College GameDay cooks up perplexing Venn diagram on undefeated teams
By David Wasson
Published:
In an effort, apparently, to point out the differences between various undefeated teams early in the 2025 season, ESPN’s College GameDay broke out their version of a Venn diagram Saturday morning as a visual aid.
Created by John Venn in the 1880s, a Venn diagram is a visual tool that uses overlapping circles to show relationships, similarities, and differences between concepts or groups. The problem is, well, this one appears to suggest that Arizona, Missouri, Tulane, NC State and Ole Miss are… sort of tested?
Arizona is 3-0 after lopsided wins against Hawaii and Weber State and then a 23-17 victory over Kansas State. No. 23 Missouri thumped Central Arkansas and Louisiana with a 42-31 victory against Kansas wedged between them. Tulane owns victories over Northwestern, South Alabama and Duke. NC State sports closes wins over Eastern Carolina, Virginia and Wake Forest. And 13th-ranked Ole Miss smacked around Georgia State and then survived Kentucky and Arkansas.
To review, the five teams lumped into the middle have 7 victories within a touchdown or less over 15 total wins. That seems remarkably “tested.”
The diagram also has an awful lot of SEC teams in the “tested” circle (Auburn, Georgia, LSU, Mississippi State, Oklahoma, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt) vs. a lot of Big Ten teams in the “untested” circle (Illinois, Indiana, Nebraska, Penn State and Oregon).
An APSE national award-winning writer and editor, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. He also hosts Gulfshore Sports with David Wasson, weekdays from 3-5 pm across Southwest Florida and on FoxSportsFM.com. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.
