Biggest Upset Ever?

No, Appalachian States upset of Michigan today is not the biggest upset in team sports ever; it is the second biggest. For purposes of this discussion I'm only including team sports, so boxing, tennis, wrestling etc are out. I'm also only referring to American sports competitions. So the FA Cup and Cricket are also out.

That being said the biggest upset in modern team sports has to be the "miracle on ice" 1980 win by the US team over Russia in the Olympics. The US team was a bunch of amateurs, college students to be more precise facing a well trained well oiled group of professionals. The Russians had recently crushed the US prior to this game and for the US to find a way to pull out the victory has to be the greatest upset in team sports.

The second greatest upset just happened today. The preseason #5 team in the nation, with a returning senior QB and a star running back, where beaten in one of the most imposing places to play in front of 100,000+ fans, by a 1AA team. No matter how good of a 1AA team Appalachian state may be they are still a 1AA team. You can say that this was only the first game on the season, but you really think Michigan is getting a national title this year? After being ranked 5th in the nation they could very likely drop out of the top 25 and will have to win every game the rest of the way and potentially do so in impressive fashion to even have a shot at a BCS game. All that being said unlike the miracle on ice today's game was amateurs versus amateurs, thus i give the edge to the miracle on ice.

Others that deserve consideration would be the "Miracle Mets" of 1969, the Super Bowl 3 Jets, or Villanova over Georgetown in 1985. The Red Sox coming back from 3 games down against the yankees also has to rank up there, but it's a series rather than one game, so it's an apples to oranges comparison. Why i rank today's game and the miracle on ice over games like the Mets and Jets is because it was professional teams playing against each other. Similarly the Villanova Georgetown game was two big east schools playing against each other. a team might be figuratively "not in their league" but if you are literally not in the same league that makes the upset at least twice as impressive.

A comparison to todays game would be if a AAA baseball team came up and played a playoff series against a major league team and knocked that team out of the playoffs. the importance of this game despite were it is in the season is nearly of playoff importance. the disparity in facilities, attendance, ability to attract talent is also as wide as that between AAA and the majors.

Quite a day for sports, congratulations to Appalachian State for pulling off the second greatest upset of all time.