ESPN on the upset

disagree. would have been called "Michigan's wake-up call"

Anyone not giving ASU respect is a fool. Yes, Michigan played poorly, but ASU (not even thought of as having a legit shot in that game), played very well, and made their own breaks. You block 2 FG's in one game--I don't care who you are, that's solid. You do it against the 5th ranked team in college football? that's beyond solid.

Give them their due. they earned it.

 

Agree. Anyone calling ASU as good as other D-I programs is likely reaching. ASU played wonderfully, and earned a win. That's enough, and they likely wouldn't want any more thrown at them.

 

Blocked field goals are almost always a matter of poor execution by the kicking team rather than excellence by the opposition. Still, that first one was a pretty awesome play by whoever it was, but the second was just piss poor blocking. I do give ASU credit for being a dynamic, impressive offense.

 

true on the poor blocking, but also give the defense credit for capiptalizing on the error. it has to go both ways. a poorly blocked kick can only create problems for you...sometimes you get away with it.

 

It is true that on field goal an extra point blocking you always have inside responsibility in the line and on the ends, but if you watch the second block, the outside guys who blocked the field goal attempt does a wonderful job of starting hard upfield at an outside angle and cutting extremely hard to the inside. His footwork on that play is textbook perfection from a coach's point of view. You don't just have that type of footwork naturally. that kid has worked on it hundreds of times in practice and it is no wonder he is already a two-time All American. You can see it on that play.

 

That's not even remotely true, so I have no idea why you felt compelled to say so. Appalachian had only five drives of more than 5 plays, compared to Michigan's nine. The Wolverines gained nearly one hundred more total yards, and that's with Mike Hart missing almost half the game. App had a 15 minute stretch, mostly during the second quarter, where they did almost all of their damage. The rest of the game belonged to Michigan, as they outscored ASU in all three of the other quarters, and I think just about everyone felt how it was slipping away from the Mountaineers there at the end. Chad Henne threw dumb interceptions, the defensive backs took dumb angles, and their linemen had dumb penalties. ASU doesn't score 34 points if their players aren't making big plays, but Michigan would have and should have scored more than that if they hadn't screwed the pooch.

Look, people need to stop being dumb and pretending that Appalachian is a better team than Michigan. They aren't. They aren't even close, to be perfectly honest. But those two teams only play once this season, and the time that they did, App wanted it more and executed when they needed to. They won, but it's not helpful when people say nonsense trying to puff ASU up bigger than it is, which is an awesome 1-AA program. Edwards and perhaps a couple more players are solid D-1A quality, but the team itself is not. D-1A speed, certainly, but in overall quality they have obvious weaknesses, which is why they lost to a bad State team last season with much of the same cast.

Stop the madness. Let this be what it is, a historic upset, NOT evidence that Applachian would dominate D-1A.

They came off the edge the same way that every other college team on the planet does, it just wasn't picked up. The tackle inexplicably washed down to the inside when he should have known better, and the wingback inexplicably took the outside man instead of the inside one like every high school special teams player is taught to do. You always take the inside man, and there wasn't anything extraordinary about Lynch's rush that faked the guy out or whatever. It was a blown assignment, plain and simple.

Watch it again (around 2:00):

 

I laffed.

 

fuck espn. they've got the yankees and red sox up their ass. just ask.

 

Lou Holtz saw it coming.

 

Bottom line is ASU 34 and UM 32. Both teams had 7 penalties. Football is about who executes better and catches the breaks that are given them. Every football coach would agree that the keys to success are not giving up penalties and executing the game plan that you put in place. These two things decide who the better team is and on saturday the better team was undoubtedly the Mountaineers from Appalachian State University.




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