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McMurphy's Law: When It Comes to Upsets, Florida Is the King


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o Brett McMurphy
o Senior NCAA Writer



05:22:00PM (ET) Saturday,October 23,2010.

When seven ranked teams were upset last weekend, the predictable catchphrase splashed across the country: Upset Saturday.

With scholarship limitations and better overall coaching (except in selected outposts such as Minnesota and New Mexico), upsets have become the norm instead of the exception throughout college football. Last weekend was a prime example with seven ranked teams getting upset compared with only 15 ranked teams in the first six weeks combined.

Twenty-one games involved ranked teams. Of those, six ranked teams – No. 5 Nebraska, No. 10 South Carolina, No. 19 Nevada, No. 22 Florida, No. 23 Air Force and No. 24 Oregon State – lost to unranked teams while No. 1 Ohio State lost to a lower-ranked team, No. 18 Wisconsin.

Since 2005 in games played with a ranked automatic qualifying BCS team, the lower-ranked or unranked team has pulled off the upset in 28.3 percent of the games. So basically every weekend, on average, nearly three out of 10 higher-ranked BCS teams are upset.

College football's best team, at least percentage-wise, at pulling off an upset? How about Florida?

The BCS national champions in 2006 and 2008 also are college football's upset kings, at least in the past five seasons with the nation's best winning percentage (63.6) when playing higher-ranked opponents.

The Gators have played a higher ranked team 11 times since 2005, winning seven. Entering this season, Florida had won a remarkable seven of nine games against higher-ranked opponents until losing this year to No. 1 Alabama and No. 12 LSU.

Florida is one of only three teams nationally winning at least 60 percent of their games against higher-ranked teams. The other two are West Virginia (62.5 percent) and Oregon (60 percent).

Overall, of the 66 automatic qualifying BCS teams, only seven have a winning record when playing a higher-ranked opponent since 2005. Following Florida, West Virginia and Oregon are three ACC teams – Virginia Tech (58.3 percent), N.C. State (57.1 percent) and Boston College (54.5 percent) – and then Georgia at 53.8 percent.

Not every school, though, has been that successful in an underdog role. In fact, 28 schools have a winning percentage at 25 percent or below when playing higher-ranked opponents.

Of those 28 schools, three are winless since 2005 when facing higher-ranked teams: Baylor (0-20), Duke (0-14) and Arizona State (0-12). Not surprisingly, Baylor and Duke each both have not been to a bowl game since 1994.

Arizona State's futility against higher-ranked teams is somewhat surprising since the Sun Devils have been to four bowl games in the past six years.

As a conference, the ACC's teams are the most likely to upset a higher-ranked team. Since 2005, ACC teams have won 36.3 percent of its games against higher-ranked opponents, while Big 12 teams are the least likely to pull off the upset, winning only 19.5 percent of its games against higher-ranked foes.

One reason might be because there isn't such a large gap between the ACC's top teams and cellar dwellers, while the Big 12, at least in the past five seasons, has largely been Oklahoma and Texas and the 10 dwarfs.
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* There was more to this story but it was getting too deep for a regular shovel. *

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