Another mountain to climb
Fresh off Michigan upset, App. State takes aim at LSU

Shortly before last season's BCS bowls, I was having a conversation with an athletic director at one of the nation's football powers when he mentioned he still had a game to fill on his 2008 non-conference schedule. At such a late stage, he said, he would likely have to resort to a Football Championship Subdivision (formerly I-AA) opponent.

A light bulb went off in my head.

Only a couple weeks earlier, on the eve of Appalachian State's national championship game, I'd written a column about its quarterback, Armanti Edwards. One of the school officials I spoke to lamented that the suddenly feared Mountaineers were struggling to find a I-A opponent for this coming season.

This was my chance to play broker. "Let's make it happen," I told the big-school AD.

While he didn't explicitly say so, I could tell from his response he wanted nothing to do with the three-time defending Division I-AA national champions, and who could blame him? Appalachian State's stunning 34-32 upset of then fifth-ranked Michigan in last year's season opener showed not only how dangerous the Mountaineers can be but also what a gigantic stigma losing to such a team creates. While the Wolverines went on to win eight straight at one point, there was nary a story written about Michigan last season that did not also include the words "Appalachian State."

Finally, last Friday, Appalachian State reached a deal for its 2008 season opener. In the end, it couldn't have reached any higher.

Reigning BCS champion LSU announced it will host the Mountaineers on Aug. 30, creating the first-ever meeting between two defending national champions. With all due respect to Missouri-Illinois and USC-Virginia, it will arguably be the most intriguing matchup of opening weekend.

"Last year, to be real candid about it, everyone [here] wanted us to just go up there and play good [against Michigan]. Don't lay an egg," said Appalachian State coach Jerry Moore. "Now, they're licking their chops. It's 'Let's go get LSU.' "

Give credit to LSU for going where so many others would not. Over the past few months, Appalachian State associate athletic director Jay Sutton got turned down by one BCS-conference school after another in his quest for a big-conference opponent (the Boone, N.C., school has faced at least one upper-division foe every year since 1982). "We'd come back with, 'However much you're paying, we'll take less,' " said Sutton. "That didn't work either."

Florida State, North Carolina and Georgia Tech all declined, according to Sutton. The Tar Heels, perhaps wary of losing to an in-state opponent, opted instead to play another regular FCS playoff participant, McNeese State. Florida State and Clemson -- both of which are playing two lower-division foes next season -- opted for less-threatening teams from Appalachian State's conference, Western Carolina and The Citadel.

"Of course we don't want to play [Appalachian State]," an anonymous ACC coach told the Charlotte Observer. "It's not because I don't think we can beat them. ... When we play a [FCS] team, we want to play our starters for one quarter, get a lead, and get them out of there. That's not going to happen against Appalachian."

LSU was originally scheduled to face Appalachian State last season but had to push the game back to 2009 when ESPN opted to turn the Tigers' game against Mississippi State into its Thursday night season opener. Ironically, it was that domino that allowed the Mountaineers to schedule Michigan. (LSU paid Appalachian State $200,000 in compensation for the postponement in addition to the $550,000 guarantee for this year's game.)

Verge Ausberry, LSU's senior associate athletic director who handles scheduling, originally sought Texas Tech for its 2008 opener in what would have been a clash of two likely preseason top-15 opponents. Tulsa backed out of a two-year deal with the Red Raiders last month. Unfortunately, Texas Tech operates under the old Bill Snyder school of scheduling -- it hasn't scheduled a BCS-conference opponent since 2003 -- and opted instead for Eastern Washington.

At that point, Ausberry contacted Sutton about moving up the 2009 game, but not without first getting the approval of Tigers coach Les Miles.

"It made his eyebrows raise," said Ausberry. "But it was getting to the last minute. We were fortunate to get a program better than three-fourths of the BCS teams in the country. Nobody's jumping on the bandwagon to play them.

"But it's in your backyard, you're LSU. You're supposed to win these games."

While LSU is presumably a more talented team than the Michigan squad Appalachian State faced last season, many of the circumstances surrounding the two matchups are similar. The Wolverines, like LSU, were coming off a two-loss season. The Tigers should be ranked at or near fifth as well. And just as the Mountaineers exploited a Michigan defense that had lost four All-Americas from the previous season (LaMarr Woodley, Alan Branch, David Harris and Leon Hall), LSU will be playing its first game without veteran standouts Glenn Dorsey, Ali Highsmith, Craig Steltz and Chevis Jackson.

Appalachian State, meanwhile, returns Edwards, an electrifying junior quarterback and the first realistic lower-division Heisman candidate since Randy Moss more than a decade ago. He accounted for four touchdowns in that Michigan game. However, several of the other key figures from that upset -- four-year safety Corey Lynch, who had the game-sealing field goal block against Michigan, 1,348-yard rusher Kevin Richardson and big-play receiver Dexter Jackson -- have departed.

"We have a really good [young] running back, a couple really good receivers who haven't played much," said Moore. "The thing we won't have that we did against Michigan was experience."

The biggest difference, of course, is that there's no chance the Mountaineers will be able to sneak up on the Tigers. "[Michigan] didn't play that hard against us," said Moore. Last year's opener barely registered on the radar screen beforehand and was televised regionally by the upstart Big Ten Network. ESPN has already talked with LSU about televising this one, potentially in prime time, according to the two schools.

"It is early in the process and we have a lot of moving parts, so it's premature to discuss what games we will or will not do," said ESPN spokesman Michael Humes.

Miles actually faced Appalachian State once before, during his first season at LSU in 2005. The Mountaineers, which went on to win the national title that year, held the JaMarcus Russell-led Tigers to 14 points through three quarters before ultimately falling 24-0. A recap of the game on LSU's official site noted that "the Mountaineers proved more worthy than some of LSU's Southeastern Conference foes."

Certainly, the odds will be stacked against Appalachian State again this time. Nevertheless, it's a matchup of last season's biggest story and its best team in a game college football fans won't want to miss.