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October 15th, 2016 against Georgia in a 17-16 victory at their homecoming. The marquee CDM victory and most improbable one that eventually led to the Independence Bowl.

Best win since Northern Illinois

Well, more like the biggest win since MO in 2019. We were coming off the disastrous home loss to UNLV. MO was 5-1 and ranked 22nd. It sure seemed like a big win, especially according to CDM afterward. A cautionary tale in deeming wins to be big or turning points.

Given the road SEC component- I'll go with @UGA in 2016 as well. Frankly, surreal now to think we actually beat Kirby Smart on his own field (admittedly Year 1 for him).

Some would vote for the 2007 USCe game in Columbia. USCe was ranked 6th at the time and we won. At least I think that was in 2007.

But given Vandy United, the change in leadership at VU, the improvement in play this year, this win may be the biggest with the most far reaching future impact.

Johnmn555 wrote: ↑Sun Nov 13, 2022 12:58 am Well, more like the biggest win since MO in 2019. We were coming off the disastrous home loss to UNLV. MO was 5-1 and ranked 22nd. It sure seemed like a big win, especially according to CDM afterward. A cautionary tale in deeming wins to be big or turning points.

I was thinking of the same game and your point is well taken.

However the respective situations are pretty different. In 2019 the Franklin era was in the recent past. CDM had a couple of bowl seasons, then a very disappointing 2109 campaign coming off a dismal loss at home to a very bad UNLV team. So the context of the Missouri game was "maybe we aren't tanking as badly as we thought."

Now we're trying to claw out of the deepest pit the program has ever been in. Vegas over/under was 2.5 wins for this season. Nobody outside the program and die hard fans expected an SEC win this year.

"We got very low but we're coming back up" is a lot more sell-able narrative, particularly to recruits, than "we might not be tanking quite as bad as everyone says."

People gravitate to the 2016 Georgia win when trying to determine Mason's best, but really, the later win over UT the same year was far better.

UGA was unranked when we played them and finished the year unranked. While it was a great, improbable road victory, we barely eked out a 17-16 defensive battle.

But when we played UT at home, they were ranked No. 17 (No 21 in final poll) and were playing for an invitation to the Sugar Bowl.
Not only did we rally to win, we rallied to give them a bit of a spanking, sending them to a far lesser bowl. It was a damn exciting game and finish - sending us to a bowl and them to a lesser bowl. Pretty awesome to beat UT with real stakes on the line. And our offense was high flying.

I guess the uncommon denominator between UGA and UT games was home vs road. But for me, this win over UK is the biggest win since the one over UT. Now I will say... this Uk win REMINDS me a lot of the Georgia win.
Who knows... maybe we can springboard off of this to have a high flying offensive output against UF.

Interesting factoid.... That tall quarterback from UNLV made the Baltimore Ravens as a backup tight end if I heard right.

BILTMORE wrote: ↑Sun Nov 13, 2022 4:07 pm People gravitate to the 2016 Georgia win when trying to determine Mason's best

The reason is that it ended with the school's greatest play, at least since I've been watching: triple teamed Cunningham stop on 4th and 1.

I'll also throw in there the completely unexpected win over UK to get us to bowl eligibility. I think DJ Moore had a monster game with a couple picks or something. I also think that was the year we started 4-0. Deuce years maybe? 2006?

The year we beat SoCar when they were ranked #6, it was early in the year and they finished the year with a losing record. The win seemed huge at the time though.

I try to erase the win over Mizzou from my mind, because all I can think of when I remember that game is Mason's idiotic rant after the game. Boy did he look like a fool after that debacle.

ANY time we beat UT belongs in this discussion. I agree with the poster who suggested when we beat a ranked UT team. I think that was bigger than UGa win that year.

dallasdore wrote: ↑Sun Nov 13, 2022 5:21 pm I try to erase the win over Mizzou from my mind, because all I can think of when I remember that game is Mason's idiotic rant after the game. Boy did he look like a fool after that debacle.

Mason reacted after that game as though he and the team had just accomplished something big; contrast that with Lea's humility after the win Saturday.