Oklahoma losing to Iowa State is biggest upset of 2017

It was an upset that was 18 years in the making and Iowa State beating Oklahoma was the biggest upset of the year.

You never know what’s going to happen on any given Saturday in college football and we saw another glaring example of that on Saturday afternoon. Oklahoma entered the game as the No. 3 team in the nation and had an inside track to the College Football Playoff with a road win over then-No. 2 Ohio State and quarterback Baker Mayfield was one of the two leading candidates to win the Heisman. When the clock hit triple zeroes and the game was over, Oklahoma may be the third best team in the Big 12 and Mayfield’s Heisman hopes could be dashed.

Oklahoma had beat Iowa State every year since 1991 and they weren’t given much of a chance in today’s game. Certainly not when they were going to battle without starting quarterback Jacob Park who took a leave of absence to deal with a personal medical situation.

Without Park, Joel Lanning, who switched from quarterback to linebacker earlier this year, did his best iron man football impression. He completed 2-of-3 passes for 25 yards and ran nine times for 35 yards. He also had eight total tackles, recovered a fumble and had a big sack on Mayfield late to help seal the win for the Cyclones. This marks the first road win over a top-five opponent in program history.

Talk about an improbable win on a number of levels.

For Oklahoma, this is an unforgivable loss and I don’t see how the College Football Playoff committee would think the Sooners are the best one-loss team with this being their one blemish. If the SEC runner-up has one loss, that team is getting in over them, and that may not even matter because Oklahoma still has to play TCU and Oklahoma State, two teams that could beat the Sooners.

If you bet on Iowa State today, I hope you celebrate in a big way with your winnings because you saw something coming that no one outside Ames, IA saw on the horizon.