College football 2019: Ranking the 5 best upsets from Week 8
By John Scimeca
Chaos reaches college football’s 2019 season as a number of surprising upsets take place against some heavy favorites, starting with No. 6-ranked Wisconsin.
Another week in college football, another top 10 team falls to an unranked opponent. For Wisconsin, it was the second consecutive year to suffer the same indignity.
Last season, the Badgers were ranked No. 6 early in the season and dropped a Week 3 game to unranked BYU, 24-21. The loss started a major slide for the Badgers, who became one of 2018’s most underwhelming teams by stumbling to an 8-5 record (including losses to Northwestern and Minnesota).
Wisconsin fans hope that a similar decline isn’t on the way this time around, especially as a monster matchup against No. 3 Ohio State awaits for next weekend.
Week 8 saw plenty of dramatic action through the country, only a part of which involved the upsets mentioned here.
The Big 12’s bottom-dweller, Les Miles’ Kansas, almost came up with enough tricks to defeat Texas on the road. The Jayhawks made a two-point conversion to go up 48-47 with 1:11 left before the Longhorns converted a late field goal to win, 50-48.
In the evening’s prime time spot, the Penn State white-out nearly blanked the Wolverines (leading 21-0 in the second quarter) before Jim Harbaugh’s squad showed some life through a newfound rushing offense and the playmaking of Donovan Peoples-Jones. Michigan, in the end, fell by a score of 28-21, but not before making things interesting in Happy Valley.
Even South Carolina had people thinking that it could pull off another major upset for the second week in a row. The No. 9-ranked Florida Gators, though, outlasted the Gamecocks with a 38-27 victory.
And all of this is without even mentioning the six-overtime classic between Virginia Tech and North Carolina, which the Hokies won after the first implementation of the NCAA’s new two-point conversion overtime format.
Here are the best upsets of Week 8 in college football.