Anatomy of a Group of 5 upset of a power-conference team

We each person our favorites. Tastes vary. Maybe you're a ULM-Alabama 2007 person. Maybe past year's Northern Illinois-Notre Dame crippled deed your sensation buds conscionable right. Maybe you're a hipster who prefers the forgotten classics, specified arsenic 2017 Troy-LSU, oregon 2005 TCU-Oklahoma, oregon 2022 App State-Texas A&M.

Each play gives america astir 110 games betwixt mid-major teams and power-conference foes, and though not each of them are classics (or adjacent upsets), the mid-majors thin to triumph astir 20 oregon truthful of them each year. Three weeks into 2025, we've seen 9 victories for teams successful the Group of 5 conferences. (Granted, 2 were against UCLA, but they inactive technically count.)

Week 4 gives america different tantalizing batch of imaginable upsets. The Memphis Tigers (+6.5 vs. Arkansas Razorbacks) and the East Carolina Pirates (+6.5 vs. BYU Cougars) are one-score underdogs against visiting power-conference foes; the Tulsa Golden Hurricane (+12.5 astatine Oklahoma State Cowboys) could get idiosyncratic fired; the Tulane Green Wave (+12.5 astatine Ole Miss Rebels) could burnish an progressively beardown CFP résumé; the Wyoming Cowboys (+12.5 astatine Colorado Buffaloes) could nonstop Deion Sanders' programme into hopelessness; and the San Diego State Aztecs (+12.5 vs. Cal Golden Bears astatine home) could derail a promising commencement for Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele & Co.

Looking for thing adjacent much ambitious/unlikely? A Pac-12 rivalry upset (the Washington State Cougars +20.5 vs. the Washington Huskies, Oregon State Beavers +34.5 astatine Oregon Ducks), perhaps? A 2nd consecutive twelvemonth with...