A UNC loss Saturday would be the biggest upset in college football history.

Yes, the Tar Heels are 35-point favorites against Florida A&M for the Week 0 opener for both teams. The question, with the offensive unknowns and the presence of a great opposing linebacker, is can Carolina cover? A straight-up loss is out of the question.

But there are unknowns now about college football that did not exist even five years ago. For one, the transfer portal has created almost free agency in the game, and FAMU has 25 transfers who came directly from Division I programs to play for Willie Simmons, a soft-spoken version of Jackson State’s Deion Sanders’ prime-time bluster.

The greatest upset in college football history, according to Sports Illustrated, came on September 1, 2007, when App State went into the Big House and stunned Michigan, 34-32, in a made-for-TV game that debuted the Big Ten Network. Of course, the Mountaineers will try to spring an in-state shocker next week when they host the Heels.

Besides those unknown (to Mack Brown, at least) transfers, the Rattlers have one of the best players on the field in 6-4 linebacker Isaiah Land, No. 31, who covers everywhere and will be keying on a virtually untested Tar Heel backfield – starting with freshman quarterback Drake Maye, who has thrown only 10 college passes.

Land led the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) in sacks last season with 19 and will try to rattle the home team’s offense to keep things close in the first half while Maye and running backs D.J. Jones, Omarion Hampton and George Pettaway are shaking first-game jitters. And no one really expects the Heels to lose their opener again.

After all, this is at home and the opponent is hardly Virginia Tech. And when you look at the other historical upsets SI lists, especially in the modern era, there is no team comparable to FCS FAMU, which is a contender in the Southwestern Athletic Conference.

Not even Navy’s upset of Notre Dame in 2007, which snapped the Midshipmen’s 43-game losing streak, or Virginia Tech’s 1998 loss to Temple, which had gone 0-fer in its last 26 Big East road games.

But it’s the game-within-a game that keeps betting fans focused. Can Carolina actually win by 36 or more? Or can both teams score 58 points in the over-under bet? Let’s kick off the season and find out.

 

Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward

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