Yahoo! runs embarrassing error in headline, proving even media outlets need time to round into midseason form
College football may indeed be back in our lives, but after more than eight months of inactivity, it’s normal to experience some rust.
The first game of the FBS season between TCU and North Carolina certainly featured its fair share of penalties and sloppy play, which is to be expected in a season opener, especially one that’s being played an entire ocean away.
Head coach Bill Belichick of the University of North Carolina Tar Heels walks onto the field before the game against the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs at Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill, N.C., on Sept. 1, 2025. (Getty Images)
But that sloppiness and rust doesn’t just apply to the players, either.
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We’ve all heard the phrase “it’s preseason for the refs too,” and even fans can fall victim to some early-season cobwebs, including slow channel-changing reaction times and an intolerance to junk food.
Media outlets aren’t immune to this phenomenon either, as one famous outlet showed us on Friday.
After Louisiana Christian took down Northwestern State, the internet was abuzz, and not just because it was one of the first college football games of the 2026 season.
LCU is a lowly NAIA team, and on Thursday evening, they became the first team of that classification to take down a Division I opponent.
Northwestern State resides in the FCS, which is a rung below the FBS level that teams like Ohio State and Alabama play in, but the accomplishment is still historic and noteworthy.
A Northwestern State helmet sits on the bench during a college football game between the Northwestern State Demons and the Southern Miss Golden Eagles on Sept. 17, 2022, at M.M. Roberts Stadium in Hattiesburg, Miss. (Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Someone forgot to tell one of the writers at Yahoo! Sports, however, as they ran a headline labeling Northwestern State as a “Big Ten team.”
The site took the article down, as clicking the link will take you to an error page, but fortunately for all of us, the internet is forever, and one eagle-eyed fan on X spotted the error before Yahoo! could react.
That’s embarrassing.
On one hand, I get it. You’re working on a tight deadline and you need to get your story out right away, so sometimes you’ll make a mistake or two (Lord knows I’ve been there before).
But getting Northwestern confused with Northwestern State is a pretty egregious blunder, especially if you fancy yourself a “sports outlet.”
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And this doesn’t just fall on the writer, either — whose name I won’t include because I don’t want to make them feel worse than I’m sure they already do — because this presumably made it past a couple editors too.
How did no one catch the headline for a full 24 hours?
I checked, and in the time I started writing this story, the article went from being live to disappearing.
Ed Eagan, No. 7 for Northwestern State, fields a punt during a game against Mississippi State at Davis Wade Stadium in Starkville, Miss., on Sept. 19, 2015. (Getty Images)
It took a guy with 13,000 followers on X to catch a mistake that should have been squashed in the editing process.
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It’s not a good look for Yahoo! Sports, but i guess even media outlets need time to round into midseason form.
