The teams with the most unrealistic expectations are USC, Texas, Nebraska, Notre Dame and maybe BYU. That's not terrible company to be in.

The common thread is that all those teams were (at one point) much better than they currently are, so know that's possible and still expect it. For USC, Texas, Notre Dame, Nebraska that's expecting to be in title contention every year - to be Alabama (or at least Clemson or Ohio State at the worst). Because at one point, they were that team.

BYU obviously never reached those heights, but they were obviously pretty stellar in the 80s with a long run of continued high-level success. So that's what the fans want/expect.

By comparison, you have a team like Utah, where the past 15-20 years are the best in program history, so they don't have expectations for more based on past success.

If high (sometimes unreasonable) expectations is the price to pay for having historical success, I'd take that every time