College football’s No. 1 team doesn’t fall often. When it does, the ripple can reshape a season in a hurry - and Saturday night’s Texas comeback over top-ranked Ohio State sent the Longhorns climbing in more than one way.
Texas’ stunning rally, a 21-point fourth-quarter burst that erased a 20-point deficit at home with Arch Manning at the helm, gave the Longhorns another marquee win against a No. 1 opponent. It also pushed them further into the conversation among the programs that have piled up the most victories over top-ranked teams all-time.
The Longhorns now have two of the sport’s most memorable wins in this category. The other is the 2006 Rose Bowl, when Texas knocked off USC and won the national championship behind Vince Young’s unforgettable touchdown run. Before this season’s win over Ohio State, Texas’ last victory against a No. 1 team had come against Oklahoma in 2008.
Ohio State has also been on the right side of plenty of these moments. Four of the Buckeyes’ last six wins over No. 1 teams ended with a national title, including victories over Oregon in 2024, Alabama in 2014, Miami in the 2002 BCS title game and USC in the 1968 Rose Bowl.
Penn State’s history in this space started in 1981, when it beat No. 1 Pitt.
Joe Paterno added two more in the decade, both in national championship games - against Georgia in 1982 and Miami in 1986. The Nittany Lions also edged No.
1 Notre Dame in South Bend as the No. 18 team.
Arkansas has made its mark with three wins over top-ranked Texas, coming in 1964, 1965 and again in 1981 when the Hogs were unranked and rolled to a rout. The Razorbacks didn’t do it again until 2007, when Darren McFadden ran for more than 200 yards in a triple-overtime 50-48 win over an LSU team that would go on to win the BCS national championship.
UCLA’s first and last wins against No. 1 both came against Ohio State. The later one was a 23-10 Rose Bowl victory as the No. 23 team. The Bruins also have a notable place in college football history for ending Nebraska’s first dynasty, beating the Huskers in the 1972 opener and snapping their 32-game winning streak.
Wisconsin’s resume includes the only win over Ohio State in the year the Buckeyes won their first national title, back in 1942, when the Badgers were No. 6.
Wisconsin also upset Northwestern in 1962 and beat No. 1 Michigan in 1981 as an unranked team.
Auburn’s place on the list includes several defining moments, and three of its wins in this category came in the 21st century. The most famous of the bunch is the “Kick Six,” when Chris Davis returned a missed Alabama field goal for a game-winning touchdown. That win knocked Alabama out of the national title race and sent Auburn to the SEC Championship Game, where it beat Missouri before losing to Florida State in the BCS title game.
Oklahoma has been in the Top 10 every time it beat a No. 1 team, including three wins over Nebraska. Two of those came against undefeated Husker teams in 1987 and 2000.
The Sooners also upset top-ranked Penn State in the Orange Bowl for the national championship in 1985. In 1984, OU tied Texas and beat Nebraska while going perfect against two No. 1 teams.
Purdue’s seven wins over No. 1 opponents are spread across several eras, with four coming against Notre Dame and three more against Big Ten teams, including Michigan State, national champion Minnesota in 1960 and Michigan in 1976. The Boilermakers also own a separate kind of distinction: 10 wins over Top 5 teams while unranked, including two in 2021 against No.
2 Iowa and No. 3 Michigan State, a record in the Top 25 poll era.
USC has long been the team doing the damage as the No. 1 squad, but the Trojans have also delivered some major upsets from the other side. Two of their first wins against top-ranked teams came against rival Notre Dame.
In 1978, USC handed eventual AP national champion Alabama its only loss. Two years later, the Trojans beat No. 1 and undefeated Ohio State in the Rose Bowl, Earle Bruce’s first season after Woody Hayes.
Miami’s run through the 1980s and into the new century produced plenty of entries here. The Hurricanes beat Nebraska in the 1984 Orange Bowl in a win that helped launch their dynasty, then took down Oklahoma for another national title in 1988 and upset No.
1 Notre Dame in 1989. Three of Miami’s last four wins in this category came against Florida State, including the 1988 opener and victories over perfect Seminole teams in 1991 and 2000.
Notre Dame got on the list early, beating Northwestern in 1936, and later used wins over No. 1 Alabama in 1973 and No.
1 Texas in 1977 to capture national championships. The one that still carries the most weight is the 1988 home win over Miami - “Catholics vs.
Convicts” - when the Irish snapped the Hurricanes’ 36-game winning streak by one point on the way to a title. Notre Dame also beat No.
1 Clemson during the Covid season.
And then there’s Alabama, which has spent plenty of time as the team being chased. Still, the Crimson Tide have stacked up 11 wins against No. 1 opponents, with eight of those coming under Nick Saban. That stretch includes wins over Clemson in two College Football Playoff national title games, over LSU in the BCS title game, over the first-ever CFP No. 1 in Mississippi State, and twice over Georgia in SEC Championship Games.
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