against Akron in September – this was yet another poor performance by the Wolverines, who have now dropped three of their last four after a 5-0 start. One week after Michigan State held them to minus-48 rushing yards, the Wolverines accounted for minus-21 against the Cornhuskers (who haven't stopped anyone all season) and went 3-for-15 on third down. This is not a good team, and there could be more pain on the way as they end the season with Northwestern, Iowa and Ohio State.

3. Maryland: The optimistic view would be that Maryland has improved its win total each of the last three seasons from 2-10 to 4-8 to 5-4 currently. But good luck finding many Terrapins fans who buy into that narrative. Coming into the season, there was a lot of buzz about Maryland as a program that was ready to take a big leap and get into the upper echelon of the ACC before heading to the Big Ten next year. A subsequent 4-0 start brought those hopes into the realm of reality for Maryland fans. But ever since getting blasted 63-0 by Florida State, this has turned into a pretty miserable season. Stefon Diggs and Deon Long – Maryland's best overall player and second-best receiver, respectively – suffered season-ending injuries in October. Quarterback C.J. Brown suffered a concussion against Florida State and missed two of the next three games. Then came Saturday's 20-3 home loss to Syracuse in which the Terrapins ran for just 81 yards and turned the ball over four times. There just isn't a whole lot to be excited about right now.

4. Iowa State: If you've chosen to be an Iowa State fan, you know that misery is going to be part of the deal. Most years, you strive and struggle to get six wins and hope every now and then to catch lightning in a bottle and get to eight or nine. That means a lot of tough losses along the way and very little margin for error in a league where seven of the 10 programs have natural advantages in recruiting and resources that you just can't match. But this season now officially qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment. Not only have the Cyclones lost twice to in-state rivals (by eight to Northern Iowa and by six to Iowa) and gotten blown out by some embarrassing margins in the Big 12 (by 64 to Baylor, by 31 to Oklahoma State and by 34 to Kansas State), but they've also come close enough on a handful of occasions to experience legitimate heartbreak. Remember the controversial 31-30 loss to Texas on Oct. 3 when they gave up a touchdown with 51 seconds left? Well, it happened again Saturday when TCU drove 58 yards and won 21-17 in Ames on a touchdown with 38 seconds left. At 1-8, this is by far Paul Rhoads' worst team.

5. Tulsa: This is just flat-out baffling. Since moving to Conference USA in 2005, Tulsa has been the league's best program with two conference titles and seven bowl appearances in eight years. It appeared the roll would continue in 2013 with Tulsa returning quarterback Cody Green and leading rusher Trey Watts among 10 starters back off last season's 11-3 team. In fact, Conference USA's coaches unanimously picked the Golden Hurricane to win the league's West division in its final year before moving to the American Athletic Conference in 2014. So it's hard to fathom what has happened this year. Not only has Tulsa failed to defend its conference title, it won't make any sort of postseason after Saturday's 58-24 loss to East Carolina, dropping them to 2-7. Tulsa is a small, private school with a small, private school fan base, so it's not like there's a raging inferno in Northeast Oklahoma over the state of the program. But this is a super disappointing team and a flat-out weird season, since nobody has been able to pinpoint exactly why Tulsa has regressed so quickly.

6. Oklahoma: The Sooners have been semi-frequent visitors to the Misery Index this season and are making a return appearance following Thursday's 41-12 loss at Baylor. We hate to beat a dead horse here, but the Oklahoma program just looks stale. There's nothing fun here, nothing exciting or new about the program or the direction it's going. It's bad enough to get run off the field by Baylor, it's quite another for that to be the expected result. Remarkably, 7-2 Oklahoma has stayed in the USA TODAY Coaches poll at No. 17. But when you start thinking about which teams in the top-25 the Sooners would actually beat in their current state, the number is pretty close to zero.

7. Colorado: There hasn't been much reason to pay attention to the Buffaloes the last few years, except to measure their futility. Unfortunately, we're back in that territory following Saturday's 59-7 loss at Washington. Though Colorado fans knew how far the program had fallen, a little bit of progress this season under Mike McIntyre would have given them something to hold onto going into 2014. Instead, there really isn't any noticeable progress to speak of. Since beating Colorado State in the season opener, the Buffaloes have beaten a pair of Football Championship Subdivision teams in Central Arkansas and Charleston Southern but haven't been competitive against anyone else. Colorado is now 0-6 in the Pac 12 with an average margin of 34 points in defeat. That speaks less to McIntyre's coaching ability than to the deep, deep hole dug by predecessor Jon Embree, but it's nonetheless the reality Colorado is facing. It could be several years before they're a factor in the Pac 12.

8. Illinois: There's not a lot of good news here. The Illini are 106th in FBS in points allowed and they rank just 96th in rushing the ball. That's not a good recipe for winning in any league, and that's why you will hear more and more fans calling for Tim Beckman's job despite this being just his second season. Illinois has actually had chances the last two weeks to get its first Big Ten win since Oct. 8, 2011. But after losing to Penn State in overtime, the Illini fell apart in the fourth quarter Saturday at Indiana, 52-35. The good news for Beckman, who guaranteed in the preseason that Illinois would win a Big Ten game this year, is that he still has Purdue left on the schedule. The bad news is that Illinois is ranked 54th in the country in recruiting according to Rivals.com with no commitments rated as five- or four-star players.

9. Virginia: The ACC is full of misery, but nobody has it worse than Virginia. Athletics director Craig Littlepage has been publicly supportive of head coach Mike London (who would be very expensive to buy out), but the results on the field continue to be troublesome. The last two weeks, the Cavaliers have been outs-cored 104-24 by Clemson and North Carolina, respectively. With Miami and Virginia Tech remaining before this season mercifully ends, it's looking highly likely Virginia will go 0-8 in the ACC. The Cavaliers rank 109th in points scored this season and 100th in points allowed. Virginia needs a major shakeup, but will the school have the stomach (and financial wherewithal) to make a change at the top?

10. Oregon: Once a program gets a reputation for something, it can be hard to shake. Just ask Clemson, which still has to live down the "Clemsoning" meme even though it hasn't lost a game in which it was favored for quite some time. So it will be interesting to see the cascading impact of Oregon's second straight loss to Stanford, knocking the Ducks out of the BCS title race. Oregon fans have become accustomed to winning big, and the expectation to cash in a national title one of these years has grown. But it's only natural to wonder if Oregon's repeated struggles against the kind of physically rugged teams that typically win championships will be held against the Ducks going forward. Every year should be evaluated on its own, but it would only be natural for College Football Playoff committee members to remember what they've seen against Stanford the last two years. That's a big part of why last Thursday was so costly for Oregon.

Also receiving votes (Miserable, but not quite miserable enough): Arkansas, Wake Forest, Kansas, West Virginia, Utah, Purdue, Penn St, Cal.