Vermont shook the world Saturday, although the world, with all eyes and ears on the Olympics, did not feel it much. Yet it was an upset of epic proportions when Vermont defeated New Hampshire 50-2 in the Shrine Maple Sugar Bowl in Castleton, Vt.

Yes, Vermont won by 48 points.

Vermont, for the record, had last won the all-star game in 2000, enabling a prolonged Granite State winning streak. In some years, New Hampshire rolled over the Green Mountain boys. It seemed evident that the Granite State’s larger population and bigger football programs gave it a considerable advantage. And though the game is played for an eminently good cause — Shriners Hospitals for Children — the lopsided results reduced its allure.

But one of the good points about sports is that each game begins in a tie. On Saturday, according to Sports Editor Greg Fennell’s account, the Vermont squad unleashed a fast defense that harassed the New Hampshire quarterback while Vermont’s quarterback threw five touchdown passes in the first half alone. The final result was a true shocker.

Vermont would be in good company in an underdog hall of fame. The staff at ESPN once ranked the top sports upsets — “of all time,’’ of course. Their top five: 1. U.S. beats Soviets in Olympic ice hockey, 1980; 2. New York Jets defeat Baltimore Colts, Super Bowl III, 1969; 3. Villanova tops Georgetown to win 1985 NCAA championship; 4. Buster Douglas KOs Mike Tyson for heavyweight championship, 1990; 5. Man O’ War suffers his only defeat, to a 100-to-1 shot appropriately named Upset, 1919.

Of course, any such list can be debated for all time, or as close as we can get to it. Leading up to the Olympics, there was much talk about the American rowing squad from the University of Washington that defeated the heavily favored German team in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, meant to be a showcase for Hitler’s Reich.

Last year during March Madness, Joseph Stromberg, a writer for Vox, explored the “science of why we love to root for underdogs.” A study found that 88.1 percent of people did just that when watching two teams in which they didn’t have a rooting interest. One researcher thinks the phenomenon is related to schadenfreude, the pleasure people experience in witnessing the misfortune of others. No one likes a powerhouse, the thinking goes, except powerhouse fans — including New York Yankees fans in certain eras. Another theory is that the underdog effect is fueled by people’s desire for the world to be fair; yet another observation is that people get more joy out of unexpected successes than expected ones.

On the field, it’s a simpler calculation. In the Shrine Maple Sugar Bowl series, New Hampshire now leads 47-14-2, but in 2016, no one can say that Vermont was overmatched. It’s not true that every underdog has its day, but when one does the cheering is loud and the victory sweet.