I agree with my friend Stewart Mandel of SI.com, who wrote this week that maybe we should stop using the word “upset” so much in college football.
Look, there are big upsets like Appalachian State over Michigan, but USF over West Virginia and Auburn over Florida are just part of the landscape that we have come to expect.
Just because oddsmakers ” whose jobs are not to pick who will win but where the most money will be bet ” designate one team a favorite doesn’t mean it’s an upset.
It always cracks me up when you hear about an upset in the NFL. There are no upsets in the NFL. Every team has the same number of players, same salary cap, same opportunities. Everybody talks about the parity of the league, so how can there be upsets?
There are very few upsets in college football, either. What there are surprises, mild surprises and really big surprises.
If Florida beats LSU Saturday night, is that really an upset? And do we have to take what happened one week and apply it to the next? In other words, if Florida beats Auburn 20-17, are we going to call it an upset the next week if UF hands LSU a loss?
Let’s just sit back and enjoy the unpredictability of the game. No upsets required.
