College football’s 150th anniversary: The 150 best moments that stood the test of time

81. Portland State Downs North Texas in Massive FCS/FBS Upset (2015)

In 2015, Portland State cruised to a 9-3 season under first-year head coach Bruce Barnum. When they traveled to Denton to face North Texas, they were sitting at 3-1 and had already knocked off Washington State in Pullman.

That made it no less shocking when the Vikings stomped the Mean Green in a 66-7 blowout victory. The Vikings were favored by a field goal in Vegas, but nobody saw the complete destruction that transpired. Only a garbage-time touchdown by the North Texas backups prevented the game from ending in a shutout.

The victory by the Vikings set up Portland State for their first NCAA playoff appearance since 2000. In Denton, North Texas head coach Dan McCarney was dismissed from the position soon after the disappointing defeat.

80. Carlisle Takes Down Harvard (1907)

Pop Warner, one of the legendary coaches of college football’s early history, returned to Carlisle Indian Industrial School in 1907 after a three-year sojourn coaching Cornell. With his return to Pennsylvania, Warner took over a Carlisle squad that included a young talent named Jim Thorpe who would eventually become a two-time All-American.

At the time that Carlisle traveled to Massachusetts to face Harvard, they already boasted wins over Penn State, Syracuse, and Penn as they amassed a 7-1 start to the season. Only a 16-6 loss at Princeton on the first weekend of November blemished an otherwise-perfect record. Harvard, meanwhile, was a perfect 7-0 and dreaming of a national championship.

Carlisle put that dream to rest quickly. The hero of the contest was not Thorpe but rather fullback Pete Hauser and quarterback Frank Mount Pleasant, who ripped off an 85-yard touchdown run early in the second half to put the game out of reach for the Crimson. Harvard went on to lose its final two games of the year, while Carlisle ran the table but missed out on the national title.

79. Pitt and Syracuse Set FBS Regulation Scoring Record (2016)

Sometimes the greatest football memories transpire in places where you would never expect to see them. That was the case in 2016 when Pitt and Syracuse met in what seemed to be just another ACC contest between two teams out of the running for a spot in the title game. Instead, fans that tuned in were granted a chance to watch history in the making.

Nothing indicated that the Panthers and Orange would rack up the most combined points ever scored in a regulation FBS game. The record of 136 points, set nine years earlier in a contest between Navy and North Texas, hardly seemed like a target that would be pursued over the course of the contest.

Nathan Peterman threw for 251 yards and four touchdowns, James Connor added 160 rushing yards and three scores, and Pitt ran up 76 points on the Orange. Syracuse, unable to keep up with the Panthers, nevertheless piled up 668 total yards of offense and 61 points. By the final whistle, the two ACC foes set the new mark one point ahead of the previous record.