USA TODAY Sports

Each week during the season, the USA TODAY Sports college staff (Jace Evans, Paul Myerberg, George Schroeder, Erick Smith and Eddie Timanus) will provide their answers to an intriguing question from college football.

The college football season has kicked off with some positives and some negatives so far. Which team has been the biggest disappointment after two weeks of play?

Jace Evans

It’s hard not to pick Arizona here. Maybe expectations were too lofty for Kevin Sumlin’s first season in Tucson, especially considering the overall talent level Rich Rodriguez left behind. But dual-threat quarterback Khalil Tate became a legitimate star last year, and now playing under the coach who saw Johnny Manziel capture the Heisman Trophy had many predicting that Tate would be a dark-horse candidate for the award this season. Instead, Tate’s campaign, and in turn Arizona’s season, has fallen completely flat out of the gate. Tate has one touchdown and two interceptions while completing just 51.9 percent of his passes, a 10.1 percent drop-off from last season.

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More shocking is Tate’s rushing statistics are almost non-existent: He’s put up just 22 yards on 15 attempts. He averaged 9.2 yards per carry last year. The result is 0-2 thanks to a home loss to a BYU team coming off one of its worst seasons in years and an absolute destruction at the hands of Houston. If Sumlin can’t find a way to get Tate going, it’s going to be a long, long season for the Wildcats.

Paul Myerberg

The biggest disappointment (so far) has been the play of the Big Ten East. While Indiana is 2-0 with a win against Virginia, Maryland is 2-0 with a win against Texas and Ohio State has dominated Oregon State and Rutgers, the East has seen Penn State struggle with Appalachian State (before blowing out Pittsburgh), Michigan lose to Notre Dame and Michigan State lose to Arizona State. The theory that this would be the best division in the FBS hasn’t been proved true through two weeks. That title still belongs to the SEC West.

George Schroeder

Strangely, even with a win in Week 2, things got much worse for Florida State and first-year coach Willie Taggart. A punchless bunch getting rolled in the opener at home by Virginia Tech was one thing. But the Seminoles were thoroughly outplayed last weekend by FCS-level Samford. They were very fortunate to escape with victory. And in the days since, the defiance emanating from various folk affiliated with the FSU program toward fans – the essential message: ‘We don’t need you, haters’ – has been an even worse look. I’m not sure exactly what we should have expected from FSU; incremental progress, maybe, from last season’s debacle. Instead, we’re only two games into the season, and just two games into Taggart’s tenure, but the terrible start has prompted immediate – and legitimate – concern about where this thing is headed.

Erick Smith

North Carolina has been worse than we thought, which wasn't that high at the start of the season. Kansas State was considered a dark-horse Big 12 contender but hasn't gotten out of the blocks yet this year. And both Arizona and UCLA have had rough starts under the respective new coaches Kevin Sumlin and Chip Kelly.

But the biggest disappointment this season has been Purdue. Jeff Brohm instantly raised the level of the Boilermakers last year and took them to a bowl game, along with being competitive against some of the Big Ten heavyweights. Brohm was so impressive, he was considered a strong candidate at Tennessee.

Last year's success created optimism the program was ready to take another step up this season. Even with several pieces returning on offense, Purdue's offense has struggled in home losses to Northwestern and Eastern Michigan. Instead of possibly finishing high in the Big Ten West, it looks like the Boilermakers will just be fighting for a bowl berth.

Eddie Timanus

Two weeks isn’t exactly long enough to be truly disappointed in anything. On the other hand, quite honestly the college football season’s first few offerings have left me a little flat.

Most of us so-called experts had a pretty good idea heading into the campaign which teams would really and truly have a chance to play for the national championship. Nothing we’ve seen thus far has altered any of our preconceptions. If anything, they’ve been reinforced, and it’s difficult to envision that changing.

Clemson? Had a scare but survived, and no one left on the Tigers' ACC schedule appears capable of knocking them off until maybe – maybe – the conference title game against, most likely, Virginia Tech. Ohio State? Yeah, humming right along despite everything swirling around the head coach for the last month, and the rest of the Big Ten East looks not so mighty after all. Oklahoma hasn’t shown any reason to doubt it’s still the class of the Big 12. There will be some sorting out among the SEC heavyweights, but it sure looks like Alabama and Georgia are on a collision course

I hope I’m wrong, but right now the season just has an air of inevitability about it. We’ve been rewarded with some high drama in the last couple of championship games, and it would all be worth it if that is again the case. But there just isn’t a whole lot of genuine excitement yet, and January is a long way off.