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Win leads to AP poll changes |
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Thursday, 13 September 2007 |
“App. St. could win the Pac-10,” said a sign held by a fan rabid football fan.
While attending the first home game at Kidd Brewer Stadium Saturday, I saw the sign held up behind College Gameday commentators as they broadcasted from Louisiana State University.
It is not only SEC students who compare Appalachian to the level of quality football played at the big Southern schools.
Similarly, the Associated Press pollsters agreed and instituted an “App. St. Rule” into the 71-year-old AP poll that all Appalachian students no doubt toasted their cheap beers to last weekend.
Appalachian
actually got 19 votes, which puts the team 40th in the country, right
behind SEC football giant Auburn University, according to GoASU.com.
The Mountaineers impressed many voters in the AP poll, according to the Winston-Salem Journal.
“One poll voter, Adam Van Brimmer, said he wanted to put the
Mountaineers at No. 25 after their win over the Wolverines, largely as
a symbolic gesture. He might still do it next week, assuming the
Mountaineers beat Division II Lenoir-Rhyne,” according to the article
in the Winston-Salem Journal.
Of course, they did get the win, but Appalachian may have missed the
window of opportunity because even with an undefeated season, the
remaining opponents do not have the exposure of U-M or even Appalachian?
This ruling puts on trial the age-old height and strength requirements,
not to mention tough high school competition, that eliminate many
athletes from playing at the “big” football schools.
Lenoir-Rhyne’s coach agreed with the poll and probably the sign made by
a LSU student. What Appalachian lacked in size they made up for in
speed, he said.
The millions upon billions of dollars spent on Division 1-A programs
and facilities does not seem that important anymore if ASU can do it
better with 20 less scholarships and less money.
The rankings are pointless, but everyone knows that.
Of the sports talking heads, 80-90 percent hate them, or at the very
least, the preseason rankings that were the culprit behind Michigan’s
fifth rank.
But this Appalachian upset magnified the failings quite well.
Michigan was near the top of the poll and now they are gone and 0-2.
No other sport, or even the NFL, can have a season’s hopes ended so quickly.
Could ASU compete in the Pac-10? Unlikely.
“The main difference in 1-A and 1-AA is the beating you take,” head coach Jerry Moore said after the Lenoir-Rhyne game.
Armanti Edwards dominated one game, but he took some damage and needed a longer break than the usual week.
The bigger story, if one listens to the announcers of literally every
single football game on TV that Saturday, is how much more of a
mouthful it is to say “Football Championship Subdivision” than Division
1-AA.
To me, that took away from the amazing circumstances. Luckily, people
in the know, such as College Gameday and the AP, showed the true
meaning of the win.
With a rule that will have a fallout lasting decades, if not the rest
of our lives, and the phrase that was used so much, the greatest upset
ever, things are looking good for a “3-peat.”
Unless Appalachian suffers an upset on par with the win over Michigan
from the remaining 1-AA teams on the schedule, we may even be able to
expect an undefeated season.
But an Appalachian undefeated season still would not be as impressive
because college football puts much more emphasis on strength of
schedule than a perfect record.
USA Today’s poll has not changed its rule of a strictly 1-A poll, but who cares?
Appalachian can be proud it forced a change in another highly influential poll, regardless of the length of stay on the list.
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