Longtime readers know well the history of Giglionosis, a non-fatal condition in which sanctimonious sports writers feel compelled to express outrage over a I-A/I-AA FBS-FCS matchup daring to ruin their Saturday afternoon.
Fans don’t care. They still buy tickets. Coaches are on record not caring. They agree to them. Athletic departments don’t care. They draw up the contracts.
But the sports hype machine? This .. should not .. pass!
Major mismatches of talents thrown together in classic David vs. Goliath battles are wonderful when it’s March Madness, but football?
EVERY game must be an EPIC collision of historically GODLIKE programs which guarantee a HISTORICAL contest!
Ohio State vs. USC or bust, baby! And we do mean bust!
Snark aside, it does appear that, like master puppeteers, the sports media will get its way.
Recently it was announced there will soon be a FBS playoff of sorts. And it will probably mean the death of intradivisional contests within D1.
One of the criteria for determining the Bowl Championship Series national semifinalists in 2014 will be strength of schedule. It’s second on the list behind overall record.
“It’s real hard to know what’s going to happen,” offered Bobby Hauck, UNLV coach and ex-Grizzly skipper. “I think people are going to be limited in how many (FCS teams) they can schedule.
“The other interesting thing is some of the paydays for FCS teams (against BCS foes) are going away as well. It’s a little bit less pay friendly.”
As near as we can recollect, App State still has games set with two FBS foes – Georgia in 2013 and .. /gulp .. Michigan in 2014.
Regardless of App State classification by 2014, it appears the days of taking on quality FBS programs who like a FCS challenge are over.
Speaking of which …
/points at UNC Chapel Hill, laughs
Not necessarily true that taking on quality fbs opponents is over. Only four teams make that playoff, and there are a lot of teams out there in fbs that may be quality, but not the top tier quality to make it into the four team playoff. Unless they're changing the rules to other bowls, then one fcs win will still count towards the six needed for a bowl berth. May not be able to match up with Michigan, Georgia, LSU anymore but there will still be plenty of quality fbs opponents to play out there.
With any luck the Michigan game will get cancelled.
Too bad UNC won't be playing in a bowl game this year. I had them penciled in as my national champion winners.
bcoach,
It would be impossible for me to agree more. What a tremendously stupid move to schedule Michigan again.
Maybe we'll be in the big ten by then?
The new name of the game will be a risk-reward balance. Risk a loss to a quality FBS opponent or pick up a win? Stronger strength of schedule vs a check mark in the W column.
There will just be fewer FBS-FCS matchups. They will not go away completely, but we can't get anyone but the heavy hitters to schedule us now (Excluding and many thanks to ECU and Terry Holland for having the guts to play and take the risk) let alone when the top 30 teams will not play an FCS team because if they do, they are telling their boosters they can not be a top four team.
If we are still FCS in three years, this will disrupt our schedule. Sunbelt teams will be flooded with offers from the top 30 to play on the road in those traditional FBS-FCS matchups opening weekend and will be rewarded with a larger check to take one less home game.
We can always add a 7th home game and pull in Mars Hill or Lenoir-Rhyne one more time instead of playing an FBS school….The long term prognosis is not good.
Games against the bottom feeders of the power conferences and CUSA will be about all we can hope for as long as we are FCS. In reality that is probably the best thing that could happen. People rag on ASU's less than stellar winning % against FBS teams, but the easy counter is to point out who we play.
Just a note to you wishing the Michigan game gets cancelled.
"anyone, anywhere"
If App wants to cancel the game with Michigan, I hope ECU never schedules the Mountaineers again.
The point of phrasing the requirements in such a way "strength of schedule" that is, is to make sure only power conferences get teams into the playoffs, ultimately leading to a stark contrast between the top tier FBS and lower tier FBS. Unfortunately at this point, moving to FBS will only result in a somewhat lateral move… By the time we get to FBS, we'll be part of a de facto "lower" division of the non-power conference kind.
I completely agree with the author. The NCAA,s farce of relabeling Div-II teams as "FCS" is not fooling anyone. Why don't they just slap the Div-II on these low brow teams and e done with it. After all if FCS was a really Div-I, then wouldn't the NCAA be able to send the championship package for "Div-I" to the right school?
Silly appys……
Hey jland that de facto low tier is still 10x better than the fcs
So it's not a lateral move.
I rather enjoyed my last trip to Michigan to see the Apps play. Besides, $850K pays for a lot of travel expenses for all App programs.
It would appear to me that a win over an App or Deleware wouldn't affect strength of schedule any more than a win over a Louisiana Monroe or UAB which has a lower ranking in most systems.
Folks:
The bottom line on all this is that now instead of getting games with Georgia, LSU, and Michigan we'll be able to land games with the Northwesterns, Dukes, and Vanderbilts of the world. Still FBS, but hardly what we're used to.
As far as the Michigan game goes….I actually live just outside of Ann Arbor and have a ball wearing my App stuff. By all means play the game, but understand that everyone here wants revenge so don't be surprised at an ugly score. The fun part though is that no matter how much they win by this time it will never ever take away the embarassment the 2007 game caused….set Michigan's program back at least ten years, and forever destoyed the mystique of the Big House. Couldn't have happened to nicer people.
The matchups between "power" FBS teams and the lower-tier FBS teams will be effected equally to the FBS/FCS matchups, maybe even more so. The lower tier FBS teams will still want some FCS matchups for the "warm-up" games, but the BCS teams that have a chance to win it all (or at least think they will) will not schedule any "softies" due to this new set-up.
John C brings up a good point. While we may not be playing the LSU's, Michigan's, and UGA's of the FBS, we will see more games against the Ole Miss's, Vandy's, and UVA's of FBS.
This scenario might be a good thing as we would have a much better chance year in and year out to compete with those caliber of teams rather than the "top-tier" FBS contenders.
We may be able to pull off a few more upsets? Not that it will matter anyway as we will be in FBS by 2014 anyway….
This will NOT change anything! Strength of schedule has always been a factor, and at that a MAJOR factor in the old BCS system. With only two slots, undefeated teams would be rejected for lack of strength of schedule. What has changed?… now there are four slots instead of two. If anything, it was more important before to have a stronger schedule as opposed to now… as more people have a chance of making it into the "playoffs"…
Use your logic people!
thesuitcase
July 16, 2012 at 10:10 pm
Just a note to you wishing the Michigan game gets cancelled.
“anyone, anywhere”
If App wants to cancel the game with Michigan, I hope ECU never schedules the Mountaineers again.
I have no idea at all what this means.
SpeedkingATL
I enjoyed that trip also. Next trip will not be so much fun. As I said pretty boy on ESPN is going to rip us into a new one. We will come out of this one looking very bad.
Cancel the Michigan game??? When did our fanbase become meek?
Even if ASU loses, the mighty Wolverines will have paid App over $1.2mil to have a .500 record against the Mountaineers. 2007 cannot be erased no matter the final score in 2014. The fact the folks in Ann Arbor want revenge against our program should be embraced. Shy away from no one! Records are meant to fall but that memory will live on past our life times as one of the GREATEST UPSETS OF ALL TIME!
Anyone, anywhere, anytime
Appgrad11,
I wasn't suggesting that it wasn't better than FCS… I'm suggesting that with all the movement from the top tier FCS (us, JMU, GSU, etc.) moving into the lower tier of FBS actually is more like a lateral move since I already see us as being half in FCS, half out… Make sense?!?
If you say that enough times you may start to believe it, that is till about ten minutes after the game is over. This game is all about greed. We will have spoiled a very special day. We have absolutly nothing to gain. Money is going to wreck this sport.
I have mulled over the return trip to Michigan. It will not, hopefully, be as horrendously ugly as was the VT game last year. How could ASU, or a high school team for that matter, play that badly? I felt that VT could have easily scored 150+ points if they had wanted.
The 2007 game absolutely caused Michigan's football program to implode. They even lost their revered coach at the end of the season. In some respects, UM has never recovered.
The money for traveling to Ann Arbor is important to our athletic program. And if ASU can hold the net score under 50 points, it would be a moral victory to some sports fans.
I understand about the money but we could go somewhere else for close to the same money. I grew up haveing Michigan cramed down my throat. Michigan is Carolina on steroids. They want more than blood. They want Blood, flesh, and bone. They don't want to beat us, they want to crush us. They treated us very well while we were there, but that was before they had it shoved in their faces every day by Ohio State, Michigan State, ND and on and on.
Thanks for clarifying. Just a lot of idiots on here who would believe that fcs is not he same level.
broach, you are 100% correct. There is probably nothing good going to coming out of our need for money for our athletic program.
If I win the lottery (or marry a richer woman), I am going to try to buy us out.
And the VT game last year absolutely clarified where we were at that time. Hopefully, 6-7 players from ASU in 2014 head out to the Sunday league. I believe in 2007, there were 4-5 that eventually played on Sunday.
Loyd Carr was already on the hot seat for not beating OSU in a while before we played them. We were not the demise of Michigan football. We did not help, but you can thank his crappy record against the bucs for his demise, then the rich rod fiasco. Remember, they had a pretty good season all thngs considered,dispite losing to us that year, including that big bowl win against Florida . . . unfortunately, another loss to OSU was the end.
bcoach,
I meant that App fans have quite a tendency to use the phrase "anywhere, anytime" in reference to playing the LSU's and Michigans of the world. Anywhere, Anytime applies to teams that have every reason to want to curb stomp the Mountaineers. I was saying if the athletic department backed of a game with the wolverines, then ECU should not throw App a bone by being the only FBS d1 team that will play the Apps. While App has nothing to gain playing Michigan, and Michigan has every reason to want to kill the Apps, playing anybody anywhere anytime even playing games like that.
ok
"I understand about the money but we could go somewhere else for close to the same money."
Sorry bcoach but this is wrong. Take a look at the payouts ASU has received from the likes of UM and LSU. Michigan wants App so badly that they are willing to double up on the payout from $400k to $850k and add an additional $100k if ASU actually makes the jump to FBS. The Michigan payout is akin to App already being FBS and basically equals playing 2 money games a la 2005. The Wolverines' pride has forced them to double down to seek their revenge against a lower level program with a fraction of the resources.
Money has already wrecked this sport and that fat check could help several of App's sports programs. Nothing can ever spoil that day, it really happened. Sports fans from around the nation found out who Appalachian State was that day and it can't be taken away. Those highlights will live on past all of us and will be shown beside the likes of USA hockey, Chaminade, Jimmy V in 83, Pirates over the Yankees in 1960, Boise beating OU in Fiesta Bowl…
…boy, the Boise vs OU was one of the greatest games I have seen!!!!! About all of the trick plays in the universe were pulled.
Isn't it ironic that three of the most storied football programs (Penn State, Ohio State, and University of Michigan) all have recently had serious problems. I am sure this tells us something?
Ohio State's insistence on playing Arkansas in the January 2011 Sugar Bowl, when they were in the throes of acknowledging recruiting violations, was sickening and I will never look at them in the same light. Integrity they do not know. And, did Pryor sit out the following season for a couple of games? What an absolute something, something, something.
GoApps73, actually, yes Pryor did sit out a couple of games the following season — albeit, it was in the NFL but Goodell made him still serve his suspension — although, he wouldn't have played if he was suspended or not.
Well actually it is ESPN that wants this that badly not Michigan. This game may break all viewing records for the first half. After that game is over lets see how we feel about that exposure. See things like USA hockey or Jimmy V never had a rematch. With that said I accept what you have said and lets talk again after the game and after the talking heads are done with us.
I'm of the opinion that we should down play the "upset" factor of the Michigan game as much as possible. The bigger an upset it is, the more we are considered to be a slack division 2 team, like Adam Sandler said.
Huge game and huge upset, but to call it the biggest ever relies on the assumption that we really had no business playing them in the first place, which is pretty inaccurate. The 2007 App football team would have won the ACC. It's not like we were some group of amateurs playing professionals like the "Miracle on Ice."
"The 2007 App football team would have won the ACC."
You can't honestly think that. VT finished the season #6 and #5 in the polls and #6 in the BCS standings. I mean I get that the ACC sucks in football, but VT would have killed you guys. They lost two games – LSU who won the national championship and lost to a ranked BC team at the last second with Matt Ryan. I get that you guys love your 2007 team, but to think that you were THAT good shows complete ignorance about college football. If this is just App vision that I understand, but hopefully you have some ability to acutally look at things objectively.
I am not a VT fan but I can see things clear enough to know that your 2007 team might have fared better than the 2011 VT match up – but to say you would win the ACC which finsihed with 3 teams ranked in the top 25 is just crazy talk.
To say that the 2007 ASU team would've won the ACC is little more than a dream. While there is no denying the 2007 squad was one of the best teams to take the field at Kidd-Brewer, they were still far from being an ACC title contender, even in a relatively down year for the ACC.
App beat Michigan on a great game played by great players that surprised a decent Michigan team. Key words being surprised and decent Michigan team. As an ACC member, if App beats VaTech in the opening game, everyone else in the conference sits up and take notice, surprise over. ASU finishes the ACC season 1-7 maybe 2-6 if they're in Duke's division.
Why do you guys think LSU and VaTech wiped the field with App when we played them in subsequent years? No BCS team will ever take App lightly again and that reduces our chances of another upset. The flip side of that is a win against any FBS or BCS team now means even more, because this time we wouldn't surprise a team playing for an automatic win, but matched them play for play and won outright.
I welcome the return to Ann Arbor, let them bring their best and attempt to exact their revenge. Jerry is a better coach than you give him credit for, he'll have the team ready and pumped up as well. Even if they blow us out of the Big House in the first half, we took the challenge manned up and made the trip.
I think the UGA game in Athens in 2013 is a bigger blow-out waiting to happen. There's a team that will be in the hunt for the crystal ball.
Since it is a hypothetical situation, there really is no way to tell. That said, I do believe that the 2007 Appalachian Mountaineers would have at least been a front runner for the conference championship if we were in fact in the ACC. People were joking that we were better than the Panther's back then. We were damn good in 2007. No ACC team was ranked higher than Michigan at #4. We lost two games in 2007, so we certainly should/would have dropped at least than many if we were playing an ACC schedule, but after beating STACKED #4 Michigan and cutting through the loaded 2007 FCS playoff field for a third straight national championship, it is safe to say that we would have had as good of a shot at the ACC championship as anyone, including the Hokies.
As a UNCc fan, you have no right to call anyone, especially a fan of a storied football program like ours, ignorant. For God sakes you said UNCc would beat us after just 4 years. Perhaps you shouldn't throw stones from a glass house. Seriously, "complete ignorance about college football?" Project much?
Everyone:
While all your points have been good ones, it is very doubtful we will ever see another team with the offensive fire-power of the one from 2007. I still marvel every time I recall the interview with Delaware's coach prior to the championship game where he stated that his team knew going in they would have to score on every possession to even have a chance to win. One App defensive stop and they were done.
What was even more fun…..we were field level at the michigan game, and I will never forget the look of App's O-line when they were getting ready to go up 28-14. It was like they were looking at Michigan's defense and thinking "is this all they've got"? absolutely pricelss.
Dr.
While I normally enjoy your posts and agree with you, there is no way we contend in the ACC that year. It was a perfect storm, we won, lets not get delusional.
As a UNCc fan, you have no right to call anyone, especially a fan of a storied football program like ours, ignorant. For God sakes you said UNCc would beat us after just 4 years.
I was just trying to figure out if you were thinking objectively or if you were using App vision. Looks like App vision and we all have the right to look at our teams through thoses lenses. Fair enough.
I think App would have won a few games in the ACC for sure, but in a entire season the talent gap would have shown up. The hardest thing FCS and low level FBS programs have is that even if their starters can hang with the top FBS teams, when subs start happening the talent gap is pronounced. When VT can bring in a 3rd stringer who is almost as good as your starters and your backups wouldn't make their roster that is a recipe for disaster. You can hang with teams into a 2nd or 3rd quater but after that it gets tough. MtnMan91 hit it on the head.
The fact that I have not had a football for years means I have been watching college football objectively for years without being blinded by my favorite team.
MtnMan91
Please don't misunderstand me. I have tremendous faith in Coach Moore. It is not a coaching problem at all. I am very sure that whoever the coach is at that time will have the guys fired up. Here is what I do know. In NC college basket ball is like a religion. With Michigan fans UM football is the reason there is religion. We had something special and now we are giving everyone and especially ESPN more ammunition to call it a fluke. I promise you will be walking into a completely different atmosphere next time. We all have our opinions none of which will be proven till that time surrounding the game. Let's go kick some ECU a$$.