The Biggest Upsets in College Football History

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...

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.

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.

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.