Yahoo! Sports Yanks Article After Misidentifying FCS School as Big Ten Program

The college football season kicked off Friday with Louisiana Christian, an NAIA program, pulling off a historic upset by defeating Northwestern State, an FCS-level opponent. The achievement marked the first time a team from the NAIA classification has defeated a Division I program, generating considerable online discussion about the upset.

Yahoo! Sports published coverage of the game but quickly faced scrutiny over a significant factual error in its headline. The article incorrectly identified Northwestern State as a “Big Ten team,” a mistake that contradicted basic conference affiliation information. The outlet subsequently removed the piece, leaving only an error page for readers attempting to access the original story.

The blunder might have gone unnoticed indefinitely, but an X user with approximately 13,000 followers captured screenshots of the inaccurate headline before the article’s removal. The error remained live for roughly 24 hours before being detected, raising questions about the outlet’s editorial oversight procedures.

While deadline pressures in sports journalism commonly result in minor mistakes, confusing Northwestern State with Northwestern represents a substantial lapse for a major sports publication. The error suggests multiple layers of editorial review failed to catch the inaccuracy before publication, from initial writing through final approval stages.