![]() LSU was beating them 14-0 at halftime, and had dropped two open touchdown passes. And I was at LSU in ’05 when Appalachian State came to LSU. … What people misunderstood was you had back-to-back national champion players on that team. I used to raise hell all the time, talk smack to the players. I said, “Guys, you’re going to hear this all day long in the freakin’ Big House.” I played the Michigan fight song all week long in the weight room. Jeff Dillman, Appalachian State strength coach 2006-09, current Florida strength coach I had a feeling-a gut feeling-the whole week of the game. I remember us defensive coaches wondering what they were smoking in their room. Mark Speir, Appalachian State defensive line coach 2005-08, current Western Carolina head coach Those offensive guys were telling us they were going to score points on them. They wanted to see what things we were doing to utilize Tim at quarterback. ![]() We were changing because we had Tim Tebow coming in as the starter that year, and they had a really athletic quarterback. From that point on, I always referred to it as an “opportunity game.”ĭan Mullen, Florida offensive coordinator 2004-08, current Mississippi State head coach staff was there in the spring just to see how we ran practice. Every once in a while, I’ll stumble around and say something that’s got some substance to it. North Carolina State, Wake Forest, LSU, they were always referred to as money games. Most people refer to games like that as “money games.” We play Auburn, it’s a money game. My first thought was, Whatever it takes, let’s play ’em. Jerry Moore, Appalachian State head coach, 1989-2012 Jay Sutton came to me and said Michigan had contacted him about a game. He was our associate AD for football operations, and he handles the scheduling for football. I saw those articles and I forwarded them to Jay Sutton. Somebody had dropped a game with Michigan real late. We were actually two games short on our schedule. Mike Flynn, Appalachian State associate athletic director/communications We were struggling to find games. The price tag for the expected beating: $400,000. The Wolverines would pay Appalachian State to come from tiny Boone, N.C., to Michigan Stadium. This left Michigan desperate for a season-opening opponent. ESPN brokered a game in ’06 between Michigan and Vanderbilt, but the Commodores declined a rematch in ’07. This left programs scrambling to fill their schedules, which were usually set years in advance. In 2005, schools voted to approve an NCAA rule that allowed a 12th regular-season game beginning in the 2006 season. And as a new Appalachian State team prepares to face a new Michigan team in the Big House on Saturday, SI looks back at how the 2007 Mountaineers changed their lives forever by vanquishing the Victors. Appalachian State had fewer football scholarships and far fewer resources than Michigan, then the winningest and always one of the wealthiest programs in the Football Bowl Subdivision.īut it was a huge upset, maybe the biggest in the history of the sport. ![]() On game day, 109,218 souls populated Michigan Stadium. They played in a stadium that at the time seated 16,650. The Mountaineers had won those national titles in the Football Championship Subdivision. None of them would have been recruited by Michigan. Only later did the magnitude of their achievement dawn on the Appalachian State players. As they headed to Ann Arbor, the Mountaineers didn’t consider the fifth-ranked Wolverines the Goliath they were made out to be after the game. 1, 2007 doesn’t sound like such a monumental upset. Put that way, Appalachian State’s 34-32 win on Sept. It had offensive linemen who literally ate raw meat. It had a receiver who would go on to run an electronically timed 4.33-second 40-yard dash at the next NFL combine. One team had won two consecutive national titles and was headed toward a third.
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