Stanford or App. State? Which upset is bigger?

Stanford over USC is a huge upset. Most conferences have a similar upset once a season. Maybe not quite that magnitude, but close...

It's not even in the same class as App. State over Michigan...

 

App. St. is still the bigger upset just because the symbolic significance of a I-AA team winning in the big house is so much more meaningful that a Pac 10 team beating another Pac 10 team.

However, the fact that Stanford was a 41-POINT underdog in Vegas, and that it occurred in the Coliseum, does make you consider it. When was the last time a dog given that many points has won?

 

I just go by what Cowherd tells me, and he says USC is the best since cream cheese and Michigan sucks because it's colder there more often.

 

Jim Harbaugh HAS to be celebrating. I hope he has a designated driver.

 

I would probably go with the Appy State win, but the idea that the Stanford win was just another upset is wrong. It's one of the two or three biggest upsets in college football history. The 40-point spread, the QB making his first start, the head coach in his first season in D-I, the fact that USC was widely considered to be the most talented team in the country all help to make this more than just one Pac-10 team upsetting another. Put it this way, if Appy State and Stanford had played each other on Saturday, Appy would have been favored. Putting the Stanford win in the same category as the Appalachian St. win isn't just TV hyperbole.

 

History matters not a whit. I don't care if Stanford has beaten USC before; hell, there's been years where they were the decisive favorites. I don't care if Michigan has the winningest team ever, because Bo Schembechler wasn't bringing out Tom Brady, Braylon Edwards, Charles Woodson, Dan Dierdorf and Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch that week.

I-AA beating I-A is a nice historical touch, and certainly nobody denies the signifigance of App's win, but again, most of us were expecting a close game at least early against Michigan. Nobody had any expectations of Stanford getting without a country mile of USC. Southern Cal losing at some point wasn't that shocking. That it happened to a bad Stanford team with a new starting quarterback, that certainly was.

 

Tough call.

Appy is I-AA. But Appy would probably win a seven-game series against Stanford.

But Appy is a I-AA team that won AT MICHIGAN.

It's Appy.

 

It's Stanford. Forget divisions. The talent gap between Stanford and USC is wider than between Appy State and Michigan. They were 40 point underdogs for goodness sakes. The books that did put a line on Michigan-Appy was around 25-28, correct?

 

App State, and it's not close. In fact, it's stupid to even consider the alternative.

 

If it were Arizona State over USC, or Washington State over USC, I would agree. But it's Stanford, which we probably would have said would lose to App State in a heartbeat up until last night.

 

Stanford's been so bad recently that they lost at home to Div 1-AA UC-Davis is 2005 and San Jose State in 2006.

 

What he said. Montana or any other top AA team could definitely do more than hang with a Stanford. BC is a top 5 team now playing at home against UMass and I think they had a 3 point lead at one point of the second half of that game.

And I also still agree that App. State is the bigger upset. You have to take into consideration that it was Michigan, in the Big House, and now considering how they've turned things around it's not like it was really Michigan in a down year.