#13 UCLA lost to unranked Fresno State
#10 UNC lost to unranked VT
#15 VT lost to unranked WVU
#14 USC lost to unranked Stanford
#15 Texas lost to unranked Arkansas

Last year, Florida was ranked #6 in the country and lost to a 3-5 LSU team.

I don't have the time to dig deeper or do a comprehensive analysis but there are plenty of times that teams ranked in the top 15 lose to unranked opponents. Most of the time, we don't notice or care. We won't remember at the end of the season that Texas or UCLA was even ranked in the top 15 at some point in the season.

What you're experiencing is called saliency bias. Because the VT losses are more significant and important to you, you can recall and remember them better than the losses by random programs you don't follow. Because you can recall the VT losses more easily, you assume they occur more often.

You might be right. It is possible that a historical analysis of college football would reveal that VT has more losses to unranked team when they are ranked in the top 15 than any other program. Or, it might simply be that you notice those losses more and therefore over-estimate their relative frequency. The main point I'm making is that just because it SEEMS that way doesn't mean it necessarily IS that way. This is a very common cognitive error/bias that impacts us all.



[Post edited by Pride_and_Joy at 09/23/2021 1:30PM]