No. 6 Auburn’s 27-20 overtime win over Jacksonville State will go down as just another win, but the Tigers were just a few plays away from what might’ve been the single biggest upset in college football history.
Auburn narrowly avoided maybe the biggest upset in college football history
No, seriously. Look at the point spreads.
The Tigers were picked to win the SEC title by conference media before the season started. Even if you remove the FCS-FBS aspect of this game, if Auburn had lost as somewhere between 39.5 to 41-point favorites, it would’ve been right there as the biggest upset ever, at least according to Vegas, around the same stratosphere as USC’s loss to Stanford in 2007 as 40-point favorites.
Auburn was a 41 point favorite today. That's about 10 points greater than Michigan/Appalachian State.
— Jeff (BPredict) (@BPredict) September 12, 2015 Since Division I split in 1978, only four ranked teams have lost to FCS opponents. In relative order of shockingness, they are:
1. Appalachian State 34 - No. 5 Michigan 32 (2007)
2. James Madison 21 - No. 13 Virginia Tech 16 (2010)
3. Cincinnati 14 - No. 20 Penn State 3 (1983)
4. Eastern Washington 49 - No. 25 Oregon State 46 (2013)
The only game that would’ve been even remotely close to Jacksonville State-Auburn is Appalachian State-Michigan, and that App State team was a two-time defending champion.
It’s really hard to overstate just how huge of an upset this would’ve been. People were talking about Auburn as a national title contender this offseason and putting them into projected Playoff final fours. Jacksonville State is hardly chopped liver, but being preseason favorite to win the Ohio Valley Conference is a little different than being favored to win the SEC.
But alas, the team that was supposed to win, did so.
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