SMQ: Where did Week 7 rank among most upset filled weekends of all time?

Final Takeaways

Ultimately, our desire to render what we have just witnessed as some quirk of history is really just a recurring phenomenon. Further, though, it is a phenomenon that will continue to sneak up on fans for as long as we continue to watch the sport. The BCS era saw an increased frequency of four or more top-10 teams sustaining losses on the same weekend, and that frequency is unlikely to reduce any time soon.

It will not matter, though. We will always have the tendency to declare the most recent instance of this level of chaos to be a historical level. But there have been even crazier weekends in the past, and we are sure to see even more chaotic weekends in the future. It may take another half-century or more, though, before we see another weekend like the shuffle that occurred in 1956.

A loss is a loss, but they become especially painful when they drop a top-10 team down the polls as though an anchor has been attached to a team. We have an innate desire to explain the losses away as something unique. This is a natural, if inaccurate, impulse that is perfectly human and in line with the vagaries of being a fanatic.

Next: Projected Week 8 College Football AP Poll

We would do well to remember, though, that the pain of defeat and the elation of an upset both subside within the span of a week. More chaos is sure to ensue this year. And, while we are unlikely to see another weekend in 2017 where four top-10 teams all fall to unranked opponents, it would not be entirely out of the realm of possibility for it to happen again.