[3] The book introduces several new characters, including Trevor Likely, a street urchin with a wonderful talent for kicking a tin can; Glenda Sugarbean, a maker of "jolly good" pies; Juliet Stollop, a dim but beautiful young woman who might just turn out to be the greatest fashion model there has ever been; and the mysterious Mr Nutt, a cultured, enigmatic, idealistic savant.

After the centennial Hunting of the Megapode (a satirisation of the Mallard ceremony performed at All Souls College, Oxford), the faculty of Unseen University discover that they must, as per tradition, play a game of football, in exchange for their large financial endowment from the late Archchancellor Preserved Bigger.

Trev Likely, who is Mr Nutt's coworker and best friend, is the son of Ankh-Morpork's most famous deceased footballer Dave Likely (who had scored a record of four goals throughout his entire career), but has promised his (late) dear old mum that he won't play, but ultimately saves the game.

Juliet works for Glenda, has a crush on Trev (despite coming from families that support different teams), is simple and beautiful, and becomes a famous fashion model and the new face of dwarvish micromail (chainmail as soft as cloth).

[10] The Guardian's Harry Ritchie also favourably reviewed the novel, highlighting the reliability of Pratchett's comedy, especially the figures of speech he regularly used such as a kiss sounding like "a tennis ball being sucked through the strings of a racket".

[12] Matt Barber, reviewing the book for Den of Geek, concluded that Unseen Academicals was "almost perfectly rounded social satire", adding that the only minor criticism he could offer was that the main characters were so interesting that side stories such as Glenda and Nutt's romance were eclipsed by wanting to see the main story progress; he also outlined that he read the book with Pratchett's Alzheimer diagnosis in mind but found his writing to actually have improved rather than suffered.