Paul Finebaum reveals his biggest underachievers in college football

The fact of the matter is there are aways going to be teams who fall far short of expectations in any given season. With that fact in mind, who does Paul Finebaum see as the program or programs most likely to underachieve based on what people think of them now before the season?

In his answer on ‘McElroy and Cubelic In The Morning’, Finebaum’s official answer was the Florida State Seminoles. He started by deeming Texas A&M as the team who best fit this criteria last season. He then also named Ole Miss behind FSU as another potential team that could slip this fall.

“Well, certainly, the easy answer last year was Texas A&M,” admitted Finebaum. “But I mean that didn’t take a legitimate question to answer.”

“I think it depends on how you look at that. In the immediacy, I also wonder a little bit about Florida State. I think that can be taken care of pretty quickly in relation to this coming season,” Finebaum said. “I mean there’s a long answer, there’s short answers. But I’m also going to answer Ole Miss. I don’t know what to make of Ole Miss. Last year, they were in the Top-10. And then they went into that sloon.”

“Therein lies a couple of answers but I’ll go with Florida State,” said Finebaum.

Florida State at least makes sense considering the perch that they’re on heading into the fall. Many have high expectations for the Seminoles after they went 10-3 last season and brought back plenty of the pieces that helped make the happen. That kind of hype behind them would make it easy to label them as an underachiever if they’re not competing for the ACC crown or making a case for the CFP.

It’s harder to make the case against Ole Miss because, as Finebaum said, not much is certain about the Rebels. After starting 7-0, Lane Kiffin’s team closed on at 1-5 with the victory being a close call in College Station. They now bring back several pieces from the team but also have some things to sort out with what they did in the transfer portal.

Again, several teams are going to be called underachievers by the time that the 2023 season is over. It’s unavoidable. Still, if you were take a guess at which teams are going to, Finebaum thinks you need not look any further than Tallahassee and, to a lesser degree, Oxford.