We all have our favorites. Tastes vary. Maybe you’re a ULM-Alabama 2007 person. Maybe last year’s Northern Illinois-Notre Dame game hit your taste buds just right. Maybe you’re a hipster who prefers the forgotten classics, such as 2017 Troy-LSU, or 2005 TCU-Oklahoma, or 2022 App State-Texas A&M.
Each season gives us about 110 games between mid-major teams and power-conference foes, and although not all of them are classics (or even upsets), the mid-majors tend to win about 20 or so of them each year. Three weeks into 2025, we’ve seen nine victories for teams in the Group of 5 conferences. (Granted, two were against UCLA, but they still technically count.)
Week 4 gives us another tantalizing batch of potential upsets. The Memphis Tigers (+6.5 vs. Arkansas Razorbacks) and the East Carolina Pirates (+6.5 vs. BYU Cougars) are one-score underdogs against visiting power-conference foes; the Tulsa Golden Hurricane (+12.5 at Oklahoma State Cowboys) could get someone fired; the Tulane Green Wave (+12.5 at Ole Miss Rebels) could burnish an increasingly strong CFP résumé; the Wyoming Cowboys (+12.5 at Colorado Buffaloes) could send Deion Sanders’ program into hopelessness; and the San Diego State Aztecs (+12.5 vs. Cal Golden Bears at home) could derail a promising start for Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele & Co.
Looking for something even more ambitious/unlikely? A Pac-12 rivalry upset (the Washington State Cougars +20.5 vs. the Washington Huskies, Oregon State Beavers +34.5 at Oregon Ducks), perhaps? A second straight year with an upset from the Northern Illinois Huskies (+21.5 at Mississippi State Bulldogs) or the Georgia State Panthers (+26.5 at Vanderbilt Commodores)? The Bowling Green Falcons (+26.5 at Louisville Cardinals) came close to a couple of huge ones last year — might it be their turn again? Or might we see something of the once-in-a-lifetime variety (UAB Blazers +38.5 at Tennessee Volunteers, Sam Houston Bearkats +41.5 at Texas Longhorns, Kent State Golden Flashes +42.5 at Florida State Seminoles)?
Every upset follows its own script, but a dive into the box scores of some of the bigger recent mid-major upsets quickly reveals some commonalities. Looking specifically at big upsets — the 22 games since 2005 in which a mid-major underdog of at least 21 points beat a power-conference foe — here are some lessons we can learn. Want to pull one over on the big guys? You’d be well-served to remember the following.
Field goals won’t hurt you much
The first lesson you need to internalize is that you don’t have to win all 100 yards on the field. If you win the 20 at each end, the 60 in between don’t matter as much. In these 22 upsets, the power-conference team tended to run the ball more efficiently.
Rushing success rate*: Favorite 49.7%, Underdog 37.9% (+11.8%)
Stuff rate allowed (higher = worse): Favorite 18.1%, Underdog 23.9% (+5.8%)
(Success rate: How frequently an offense is gaining 50% of necessary yardage on first down, 70% on second or 100% on third or fourth. Essentially an on-base percentage for football.)
This contributed to an overall efficiency advantage for the power-conference team.
Success rate: Favorite 44.8%, Underdog 40.8% (+3.6%)
However, the losing team tended to have to settle for field goals in the red zone, whereas the mid-major winner better turned opportunities into seven points.
Red zone touchdown rate: Underdog 69.5%, Favorite 53.7% (+15.8%)
Goal-to-go touchdown rate: Underdog 85.1%, Favorite 66.7% (+18.4%)
If you are scoring touchdowns while your opponent is kicking field goals, you can allow twice as many good scoring chances and still come out on top. Just ask UL Monroe. In the Warhawks’ classic 21-14 win over Nick Saban’s first Alabama team in 2007, Bama made five red zone trips to ULM’s three, but ULM scored three touchdowns and Alabama went scoreless on three of five trips. The Warhawks blocked a 36-yard field goal attempt in the third quarter, forced a Jimmy Johns fumble at their 13 midway through the fourth, then stuffed Terry Grant on fourth-and-2 from the 18 late.
Bama gained 409 yards to ULM’s 282 with a massive success rate advantage (53.0% to 36.8%), but ULM handily won the red zone.
Another example: In the Texas State Bobcats‘ 42-31 win over the Baylor Bears in 2023, the Bobcats went 3-for-3 turning red zone trips into touchdowns while the host Bears went just 2-for-5.
Get off the field when you can
Just as you don’t have to win every yard to pull an upset, you also don’t have to win every down. The favorites win first and second down, but the winning underdogs own third down. (We’ll get to fourth downs below.)
First-down success rate: Favorite 46.6%, Underdog 38.6% (+7.8%)
Second-down success rate: Favorite 47.9%, Underdog 40.9% (+7.0%)
Third-down success rate: Underdog 41.1%, Favorite 35.6% (+5.5%)
Breaking out third downs by distance tells us a pretty clear story, too: It might be difficult for the underdog to win in short-yardage situations, but if you can get your defense off the field on longer third downs, you are primed for an upset.
Third-and-short success rate (1-2 yards to go): Favorite 65.2%, Underdog 53.5% (+11.7%)
Third-and-medium success rate (3-6 yards to go): Underdog 50.5%, Favorite 30.5% (+20.0%)
Third-and-long success rate (7+ yards to go): Underdog 29.9%, Favorite 23.0% (+6.9%)
Three-and-out rate (lower = better): Underdog 27.9%, Favorite 30.9% (+3.0%)
When the Florida International Panthers shocked the Miami Hurricanes in 2019, the Hurricanes had a massive success rate advantage (49.3% to 33.9%), but they went a combined 0-for-5 on third-and-medium and third-and-long, while the Panthers went 6-for-13, scored 10 points after those third-down conversions and won by six, 30-24.
Way back in 2008, when the UNLV Rebels upset the No. 15 Arizona State Sun Devils in Sun Devil Stadium, the Rebels were at a disadvantage in success rate (50.8% to 45.2%) and at a massive disadvantage in terms of overall yards per play (6.3 to 4.7). But they went 5-for-11 on third-and-3 or more, while the Sun Devils went 0-for-6. Those conversions led to six points in a three-point win, but more importantly, the Rebels’ third-down defense kept ASU scoreless for the game’s final 25 minutes.
More examples: In 2016, the South Alabama Jaguars went 5-for-10 on third-and-3 or more, while the Mississippi State Bulldogs went 1-for-8. Joey Jones’ Jaguars won 21-20. In 2023, the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets averaged 7.2 yards per play to Bowling Green’s 5.6, but BGSU went 7-for-13 on third-and-3 or more, whereas Tech went 0-for-5. Final score: Falcons 38, Yellow Jackets 27.
A couple of big plays wouldn’t hurt
One of my favorite recent upsets came in 2022 when Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders head coach Rick Stockstill basically said, “Screw it, we’re going to beat them deep.” In a 45-31 win over Miami, the Blue Raiders completed passes of 98, 89, 71 and 69 yards — one in each quarter for symmetrical satisfaction — and needed only 61 snaps to gain 507 yards. They bolted to a 24-3 lead and never let Miami get closer than 14 points. “It was a butt-kicking from the very beginning,” Stockstill said. He was right.
You don’t have to do that to pull an upset. But big plays create easy points, and making more of them than your opponent — because of either what you’re doing or what they aren’t doing — sure helps a lot.
Yards per successful play: Underdog 12.8, Favorite 11.7 (+1.1)
Percent of plays gaining 20+ yards: Underdog 6.6%, Favorite 5.6% (+1.0%)
Percent of completions gaining 20+ yards: Underdog 17.8%, Favorite 13.9% (+3.9%)
Despite often suffering major efficiency disadvantages, victorious underdogs often average more yards per play than their opponents thanks to big plays.
Yards per play: Underdog 5.64, Favorite 5.55
And since most big teams make a majority of their big plays in the passing game, this big-play success contributes to something pretty important: Successful underdogs tend to end up with better passing lines than their opponents.
Completion rate: Underdog 61.1%, Favorite 57.3% (+3.8%)
Passing success rate: Underdog 43.9%, Favorite 41.5% (+2.4%)
Sack rate allowed (lower = better): Underdog 3.8%, Favorite 6.0% (+2.2%)
Yards per dropback: Underdog 7.1, Favorite 6.1 (+1.0)
MTSU-Miami was a particularly big-play-driven upset, but there are plenty of other examples. Think back to last year’s Northern Illinois-Notre Dame game. NIU’s Ethan Hampton completed first-quarter passes of 83 and 43 yards to running back Antario Brown; the former scored a touchdown, the latter set up a field goal, and the Huskies pulled a 16-14 upset despite averaging just 4.2 yards per play in all other snaps. A couple of big plays and excellent big-play prevention did just enough.
In 2018, the Northwestern Wildcats produced a 42.6% success rate to the Akron Zips‘ 31.3%, which typically leads to domination. Akron’s Kato Nelson completed just 17 of 38 passes (44.7%), while Northwestern’s Clayton Thorson was 33-for-52 (63.5%). But Nelson completed passes of 56, 43, 40, 25 and 24 yards; those completions either created or led to 27 points.
Overall percentage of plays gaining 20-plus yards: Akron 9.4%, Northwestern 4.3%. Points: Akron 39, Northwestern 34.
Fourth downs are your downs
I mentioned at the top that we all have our favorite mid-major upsets. Mine comes from Little Rock, where, in 2012, Todd Berry’s UL Monroe Warhawks pulled off one of the most brazen heists you’ll ever see against the Arkansas Razorbacks. Knowing they wouldn’t be able to run the ball, the Warhawks barely ran: Quarterback Kolton Browning instead attempted 70 passes. And knowing they’d need extra chances to move the chains, they went for it on half their fourth downs, eventually converting six of them and turning those conversions into 34 points. The plan didn’t work at first — Arkansas took a 28-7 lead early in the third quarter — but the Warhawks began dominating the ball and wearing the Hogs’ defense out.
A fourth-and-10 scramble by Browning led to a touchdown that made it 28-14. A fourth-and-11 completion set up a fourth-and-goal score that made it 28-21. And after Berry grew conservative for a moment, punting twice in a row on fourth-and-1, the Warhawks uncorked some more magic: Browning’s 23-yard touchdown pass to Brent Leonard on fourth-and-10 sent the game to overtime, where, down a field goal after Arkansas’ possession, ULM went for it on fourth-and-1 and Browning scrambled for a 16-yard score.
You might not have to attempt seven fourth-down conversions to pull an upset, though recent trends toward fourth-down optimization have made this a more common strategy than it used to be. In fact, favorites end up going for it 31.4% of the time to underdogs’ 24.0% (in part because, in these games, the favorites are frequently trailing). No matter who’s going for it, however, a successful underdog dominates fourth downs.
Fourth-down success rate: Underdog 72.1%, Favorite 40.7% (+31.4%)
Maybe this means going 4-for-4, as Texas State did against Baylor in 2023. Maybe it means holding your opponent to 1-for-3, as Toledo did to Arkansas in 2015. Regardless, fourth downs are where potential upset bids turn into upsets.
Get lucky
Of course, why worry about forcing a turnover on downs if you can just force an old-fashioned turnover instead?
Winning underdogs enjoyed a turnover margin of about plus-1.14 per game. Sixteen of the 22 winners in this sample had a positive turnover margin, and only two — BYU against the No. 3 Oklahoma Sooners in 2009, Georgia Southern against the Nebraska Cornhuskers in 2022 — were in the negative.
This makes sense, of course; anyone who has watched a single football game understands the impact of a turnover, and if you’re far worse than your opponent on paper, you want to be stealing extra points and not giving them away. But a coach saying, “Go out there and win the turnover battle!” isn’t very useful; sometimes you need a little good fortune.
I talk a lot about turnover luck each year — it’s finicky, unreliable and almost vital to success. On average, 50% of fumbles are lost, and about 21% of passes defended (INTs plus pass breakups) become interceptions. Knowing this, we can create an expected turnover margin for virtually any game, and it won’t surprise you to learn that victorious underdogs tend to have the luck of the bounce on their side.
Expected turnovers per game: Underdog 1.21, Favorite 1.51 (+0.30)
Actual turnovers per game: Underdog 0.95, Favorite 2.09 (+1.14)
Turnover luck per game: Underdog +0.84 per game
For all of ULM’s red zone success against Alabama in 2007, the Warhawks also turned a plus-1.4 expected turnover margin to plus-4 in actual turnovers. Bowling Green had spectacular success on third downs in its 2023 upset of Georgia Tech, but the Falcons also turned a plus-0.7 expected turnover advantage into plus-3. Northern Illinois over Notre Dame in 2024 (0.0 expected, plus-2 actual), FIU over Miami in 2019 (plus-1.1 expected, plus-3 actual), BYU over No. 6 Wisconsin in 2018 (minus-1.0 expected, plus-1 actual) … the examples are legion. Successful underdogs not only force mistakes and create turnover chances, but they also get a few lucky bounces along the way.
So the script is basically, “Win third downs, dominate in the red zone, dominate on fourth downs, make more big plays and get some bounces.” Piece of cake, right? You could say there’s a reason this sample of 22 mid-major mega-underdog wins since 2005 also includes 876 losses. (You could also say that doing these things will pretty much win any game, not just games in which you’re a major underdog.)
Still, there can be power in understanding that you don’t have to win everything — you don’t have to dominate every series, you don’t have to win every play — to eventually win a seemingly unwinnable game. And on Sunday morning, when we’re reflecting on Sam Houston’s incredible, life-altering upset of Texas, I’m betting the Bearkats will have followed this script pretty closely.
