The 13 Biggest Week 1 Upsets In College Football History

Week 1 of the College Football season is among the most exciting times in sports here in America. It is replete with endless possibilities with fans and players alike dreaming of the playoffs and a national championship, with a place in the annals of college football history.

But for some teams Week 1 is all about upsets. The underdogs who get paid to travel to bigger, more prestigious programs with the understanding that everyone expects they’ll lose, they are playing for the Week 1 upset and the headlines that come along with it.

13 Biggest Week 1 Upsets In College Football History

Here we take a look at the 13 biggest Week 1 upsets in College Football history. Interestingly, most of these monumental upsets have come in the past 15 or so years but there are a few further back that made the list.

We round out the list with an honorable mention, arguably the college football biggest upset of the last century, but the next 13 items on this list are the biggest season opener and/or Week 1 upsets in College Football history.

Applachian State Beats No. 5 Michigan

On September 1st, 2007, the Appalachian State Mountaineers made history when they became the first-ever FCS team to beat a ranked FBS team. That alone would be enough to land that Week 1 upset in the top 3 of this list but it was against the No.5 ranked Michigan Wolverines and the game was AT the Big House, the largest stadium in all of college football.

For App State to upset the wolverines in front of an announced attendance of 109,218 seems almost like a dream…

The Wolverines outgained App State by nearly a hundred yards, 479 to 387, and only had 2 turnovers to App State’s 3, but the Mountaineers dropped 21 points on Michigan in the 2nd quarter and the Wolverines had no answer for it. It all came down to a blocked field goal as time expired in the final play of the game, a play that will haunt Michigan for generations to come.

No. 1 Nebraska Falls To UCLA

In Week 1 of the 1972 College Football season, Nebraska was THE TEAM to beat. The Cornhuskers came into the ’72 season as back-to-back National Champions and riding a 32-game unbeaten streak.

Ranked #1 and haven’t lost in over two seasons, the Nebraska Cornhuskers hosted UCLA to start the season and the Bruins shocked the nation when they won 20-17. They sealed their victory after UCLA’s Mexican-American kicker Efrén Herrera drilled a 29-yard field goal on their final drive to take the lead. Herrera would later go to the NFL and play for the Cowboys, Bills, and Seahawks.

Coming into this game, UCLA was an 18-point underdog to Nebraska. After the game, UCLA went from unranked to 8th in the AP poll while Nebraska fell to #10. Nebraska would rebound in the season, going on to finish 9-2-1 and 5-1-1 in the Big Eight, eventually beating No. 12 Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl in a 40-6 blowout.

Jacksonville State Beats Ole Miss

On paper, the Ole Miss Rebels were winless in 2010 after vacating 4 wins. So their official record is 0-8 including 0-7 in the SEC with that additional loss coming in Week 1 to FCS opponent Jacksonville State.

This game had all the fireworks of a Week 1 barn burner. It went to double overtime after Jacksonville State tied up in the 4th with a 2-point conversion, which proved to be fortuitous.

Then, in the second overtime period after Ole Miss had scored a touchdown, Jacksonville St. shocked everyone and went for a 2-point conversion, which they got, to beat the Rebels 49-48. That ultimately set the tone for the Ole Miss season ahead while Jacksonville State’s Gamecocks went on to a 9-3 record.

Ohio Wesleyan Defeats Michigan At The Big House

It is possible that Michigan’s loss to App State wasn’t the biggest Week 1 upset in the program’s history. That is because in 1928, the Wolverines lost to Ohio Wesleyan 17-7 in a game that shocked the entire college football world.

The year prior, the two teams faced off and Michigan won easily, 33-0. But then came the revenge game. This was a laughable football program, one that Michigan could have and should have beaten by 50, but legend has it that minutes into the game one player came off the field and told head coach George Gauthier “they’re not too tough, coach. We can take them” and the rest was history.

This is considered one of the biggest upsets in CFB history, it was also the last time Michigan would ever play Ohio Wesleyan. That week, the New York Times cover read ‘72,000 AT MICHIGAN SEE YOST’S MEN BOW.’ That article began by saying “For the first time in the more than a quarter century tutelage of Fielding H. Yost, its athletic director, the University of Michigan lost its opening game of the gridiron season.” It was a PRETTY big deal at the time!

Duke Blows Out No. 9 Clemson

The No. 9 ranked Clemson Tigers came into the 2023 season having finished a perfect 8-0 in ACC play the year prior with a 10-3 season and a win in the Cheez-It bowl. Dabo Swinney’s squad was hoping to get off to a hot start but his hopes were dashed when the Duke Blue Devils laid 22 points on the Tigers in the second half.

Clemson, then-ranked No. 9 in the nation, went into the half with a 7-6 lead but went scoreless in the second half. It was all Duke with 3 TDs including a 2pt conversion in the 4th quarter.

Clemson had more total yards, 1st downs, and led in time of possession but simply could not figure out a way to beat the Duke Blue Devils at Wallace Wade Stadium in Durham, North Carolina. Duke wold finish 8-5 on the season, 4-4 in the ACC but 6-1 at home. While Clemson would win just 1 more game than Duke, going 9-4, but they rattled off a 5-game win streak to finish the season in hopes people would forget their Week 1 blowout loss.

Biggest Week 1 Upsets: Liberty Defeats Baylor In Waco

In Matt Rhule’s head coaching debut for the Baylor Bears, Liberty upset Baylor in Waco after a 48-45 shootout to kick the 2017 season off. Liberty, currently an FBS team, was still an FCS program at that time. They didn’t even transition to FBS until a year later.

It was all Liberty Flames in the relatively uneventful first quarter, where they picked up a 6-0 lead on two field goals. The Baylor Bears got it together-ish before the half, putting up 17 points in the second quarter to tie Liberty going into halftime.

Liberty matched those 17 in the 3rd while Baylor put up 14 and they each put up 2 more TDs in the 4th. There was a moment when the Baylor Bears nearly won it on a Hail Mary but it was intercepted by Liberty to seal the monumental upset. The FCS Liberty Flames piled on 585 yards of offense on Matt Rhule’s Baylor Bears in a game that NOBODY saw coming.

ESPN’s FPI only gave Liberty a 2.2% chance of beating Baylor in that game which made it the second-biggest upset in a decade.

Montana Grizzlies Stun No. 20 Washington Huskies

On September 4, 2021, the Washington Huskies suffered what is arguably their most embarrassing home loss in program history. Was it head coach Jimmy Lake’s fault? Who can say. The Huskies were accustomed to 10+ win seasons under former coach Chris Petersen but Jimmy Lake put together 3-1 (covid year) and 4-8 seasons before being shown the door for Kalen DeBoer who got the Huskies back to and 11-2 season the next year… But man, this loss was bad!

The No. 20 ranked Washington Huskies opened up the scoring with a 1st quarter touchdown and that is where their scoring ended. After jumping out to a 7-0 lead, they wouldn’t score another point the entire time while the Montana Grizzlies chipped away, FG -> TD -> FG, to upset the Huskies in Washington.

This loss was so bad for Washginton that some on Reddit even questioned if this was the ‘worst loss for a respectable program EVER.’ The answer is, of course, no. There are much worse (see: App State upset above) but it is bad.

Georgia Tech Upsets Florida State In Dublin

Georgia Tech wasn’t the world’s biggest underdog coming into this game (+360) but the hype surrounding my Florida State Seminoles (I’m an FSU alum) was reaching a fever pitch. So many Seminoles fans had drank the Mike Norvell Kool-Aid going into last season and we thought the sky was the limit. I have some embarrassing text messages somewhere claiming we had an NFL-caliber D-line… Woof.

All things considered, this 24-21 upset for FSU was closer than many of the Seminoles’ other losses in 2024. But it was the heartbreaking upset that broke FSU’s spirit, and its locker room. It wasn’t very long after the loss to GT in Dublin that everyone in the FSU world were wondering if the team could win a single game that season. Hopefully things will be better this year!

Biggest Week 1 Upsets: Maryland Terps Upset Texas Longhorns

This was a classic game of people saying ‘Texas is back’ only for kickoff to happen and reality to come crashing back. It was Week 1 of the 2017 season and the Texas Longhorns hosted the Maryland Terrapins. Texas was ranked No. 20 at the time, but not for long.

The last time Maryland had a 10-win season was 2003 when they had strung together three 10 or more win seasons from 2001-03 under then head coach Ralph Friedgen. Before that, their last 10 win season was in 1976.

Maryland is a football program that lives for an upset game. That’s just reality. It is all they have because they are never national championship contenders. So the 51-41 Week 1 upset in 2017 against Tom Herman’s Longhorns was enough for the Terps to dine out on for decades.

In that game, Texas scored the first touchdown and it was the only time they would sniff the lead. Maryland responded with 20 unanswered points and went on to crush Texas 51-41 in Austin.

Eastern Washington Eagles Upset Oregon State Beavers

On August 31, 2013 in Week 1 of the CFB season the Eastern Washington Eagles apparently didn’t get the memo that they were supposed to get crushed by the No. 25 ranked Oregon State Beavers.

Oregon State didn’t surrender the lead until the start of the second quarter but it was all downhill from there, with the Beavers chasing to keep up in a 49-46 loss that shocked the nation. This was Eastern Washington’s first-ever win over a Pac-12 team in 10 tries.

Near the end of the game, Oregon State kicker Trevor Romaine had a chance to tie it up and become an on-campus legend but his 52-yard FG attempt, a huge kick for a college kicker, went wide right as the clock ran to zero. This marked the second time in three seasons that Oregon State had lost to an FCS opponent.

Northern Illinois Shocks Georgia Tech

In Week 1 of the 2021 season, the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets were stunned when the Northern Illinois Huskies pulled off an upset in Atlanta. With only 30-seconds left in the game, Northern Illinois head coach Thomas Hammock went for it all.

He had zero interest in tying and taking the game to overtime, he wanted to win right there on the spot. So he called a 2-point play with seconds on the clock to take a 1-point lead and the Huskies held Georgia Tech off in the final seconds of the game to pull off the biggest Week 1 upset of that season.

Howard Makes History Against UNLV

There must’ve been something in the water during Week 1 of the 2017 season… Matt Rhule’s Baylor Bears falling to Liberty, Maryland defeating Texas, and Howard shocking UNLV 43-40 in what was at the time the biggest upset against the spread in college football history!

Going into this game, the Howard Football Team were 45 POINT UNDERDOGS. 45 points! They shocked the nation, beating UNLV 43-40 and this came after Howard gave up the lead in the 3rd quarter, going down 21-33, but battling back to win with a 4yd TD run.

Just two years prior, in 2015, Howard lost to Boston College 76-0. That is one of the sickest college football scores I’ve ever seen. Less than two years later they pulled off the biggest upset against the spread, Week 1 or anytime, in college football history.

Biggest Week 1 Upsets: South Alabama Shocks Mississippi State

The South Alabama Jaguars pulled off the program’s biggest ever upset in Week 1 of the 2016 season against SEC juggernaut Mississippi State who assumed they would have an easy win to start the season, but you know what they say about ‘assume,’ right?

On the road in Starkville, Mississippi, in a game they were being paid handsomely to appear in, South Alabama beat Mississippi State 21-20 after the Bulldogs missed a 28-yard field goal in the final seconds of the game to turn the ball over and lose.

Honorable Mention: Centre College Defeats Harvard (1921)

I wanted to throw this one in even though it wasn’t a Week 1 upset. Centre College defeating Harvard 6-0 back in 1921, which is often considered to be the biggest upset in college football history. It is hard to compare the game back then to now but essentially, Harvard, an absolute juggernaut, lost to the smallest school it had ever played.

In 1950, this game was called the ‘Upset of the Century’ by the Associated Press.

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