Sunday, September 02, 2007
Appalachian State
The Clarion has to give props out to Appalachian State!! They spanked Michigan in the Big House yesterday! The two time defending champions of the Division formerly known as I-AA recorded perhaps (no hyperbole) the biggest upset in college football history.
A brief aside on the renaming of Division I-AA (if you don’t care skip this paragraph.) which was another genius Miles Brand decision. Here’s a thought take a highly recognizable brand name, Division I-AA and turn it into pseudo-military, gobbledygook jargon by naming it the Football Championship Subdivision. App. State couldn’t have done a better job of bringing this idiocy to the fore. The Clarion has only heard half a hundred announcers stumble over Brand’s egregiously excessive verbiage.
In front of a hostile crowd of 109,000 Appalachian State, the Mountaineers, of Boone, North Carolina took a commanding 28-14 lead into halftime. Many a underdog has found a way to lead, or hang around for a half or three quarters. App, themselves, had been it with national powerhouse LSU on the road into the fourth quarter in recent years. The most amazing element of Appalachian State’s victory was they didn’t hang on. They got headed and had to comeback to win. Michigan stormed back in the fourth quarter to take a 32-31 lead. The Moutaineers drove back down the field 69 yards on 7 plays in 1 minute and 37 seconds made a field goal to take the lead. Then despite allowing Chad Hennie, the Michigan QB, and before this game, a fringe Heisman candidate, to complete a 46 yard desperation heave into field goal range, hung on by blocking the kick. In this day and age, the Clarion didn’t see or even hear the game, but rather, had ESPN Real Time coverage running in the background while elsewhere on the net. ESPN Real Time is a text/graphics stream akin to a telegraph transcript of the plays and penalties of the game accompanied by a graphs showing drives in progress on a overhead map of the field. There is also a panel that has a running statistical summary for team and individual, passing yards, rushing yards, recieving yards.
The Clarion sees the two missed attempts at two-point conversions as huge. Michigan’s Lloyd Carr has long been a lousy game coach, as so many of the good recruiters are. If Carr had the two extra points on the board from simply going for the kick...but ifs and buts, candy and nuts, we know the routine. Credit where credit is due, to Appalachian State, where with an enrollement of approximately 12,000, their last fifiteen graduating classes don’t add up to how many people in were in the Big House. Prior to yesterday, the biggest Division I-AA upset was the Citadel over Arkansas. The Arkansas coach was fired before the next game. Lloyd Carr isn’t getting fired this week, but the Appalachian State, the Mountaineers, of Boone, North Carolina have taken the upset bar to a new level.
Incidentally, did Vegas know a little sumpin’ sumpin, the Clarion noticed this game was off the board yesterday. No Line being offered. You couldn’t gamble on it. There were a bunch of other lopsided match-ups on the docket, this was the only one off the board. Always at least a yellow flag.
A brief aside on the renaming of Division I-AA (if you don’t care skip this paragraph.) which was another genius Miles Brand decision. Here’s a thought take a highly recognizable brand name, Division I-AA and turn it into pseudo-military, gobbledygook jargon by naming it the Football Championship Subdivision. App. State couldn’t have done a better job of bringing this idiocy to the fore. The Clarion has only heard half a hundred announcers stumble over Brand’s egregiously excessive verbiage.
In front of a hostile crowd of 109,000 Appalachian State, the Mountaineers, of Boone, North Carolina took a commanding 28-14 lead into halftime. Many a underdog has found a way to lead, or hang around for a half or three quarters. App, themselves, had been it with national powerhouse LSU on the road into the fourth quarter in recent years. The most amazing element of Appalachian State’s victory was they didn’t hang on. They got headed and had to comeback to win. Michigan stormed back in the fourth quarter to take a 32-31 lead. The Moutaineers drove back down the field 69 yards on 7 plays in 1 minute and 37 seconds made a field goal to take the lead. Then despite allowing Chad Hennie, the Michigan QB, and before this game, a fringe Heisman candidate, to complete a 46 yard desperation heave into field goal range, hung on by blocking the kick. In this day and age, the Clarion didn’t see or even hear the game, but rather, had ESPN Real Time coverage running in the background while elsewhere on the net. ESPN Real Time is a text/graphics stream akin to a telegraph transcript of the plays and penalties of the game accompanied by a graphs showing drives in progress on a overhead map of the field. There is also a panel that has a running statistical summary for team and individual, passing yards, rushing yards, recieving yards.
The Clarion sees the two missed attempts at two-point conversions as huge. Michigan’s Lloyd Carr has long been a lousy game coach, as so many of the good recruiters are. If Carr had the two extra points on the board from simply going for the kick...but ifs and buts, candy and nuts, we know the routine. Credit where credit is due, to Appalachian State, where with an enrollement of approximately 12,000, their last fifiteen graduating classes don’t add up to how many people in were in the Big House. Prior to yesterday, the biggest Division I-AA upset was the Citadel over Arkansas. The Arkansas coach was fired before the next game. Lloyd Carr isn’t getting fired this week, but the Appalachian State, the Mountaineers, of Boone, North Carolina have taken the upset bar to a new level.
Incidentally, did Vegas know a little sumpin’ sumpin, the Clarion noticed this game was off the board yesterday. No Line being offered. You couldn’t gamble on it. There were a bunch of other lopsided match-ups on the docket, this was the only one off the board. Always at least a yellow flag.
Labels: college football, sports
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