Ranking the College Football Upsets Over the Weekend by Shock Value
Ranking Week 6 College Football Upsets
8. Utah State Aggies Beat No. 18 BYU Cougars 35-20
This was a Friday night Utah stunner that featured two in-state teams, one of whom was a Top 25 independent and another who had been a disappointment so far after such high expectations as a mid-major to start the season. The disappointing team won.
Utah State finally had a game where it lived up to its preseason hype, but shockingly enough, the reason for its preseason hype had nothing to do with the win. Chuckie Keeton was everybody’s sexy mid-major superstar at quarterback, and he went down with another injury. But on this night, Darrell Garretson filled in for Keeton, and on the road he went 19 of 25 for 321 Yards and 3 touchdowns with another rushing touchdown to secure a victory for the Aggies.
Beating a Top 25 team on the road as a mid-major with a back-up quarterback would seem like enough to be a much more shocking upset than where we are placing it. But BYU’s star quarterback, Taysom Hill, also went down in this game, and the pathetic play of backup Christian Stewart is enough to not be too impressed by Utah State. Also, it’s BYU! Yes, they looked great against Texas and beat a very good Virginia team. But who honestly takes this team seriously as a Top 25 team? It was hard to do that from the start, much less when their star quarterback goes down.
The Aggies still deserve lots of credit for pulling off this upset given everything they’ve been through so far this year. But because of the team they played, it’s not as shocking of an upset as some of the other on this list.