How often do ranked college football teams lose to unranked teams?
Unranked FBS teams won 19.7% of their games against AP Top 25 teams in 2025, about one in five. The share has ranged from 4.5% in 1998 to 25.9% in 2007, and has usually been higher since 2000 than in the 1990s. A team counts as ranked if it was in the AP poll that stood before the game; bowl games count, and games against lower-division (FCS) teams don't. The chart starts in 1989, when the AP poll began ranking 25 teams every week.
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Source and date
- Data as of
- Published
The data
| Season | Games an unranked team won against an AP Top 25 team (%) |
|---|---|
| 1989 | 16.6 |
| 1990 | 8 |
| 1991 | 12.8 |
| 1992 | 17.7 |
| 1993 | 14 |
| 1994 | 19.6 |
| 1995 | 16.9 |
| 1996 | 13.9 |
| 1997 | 18.3 |
| 1998 | 4.5 |
| 1999 | 20.7 |
| 2000 | 18.5 |
| 2001 | 20.1 |
| 2002 | 21.2 |
| 2003 | 20.6 |
| 2004 | 15.6 |
| 2005 | 22.8 |
| 2006 | 13.6 |
| 2007 | 25.9 |
| 2008 | 25.1 |
| 2009 | 20.9 |
| 2010 | 16.2 |
| 2011 | 16.8 |
| 2012 | 17.4 |
| 2013 | 15.5 |
| 2014 | 16.3 |
| 2015 | 18.1 |
| 2016 | 24.5 |
| 2017 | 16.5 |
| 2018 | 23.8 |
| 2019 | 17.5 |
| 2020 | 22.3 |
| 2021 | 22.4 |
| 2022 | 22.8 |
| 2023 | 16.4 |
| 2024 | 19.2 |
| 2025 | 19.7 |