Trung Canidate and Arizona were unable to back up their status as national title contenders.

1. Arizona
The Wildcats began the season with a No. 4 ranking and a high-profile game with Penn State. Both were big mistakes. Arizona was waxed 41-7 by the Nittany Lions, then needed a spirited comeback to top Western Athletic Conference holdout TCU. By mid-September Dick Tomey and Co. reached their nadir in a 55-20 loss to a Stanford team that finished 3-8 a year ago and began the season as the consensus last-place pick in the Pac-10. On the heels of last year's 12-1 mark there was talk in Tucson of at least first-ever Rose Bowl berth, if not an invite to the national championship Sugar Bowl this season. But with a 4-2 record -- and a mediocre 2-1 mark in conference play -- those plans have disappeared like the shimmering images in a desert mirage.

2. UCLA
Not to pick on the Pac-10, but it wasn't long ago that the Bruins had the nation's longest winning streak at 20. Since then, the Bruins -- a preseason top 25 team -- have gone 4-4, including wins over overmatched Boise State and Fresno State. Certainly, it's not what Bob Toledo's scandal-wracked team had in mind when it convened for spring practice six months ago. The revelation that players misused handicapped parking permits qualifies as disappointing enough, but when you add the team's lack of performance to the mix, the Bruins' place on this list is unavoidable. An unsettled quarterback situation, the woeful defense that sunk last season's ship and the suspensions that followed the series of no contest pleas for the handicap permits have teamed up to make this a year to forget in Westwood.

5. North Carolina
Last year the Tar Heels were bowl-bound for the seventh consecutive season. But Carl Torbush's second year at the helm in Chapel Hill has proved to be a disaster. Fans were directing their ire at offensive coordinator Steve Marshall after UNC lost its fifth game of the season Saturday, 20-12 to Houston. It's not his fault that QB Ronald Curry was lost for the year with a torn Achilles tendon, though. Carolina could easily find itself 3-8 or 2-9 at season's end. It's not a stretch to suggest that I-AA Furman (Oct. 30) could kick UNC when it's down, which might lead to a 1-10 mark. That happened 10 years ago in Mack Brown's second season, when the lone win came against VMI. The memories of Carolina finishing in the top 10 in 1996 and '97 seem nearly as distant as the last losing season for the school's storied basketball program.