Unlike our salary ranking stories, which are fact-based, the “biggest upset” is a matter of opinion, not fact. Well, we love college football, so who’s to say our opinion isn’t better than anyone else’s?
To that end, we made a list of the 10 games we think marked the greatest upsets in the history of college football.
Note: the sport actually started with a game between New Jersey rivals Princeton and Rutgers in 1869(!!) and had a degree of regional popularity through the 1950s. But we can’t speak on any games in that era with much confidence. To that end, this list runs from 1957 to today, since we can at least recognize what the sport looked like in 1957 and because that was the year of a game that fully deserves inclusion on this list. Where does it land? Just read on, friends. In descending order…
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Stanford and USC may have been “conference rivals,” but they lived at opposite ends of the standings in 2007 and USC was a national power at the time, coming into the contest on a 35-game home winning streak and as 41-point favorites while Stanford was 1-3 on the season and had gone 1-11 in 2006.
What Stanford did have was a coach in his first season at the highest level of college football, and he was just getting started in terms of winning big games. His name is Jim Harbaugh.
9. Temple 28, Virginia Tech 24. Oct. 17, 1998
Both of these teams are a little also-ranish these days, but back in ’98, the Hokies were extremely relevant on a national level, coming into this one ranked 14th in the country with a 5-0 record, the 4th-best defense in the country and hopes that they could parlay an undefeated season into the Big East into National Championship contention. Meanwhile, the Owls were worse than also-rans; they stunk. Temple was 0-26 in its history on the road in the Big East and entered this game winless and without its normal quarterback. To make the outcome even more seemingly obvious, 35-point favorite Virginia Tech got out to a 17-0 lead.
So what happened? A freshman quarterback named Devin Scott threw two long touchdown passes and ran for a third as Temple eked out a shocking victory. Goodbye, Virginia Tech title hopes.
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Another Big East shocker that most consider slightly more impressive than the Temple-Virginia Tech one we just reviewed, this matchup featured a winless Syracuse team entering Louisville’s home stadium, where the Cards had won 20 games in a row (the second-longest streak after the aforementioned USC one).
Cuse was a 37-point underdog playing for a beleaguered coach in Greg Robinson, but the Orange hit on a 79-yard passing touchdown on the first play from scrimmage and survived a 555-yard passing outlet from Louisville’s star quarterback, Jeff Brohm.
7. Kansas 23, Oklahoma 3. Nov. 8, 1975
At the time of this game, Oklahoma was the best program in the nation. The Sooners were on a 37-game unbeaten streak overall and had beaten KU 11 straight times. And the game was at Oklahoma!
The Sooners did not come to play on Nov. 8, 1975, however, committing a whopping eight turnovers which crippled their offense and gave the Jayhawks easy opportunities to score.
What makes this upset either less significant or even more shocking is that defending champion Oklahoma would go on to beat rival Nebraska in the biggest game of the regular season and then Michigan in the Orange Bowl and won yet another National Championship, even with this weird blemish against Kansas on its final record.
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It was the season opener for big, bad Florida State, entering the game No. 6 in the country and undefeated against schools not named Miami or Florida since September of 1986. The Noles were 22-point favorites and expected to use this game as a springboard for a National Championship season.
The little-known (on a national level) Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles? They had a quarterback named Brett Favre (look close at the picture and it’ll all come back to you).
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If we did the most fun games in college football history, this would be No. 1. It’s hard to call a major bowl result an upset since both teams had to be “good” enough to get a berth and Oklahoma was “just” a 7.5-point favorite for this one.
But Oklahoma was college football royalty, a Big 12 power used to playing for national titles. Boise State was the winner of the WAC, and even though the Broncos were undefeated, many fans didn’t think a school like that deserved to be on the same field as a blue blood like OU.
And then there was the game itself: a high-scoring shootout that went back and forth all night, the teams scored 22 points in the last 1:26 to force overtime, with Boise State using three different trick plays to survive and ultimately get the win. Just watch the highlights, y’all.
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Here’s the 1957 entry on this list, which also marks Oklahoma’s third appearance (does that make the Sooners chokers or just so good that beating them as historically been an upset?).
In this classic, the unranked Fighting Irish marched into Norman and snapped the No. 2-ranked Sooners’ 47-game win streak in a game that featured great defense and dreadful offense.
Amazingly, it was Notre Dame, a 19-point underdog in this one, who had last beaten Oklahoma, all the way back on September 26 of 1953!
3. Miami (OH) 21, LSU 12. Sept. 20, 1986
When it comes to football, Miami spelled alone is the national power and Miami (OH) is that random team that plays in the MAC. Needless to say, the latter is never expected to walk into Death Valley for a game with the Tigers and walk out with a win.
But that’s what happened on a sloppy field in Baton Rouge, as the eight-ranked hosts committed seven turnovers and effectively handed the game to their shocked and joyous visitors.
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Another contender for most fun CFB game ever, this was a wild affair. Admittedly, on a relevance scale, this team featured two teams not really going anywhere. That was not unusual for typically .500ish Navy, but Notre Dame coming into this one wit a 1-7 record was pretty shocking.
Still, it was at intimidating Notre Dame Stadium and there were more than 80,000 fans on hand desperate to see the Irish get back on track. And, most of all, there was the series history! This is one of the longest-running rivalries in the sport and the teams came into the 2007 matchup with Notre Dame having won 43(!!) straight times dating to 1964. Now you see why this was a massive upset? It ended a 43-game losing streak!
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Every other game on this list featured teams playing at the same level of football—”DI,” or the “Bowl Subdivision.” This game, on the other hand, was one of those “tune-ups,” where a Power 5 school pays a lower, FCS opponent (in this case, Appalachian State out of North Carolina was paid some $400,000 to travel up to the “Big House”) to play them.
Appalachian State was actually an elite FCS school, but still, Michigan was the favorite to win the Big 10 and Las Vegas didn’t even put a line on the game. Alas, the Mountaineers got four TDs out of quarterback Armanti Edwards and blocked a Michigan field goal attempt with six seconds left to pull off the shocker…and change some rules in the process.
Given that it was the first time an FCS team defeated a ranked FBS team, the Associated Press decided to amend its rules and allow FCS teams to get votes in the Top-25, which Appalachian State did. That was literally something that had never happened before.
We can’t feel too bad for Michigan, though. The Wolverines may be “atop” this list, but they’re also the reigning National Champions…
