*** Official Appalachian State Football 2007 Thread ***

[Burdzthewurd]

Makes me feel a little bit better about our riots @ Umass when we lost to App. State in the championship last December.

[anatta]

This was a really unexpected great sports day. VA Tech started it off, obviously that goes well beyond sports. Then this upset, just crazy. Then the no hitter.

[MyTurn2Raise]

arnold_O

you should know that the sagarin mechanism you are using is flawed when comparing teams across divisions. Severley flawed.

The worst big ten team should be about a 10 point favorite at home verse App St

It was an amazing upset and my hats off to app st. They still couldn't come close to competing week in and week out. They'd beat them every once in awhile, but the weak big11ten team would dominate.

Let's goto last year where there were a handful of relevant experiences.

2-6 Big11Ten team Iowa pummeled Montana (2nd highest Sagarin team at that level) 41-7
1-7 Big11Ten team Illinois pummeled Easter Illinois (coming off a 1-AA playoff appearance) 42-17
3-5 conf Minnesota squeaked by power ND St 10-9
1-7 Indiana did lose to SIU 35-28
2-6 Northwestern lost to New Hampshire 34-17

The big11ten was worse than it ever has been at the bottom last year. (*Note: This isn't some new opinion of mine, but is an opinion I posted to this forum over and over and over and over, usually in reference to Wisconsin, Michigan, and tO$U national love.) Yet, 5 of the bottom 6 in conference still took it to 1-AA when they are completely unmotivated and often underprepared.


but you're overlooking an even bigger point

those teams at the bottom of BCS conferences have enough skill, size, and talent to occassionally compete with the big schools. Small schools don't have near that much. Admittedly, the scholarship restrictions on bigger schools has caused more and more talent to filter down. It's still not enough. Being able to sometimes beat a team that can sometimes beat the behemoths of football is not the same as being able to beat the behemoths themselves.

APP St is better than about 10-15 teams of the 119 in the top level. I'd be very surprised if they could play a 7 game series against any team from the Big11Ten, Pac-10, BigXII, SEC, and ACC and pull off a winning record.

If Illinois lost to them, I'd expect Zook to get fired. I'd demand it.

[BigSoonerFan]

[ QUOTE ]
arnold_O

you should know that the sagarin mechanism you are using is flawed when comparing teams across divisions. Severley flawed.

The worst big ten team should be about a 10 point favorite at home verse App St

It was an amazing upset and my hats off to app st. They still couldn't come close to competing week in and week out. They'd beat them every once in awhile, but the weak big11ten team would dominate.

Let's goto last year where there were a handful of relevant experiences.

2-6 Big11Ten team Iowa pummeled Montana (2nd highest Sagarin team at that level) 41-7
1-7 Big11Ten team Illinois pummeled Easter Illinois (coming off a 1-AA playoff appearance) 42-17
3-5 conf Minnesota squeaked by power ND St 10-9
1-7 Indiana did lose to SIU 35-28
2-6 Northwestern lost to New Hampshire 34-17

The big11ten was worse than it ever has been at the bottom last year. (*Note: This isn't some new opinion of mine, but is an opinion I posted to this forum over and over and over and over, usually in reference to Wisconsin, Michigan, and tO$U national love.) Yet, 5 of the bottom 6 in conference still took it to 1-AA when they are completely unmotivated and often underprepared.

[/ QUOTE ]

Took it to them? They were 2-3, losing one game by one point....and I'm sure they were all played at the Big Ten stadiums. Your evidence isn't supporting your conclusion. Actually you're showing the playoff AA teams can play with the weak Big Ten teams and seeing the absolute best of AA (two time defending champs) beating Michigan isn't as big of an upset as we think.

[Arnold_O]

yes, i'd have to agree. illinois was probably the worst team in big ten last year but they kept it close with most of the teams and even gave OSU a scare. rutgers was the only team to blow them out.

i must be thinking of the teams like northwestern of the 70's and early 80's. these teams would lose by scores of 63-0 to Michigan and OSU


edit:

but then again, i said if u take the worst northwestern teams from the last 30 years it would be close and u said "no it wouldn't"

i think it would be close.

if the game was played in boone, NC they'd probably be a slight favorite against some of those teams

[MyTurn2Raise]

ummmm......I don't know what to say
the other 1-AA teams listed are right there with App St

anyway, I'll try another method
here are games played v 1-AA over the last 5 years

Penn St
2006 37-3 v Youngstown St
Iowa
2005 45-21 v N Iowa
2006 41-7 v Montana
Wisconsin
2006 34-10 v Western Ill
Purdue
2002 51-10 v Illinois St
2006 60-35 v Indiana St
Illinois
2003 49-22 v Illinois St
2004 52-13 v Florida A&M
2006 42-17 v Eastern Ill
Northwestern
2006 17-34 v New Hampshire
Indiana
2003 33-3 v Indiana St
2005 35-31 v Nicholls St
2006 28-35 v SIU
Minnesota
2002 42-0 v Texas St
2004 37-21 v Illinois St
2006 10-9 v NDST

So, basically they need the opposing team to be REALLY, REALLY bad, be completely unmotivated and underprepared, and have the opposing coach pass away (in the case of N'Western) or have a brain tumor (in the case of Indiana).

It appears that Lloyd Carr would now fall into that category.


The upset yesterday is the most ridiculous thing I've seen in my life regarding college football.

[Needle77]

I'm having a hard time understanding how people think that App State could contend at a D1-A level. Are you trying to tell me that their offensive line is gonna play lights out like that more than 3 or 4 times a year? You can count on your hand how many blown assignments they had I bet. I love lower divison football as I'm sure everyone knows on this board, and I praise them more so than anyone else.

But, seriously, ask Gardner-Webb, Presbytarian, among others about the idea of moving up a division. How about Newberry and how they will do next year at 1AA? App state would struggle mightly just in the Oline vs Dline.

[iggymcfly]

Yeah, doesn't that make the other case. So the lower-tier of the Big Ten was 2-3 vs. I-AA schools last year, playing either all 5 games at home or at least 4 out of 5. That would support the point that the Top 15 or so I-AA teams are about even the bottom four teams in the Big Ten. Meanwhile, Appalachian State isn't just another top team, they're the very best in I-AA, coming off back to back national titles. Based on the information you gave, Appalachian State should be comparable to at least a 4-4 Big Ten team since they have won 23 in a row against I-AA opponents and didn't have any one point "close calls" during that stretch either.

Now, I'm not saying that ASU's quite that good as the Big Ten had an unusually bad year against I-AA teams and the Minnesota/NDSU game in particular was a huge fluke. However, saying App. State is only better than 15 I-A teams is ludicrous. They're easily better than anyone in the Sun Belt and are better than half of the other mid-major schools as well. The last time a team came to I-A directly following a I-AA championship was Marshall in 1997 and they went 10-3 and won the MAC. I think if you give ASU a full schedule in any mid-major conference this season, they'd definitely finish above .500 and could compete seriously for the title in any mid-major except for the WAC or MWC.

I'd say that Appalachian State probably belong somewhere in the 40-50 range of D-I programs. They're definitely better than bottom-dwelling BCS teams such as Indiana, Stanford, and Mississippi State and are likely better than some of the middling programs like Texas Tech, Virginia and Cincinnatti as well. It's still a huge upset for them to beat Michigan and it terms of significance, it's the biggest upset in NCAAF history, but in terms of just being surprising, it's less of an upset than Temple over Virginia Tech and less of an upset than an Illinois win over Ohio State would have been last year had the Illini held on.

[iggymcfly]

This new list that MyTurn has includes a lot of 3-8 type I-AA teams. Of course they can't compete, no one said they can. However, Appalachian State was the elite of the elite, the best program in all of I-AA. Give them Purdue's schedule and they win at least 6 games. Give them Eastern Michigan's and they probably win 9.

[lippy]

[ QUOTE ]
This new list that MyTurn has includes a lot of 3-8 type I-AA teams. Of course they can't compete, no one said they can. However, Appalachian State was the elite of the elite, the best program in all of I-AA. Give them Purdue's schedule and they win at least 6 games. Give them Eastern Michigan's and they probably win 9.

[/ QUOTE ]

No. No. No. Don't let me forget No.

The difference in athletic ability between the players in Appalachian State's program and, say, Purdue's program is incomprehensible. Their recruiting pools are miles apart.

App State got lucky against a poorly coached, under prepared Michigan team. Purdue probably beats them 8 times out of 10, especially in a meaningful game.