When Is A Surprise Not A Surprise?
In its apparent effort to corner the market on morons writing about sports, ESPN.com brings you Thomas Neumann, who felt compelled to provide a sidebar to his analysis of the most successful non-BCS teams by ranking the most surprising wins by non-BCS teams in the BCS era.
Those who have seen me post on this very topic in the Swamp might think I'm going to find fault with Neumann ranking Appalachian State's win over Michigan as #1, but I'm not even going to talk about that. It's probably accurate given the parameters of the list are non-BCS vs. BCS (otherwise, Stanford-USC from last year should be a clear #1).
No, take a close look at this list and see if you can figure out what is out of place.
Neumann has Utah's Fiesta Bowl win over Pittsburgh in 2005 ranked as the third most "surprising" win for a non-BCS team. Utah. Which was a 16-point favorite in that game.
I don't know if he watches the same sport I do, but a 16-point favorite winning a game is never surprising. (To his credit, he at least mentions Utah was an overwhelming favorite in that game.)
I have some beefs with some of the other games he has included on the list (North Dakota State beating Minnesota last year was not very much of a surprise IMO), but he loses all credibility by including Utah's Fiesta Bowl win. Weak.