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Biggest upset is in Ann Arbor Thursday, Jul 10, 2008 By Harry King' LITTLE ROCK - Unencumbered by equal-time rules, this is a campaign ad for Jerry Moore and his football team from Boone, N.C. What Appalachian State did to Michigan last Sept. 1 should be the hands-down winner of an ESPY award in the best upset category. Continuing the pitch for the Mountaineers mandates an embarrassing acknowledgment of the ESPN show and admitting an awareness that the host does commercials for soft-drink "stuff." The American way to sell Appalachian State 34, Michigan 32 is to attack the other candidates - New York over New England in the Super Bowl, Big Brown's loss in the Belmont, and Fresno State over Georgia in the College World Series. The Super Bowl result seems like such a shocker because New England was 18-0 and New York quarterback Eli Manning had a reputation for failing at the most inopportune time. Almost dismissed was the fact that the Patriots had to score late to beat the Giants 38-35 in the final game of the regular season. The Patriots were favored by less than 14 points. If there was a line on Michigan-Appalachian, it was at least 35. Besides, the Giants were division champions, just like the Patriots. Big Brown was the 19th thoroughbred who failed to negotiate the 1 1-2-mile Belmont after winning the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness. He was so dominant in the first two legs of the Triple Crown that it was easy to overlook the training days lost while an acrylic patch was applied to his cracked hoof. The other part of the equation was the lack of quality opposition. Fresno's first-ever NCAA men's championship was simply a best-of-three baseball series between two teams that lost a total of 56 games. College baseball teams are short on pitching and, by the time the deciding game rolled around, both had played five games in 10 days. Fresno was no fluke. The Bulldogs were No. 18 in Baseball America's preseason rankings, but lost 12 of their first 20. Georgia, which beat Arkansas 2-1 in a series in Fayetteville in mid-March, won the Eastern Division of the Southeastern Conference, but was two and out in the SEC tournament. Appalachian State's victory is framed by history. Michigan was No. 5 in the preseason poll and the Mountaineers are in the Football Championship SUBDIVISION, formerly known as Division I-AA. No Division I-AA team had beaten a team ranked in The Associated Press poll from 1989-2006. Remember, too, that Appalachian State drove 69 yards without a timeout to set up the game-winning 24-yard field goal with 26 seconds to play and then blocked a field goal at the end. If an Arkansas connection is a prerequisite for voting for Appalachian, note that Moore, a wide receiver at Baylor, was out of coaching for a couple of years and doing well financially, but was unhappy and called some acquaintances, including Ken Hatfield. The Arkansas coach offered him a job as a volunteer coach. "At the time, we had three kids in college and four apartments to pay rent on," Moore said in a 2006 interview. "I didn't think it was such a good idea to quit my job and become a volunteer coach." His wife sold him on moving to Fayetteville. "My wife got a job teaching second grade and we found a $200-a-month apartment ...," Moore said. "Ken even made me a recruiting coordinator just to get me a salary." Appalachian offered after Arkansas lost to Troy Aikman and UCLA in the Cotton Bowl on Jan. 2, 1989. ---- Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media's Arkansas News Bureau. His e-mail address is hking@arkansasnews.com. |
