The college footabll pre-season is the time for hope. Unfortunately for some fans, Week 1 often brings a harsh smack of reality to the proceedings. Those big dreams can meet the harsh light of reality in a hurry and leave the fans who spent months waiting on college football to wonder if it's time to think about basketball or the NFL or much of anything else. From shocking Week 1 losses to ugly wins that made fans sad, here's some disspirited Week 1 fan bases. RutgersSure, the Scarlet Knights aren't one of the top programs in the Big Ten. But if anything, their Thursday night 37-21 home loss to UMass (Rutgers was favored by more than four touchdowns) proved that the Scarlet Knights have their backers. Or maybe had, because they're fleeing now like Titanic passengers when the boat hit the iceberg. Rutgers fans are done with the program. Never thought Rutgers Football would light up the phone lines tonight on @WFAN660. Feel for fans like Gus. pic.twitter.com/ak1aGw0YeH— Zach Gelb (@ZachGelb) September 4, 2026Rutgers paying UMass $1.5M to play them Week 1 as 30-point favorites only to lose and then set off a pre-planned fireworks show postgame might be the single saddest thing l've ever seen pic.twitter.com/xHma98w1ay— NFL Memes (@NFLMemes) September 4, 2026Rutgers fans are the most loyal fan base in the county. We live and die with the block R. Year after year we show up and begin each season with optimism and justify to all our friends and colleagues why this season will be different, year after year. We literally get nothing in…— RUfanEsq. (@fparisi14) September 4, 2026BaylorA Week 1 battle with Auburn was just as competitive as expected, but the Bears summoned up all their courage and went for a game-winning two point conversion with nine seconds remaining only to be stopped inches shy of the victory. The Bears were an underdog in the game, but losing by literally inches certainly put a little extra sting in the defeat for Baylor fans.I just saw the 2-point play Baylor lost on…I was kinda positive before…now I’m just suck and there’s this overwhelming sense of depression hovering over me. Wow. This must be what Oklahoma State felt in 2021— Baylor Homer (@TheBaylorHomer) September 6, 2026Seeing a lot of Baylor fans optimistic after loss. I would be too if we hadn’t seen this exact same result from Aranda teams year after year. Play it close/late game heroics, come up just short. Idc that it “feels different.” It’s year 7. I’m not encouraged in the slightest— Hunter H. Hewell (@hunterhhewell) September 6, 2026DJ Lagway owes Baylor a victory… everybody did their job on this play except for him. Great play call. Terrible throw. pic.twitter.com/xJAJJV4G4W— Emmanuel Acho (@EmmanuelAcho) September 5, 2026VanderbiltAfter an impressive run with QB Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt got a taste of life without him in an ugly 28-9 win over FCS Austin Peay. Yes, they won, but Vandy fans left Week 1 realizing that the whirling dervish that was Pavia probably had a bigger hand in their surprising 17 wins over the last two seasons than Clark Lea or anybody else still in Nashville. Plenty of Commodore fans were also cranky about seeing the Dores struggle with five-star QB Jared Curtis mostly sitting and watching. Idk, I was there tonight and we looked really bad on both sides of the ball. I certainly appreciate the optimism, but i left feeling worse about this season, not better— Jammertime (@spinningasquare) September 6, 2026The most important stat of the night is that vandy won.However, the narrative around the program and people’s opinions of what’s going on have completely changed.Here’s something that’s not an opinion, though: this PR and narrative disaster was completely avoidable— Alex Kurbegov (@AlexKurbegov) September 6, 2026I'm hearing some boos from fans down below the press box after Berlowitz threw an incompletion on second down and got tripped up on third down. Vanderbilt up 21-9 with 2:28 in the third.— Graham Baakko (@GrahamBaakko) September 6, 2026MichiganIn many ways, the Wolverines were the story of the night. They needed a deeply controversial (or more accurately, deeply errant) timing call to extend the game and allow them to outlast Western Michigan 13-12 on a Hail Mary. Wolverine fans stormed the field, which just allowed another chance to observe that while some were ecstatic, others were just sad it came to this in Week 1.I’m filled with so much disgust from that game last night. Cannot get over it. What a shameful product to put on the field— Chrissy (@WolverineWOP) September 6, 2026storming the field for Western Michigan wasn't on my bingo card— stusandler (@stusandler) September 6, 2026I’m sorry but storming the field in this situation is embarrassing🤣 pic.twitter.com/V6WOqWwKYe— Mr Big Bets (@Bigbetsbrand123) September 6, 2026ClemsonSure, LSU on the road stood to be a tough game. But after a long offseason, seeing the team that went 7-6 last year lose 51-10. Well, that proved to be a pretty disspiriting evening for Clemson backers. Time for bed. Hopefully attendance will be horrible in the Valley next week.Hopefully Dabo does the right thing after this 4-8 season.— 🐅 Feels like 2008 🐅 (@ClemsonCameron) September 6, 2026Been awhile since I saw Clemson get dismantled this badly. Very disappointed but not surprised. Tigers don't have the horses they used to have.— Bennett Tiger (@ironmanwooo) September 6, 2026Clemson is officially a dead program. Respect Dabo and everything he’s done but this program is in desperate need of a reset.— Julian “Ju-Ju” Martinez (@JuJuTalksSports) September 6, 2026Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow