Pace Paw Print

Media Credit: Yahoo.com Wolverine kicker Jason Gingell had his last kick blocked which caused buzz around the nation.

What was supposed to be a "guaranteed" first week win for the fifth best football team in the country, the University of Michigan Wolverines, turned into a David and Goliath nightmare. The prestigious Division I-A program lost to the subdivision Division I-AA school Appalachian State Mountaineers by the score of 34-32, creating buzz throughout the country in what is being called one of, if not the biggest upset in the history of college football.

It all came crashing down around the Wolverines. With a mere 26 seconds left in the game Mountaineers kicker Julian Rauch made an ugly 24 yard field goal which would eventually be the game deciding score.

Even with little time left the Wolverines were still able to create a scare when Wolverine quarterback Chad Henne completed a 46 yard pass leaving Michigan in place for a game winning field goal . Except the Mountaineers were not going to leave the Michigan campus without making some history as Wolverine kicker Jason Gingell had his potential game winning kick blocked as the clock hit zero.

The Mountaineers are the first Division I-AA program to beat a Division I-A program that was ranked on the Associated Press's (AP) Top 25 poll of best teams in the country since the two subdivisions were created in 1978.

The game was held in Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of the Wolverines on Sept. 1 and the two schools were playing for a stadium packed crowd of almost 110 thousand football fans (the field at Appalachian State holds a little over 16 thousand fans at its maximum).

Even though Appalachian State is a school not well known for football at a national level, they have been the national champions of Division I-AA for the past two years. With those titles under their belts the Mountaineers still came to Ann Arbor expecting to lose by more than 40 points.

Michigan is the first school to ever be in the top 5 of the AP Top 25 poll one week, and in the very next week be knocked out of the poll completely since the poll increased to 25 teams in 1989. It is also the first time since 1968 that Michigan was not ranked on the AP Poll for the second week of the season after being on it for the first week.

The last time a school was knocked out of the AP poll one week later after being in the top five teams was the University of Oklahoma Sooners in 1968.

Although they might not be heading for an AP Top 25 spot anytime soon, the shocking win for Appalachian State has now lead to a decision from the Associated Press that schools from Division I-AA are now eligible for the Top-25 poll.

Big name programs like Michigan should be careful when scheduling their "easy win" games. They could quite possibly be very damaging to a school's reputation as Appalachian State has shown.

Article Tools