Top 5 Most Overrated Upsets in College Football History
There are certain college football games that become bigger every time we talk about them. The ranking of the favorite gets repeated. The stadium gets louder in our memory. The underdog gets elevated into college football folklore. And before long, the game becomes something more than what actually happened on that Saturday afternoon. But here's the problem with college football mythology: sometimes we remember the ranking on the scoreboard more than the team that actually wore the uniform. So let's revisit five famous upsets and ask a potentially uncomfortable question: Were these really as big of an upset as we remember?
Before anyone starts throwing things at me, this isn't an attempt to diminish the teams that pulled off these victories. Beating a heavily favored opponent is difficult regardless of what happens afterward. The point is to look at these games with the benefit of hindsight. Sometimes the supposedly great team wasn't nearly as good as we thought. Sometimes the upset may actually have helped cause the collapse that followed. And sometimes the truth is somewhere in Between 2 Grills..
1. Appalachian State over Texas A&M — 2022
When Appalachian State walked into Kyle Field in September 2022 and beat No. 6 Texas A&M 17-14, it looked like one of the biggest upsets in recent college football history. Texas A&M had entered the season with enormous expectations after finishing the previous season ranked No. 4. The Aggies were loaded with talent, had recruiting momentum and were supposed to be one of the teams capable of challenging Alabama in the SEC. Then Appalachian State showed up, controlled the game and walked out of College Station with one of the most memorable wins in school history. The national reaction was immediate: Texas A&M was in trouble.
And then the season happened. Texas A&M finished 5-7 and missed a bowl game. Suddenly, the No. 6 ranking attached to that September afternoon didn't look quite as impressive. Maybe Appalachian State had pulled off an unbelievable upset. Or maybe we had simply overestimated Texas A&M before the season began. That's what makes this one so fascinating. The argument against the upset being historically enormous is obvious: the team that lost wasn't very good. But there's another possibility that makes the story even more interesting. Maybe the upset itself helped crush Texas A&M's season. Expectations were enormous, the loss was embarrassing and the pressure intensified. Perhaps Appalachian State didn't just expose a flawed team. Perhaps the Mountaineers delivered the first punch in a season that never recovered.
2. Appalachian State over Michigan — 2007
If you were watching college football on September 1, 2007, there was no debate about what you had witnessed. Appalachian State, an FCS program, had walked into Michigan Stadium and defeated No. 5 Michigan 34-32. It was almost impossible to comprehend. Michigan was one of the most recognizable programs in the sport, the Big House was packed and the Wolverines were expected to compete for a national championship. Instead, the Mountaineers walked out of Ann Arbor with a victory that immediately became one of the defining moments in college football history.
But go back and look at what happened after the shock wore off. Michigan did not collapse. The Wolverines finished 9-4, won their bowl game against Florida and finished the season ranked No. 18 in the AP poll. That doesn't make the Appalachian State victory less remarkable. If anything, it makes the story more complicated. Michigan wasn't a terrible football team. It was a very good football team that started the season with a spectacularly bad loss. So was this an overrated upset? Maybe. Or perhaps this is the best example of why the word "overrated" can be misleading. Appalachian State beating Michigan was absolutely enormous. But Michigan's eventual success suggests that the Mountaineers didn't expose a national championship fraud. They exposed a team that simply wasn't ready for them that afternoon.
3. Marshall over Notre Dame — 2022
Notre Dame entered the 2022 season ranked No. 5 and dropped to No. 8 after losing its opener to Ohio State. Then Marshall arrived in South Bend and did something almost nobody expected: the Thundering Herd beat the Irish 26-21. Notre Dame was suddenly 0-2, and the conversation surrounding first-year head coach Marcus Freeman changed overnight. Marshall had gone into one of college football's most famous stadiums and beaten a program that was supposed to be competing nationally. At the time, it felt like Notre Dame's season might be completely finished before September was over.
But Notre Dame eventually recovered and finished 9-4, ranked No. 18 in the final AP poll. That doesn't erase Marshall's achievement, but it does change the context. Notre Dame wasn't a championship-caliber team that inexplicably lost one Saturday and then went back to being dominant. It was a team dealing with a coaching transition that showed significant inconsistency before recovering. Again, the question becomes whether we remember the ranking or the actual team. Marshall's victory remains a terrific upset, but perhaps its place in the upset pantheon is inflated by the Notre Dame name and the emotional reaction to an 0-2 start.
4. Kansas over Texas — 2021
There are few things in college football that sound more ridiculous than saying Kansas went into Austin and beat Texas. That's exactly what happened in 2021. Kansas won a wild 57-56 overtime game, turning what was already a disappointing Texas season into one of the most embarrassing moments in recent Longhorn history. The score alone made the game unforgettable. Kansas beating Texas in football was supposed to be the kind of thing that happened once in a generation.
Except Texas wasn't very good.
The Longhorns finished 5-7, and the Kansas game came during a season in which Texas was already struggling badly. That's what makes this upset such an interesting inclusion. The Kansas victory was absolutely shocking because of the programs involved and the location, but the actual football team Texas put on the field that season was nowhere close to the national power people associated with the Longhorn brand. In other words, perhaps Kansas didn't knock off a great Texas team. Perhaps Kansas simply caught Texas being exactly what its final record said it was. And yet there's another side to that argument: losses like this can become the moments that finally convince a program that something has to change. An upset doesn't have to expose a great team to be devastating.
5. Purdue over Ohio State — 2011
Purdue beating Ohio State sounds like the kind of upset that should immediately be placed among the great moments in Boilermaker history. In 2011, Purdue defeated Ohio State 26-23 in West Lafayette, and the result naturally received enormous attention because of the Buckeyes' reputation. But there's a problem when we look back at that Ohio State team: it wasn't very good. The Buckeyes finished 6-7, meaning the Purdue loss wasn't some isolated blemish on an otherwise dominant season. Ohio State struggled throughout the year.
That doesn't mean Purdue didn't deserve credit. It does mean that the mythology surrounding the upset is somewhat dependent on the Ohio State name. We tend to remember "Purdue beat Ohio State" and fill in the rest of the story ourselves. But the 2011 Buckeyes were not the Ohio State teams that would dominate the Big Ten in later years. They were a flawed team going through a tumultuous season. So perhaps Purdue's victory was less about slaying a giant and more about defeating a giant that had already fallen.
Maybe These Upsets Aren't Overrated After All
And here's where this entire argument gets uncomfortable. Maybe calling these games "overrated" is unfair. A football team can be overrated before a game and still have its season fundamentally changed by an upset. Texas A&M's collapse after Appalachian State is impossible to separate entirely from the expectations surrounding the program. Michigan's 2007 season demonstrates the opposite: Appalachian State delivered an all-time upset, but Michigan recovered and had a very good season. Notre Dame eventually recovered from its loss to Marshall. Texas didn't. Ohio State didn't. The outcomes were different because the circumstances were different.
Maybe the better lesson is that an upset can be both less impressive in hindsight and more important than we realized at the time. The final record can tell us that the supposedly unbeatable team wasn't nearly as good as its ranking suggested. But that same upset might have contributed to the final record. Confidence disappears. Pressure increases. Coaches start questioning decisions. Players begin pressing. Fans turn on a season that was supposed to be special.
That's what makes college football so fascinating. We know what happened on Saturday. We don't always know what it meant until December.
So maybe these aren't the five most overrated upsets in college football history after all.
Maybe they're five reminders that the ranking tells us what we expected to happen. The rest of the season tells us what actually happened.
