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The bye week could not have come at a better time last week for Appalachian State. After dodging rain drops and McNeese State almost two weeks ago, the rest of the Sun Belt laid a big fat egg while the Mountaineers prepared for Southern Miss. You’ll remember the rain delay that sent the crowd home prematurely, while the opponent that Appalachian had scheduled years ago for the same weekend they eventually played Campbell, McNeese State, was giving Nebraska fits. Not only did the Sun Belt lose every game last weekend, they lost some ugly ones. Troy fell to Abilene Christian, who nearly beat Georgia State on the opening Thursday night of the season. Meanwhile, those same Ga. State Panthers and Idaho lost in offensive shootouts. Georgia Southern lost a heartbreaker at Georgia Tech in another one of their patented goof ups. Pitching the ball late in the fourth quarter is never a good idea. The rest of the bunch had games that had more predictable results. So what does all that mean for Appalachian? It represents a chance to garner some early respect from their conference peers. Out of conference games are where the Sun Belt and their peer conferences can gain a little attention and can increase their profile. Whoever is raking in wins over Conference USA teams will get some major love from the Sun Belt teams who have been around for a while. Southern Miss isn’t the cream of the crop in C-USA, but a win on Saturday will give the Mountaineers some Sun Belt credibility it cannot get from beating the Campbell’s of the world.



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I'm going to go big and say

The Rock 45

The pebble 14

Also predicting breakout game for a young receiver!

The real Black and gold 31

Mrs. Southern 27

N.P.

Long rifles 28
Tarnished eagles 27

31-27 App

App 34
Southern Miss'ed' 21

In many ways this feels like the ultimate trap game, without really being a trap game. If that makes any sense. On paper we should win. No question about it. USM is just not that good. But at the the end of the day, if we do indeed win this game, it will be one of the biggest wins in App State Football history. That felt weird typing but a win against USM will be one of our programs few FBS wins.

It will obviously fall below the UM game, the national championships, and some of those big Top-10 FCS games (IMHO), but it has to be right up there with all those wins against Wake. Wake was *usually just as bad as USM. I know what everyone will say: we are now FBS so this won't mean as much as it would have 5, 10 years ago...or even last year, our last in FCS.

But just think about it a second: By winning Saturday we will have went on the road to a program with a lot of history, Brett Favre, Ray Guy, many bowl game appearances, C-USA in the tagline, etc. To me a win against a poor USM will still mean A TON in the growth and progression of our quest to build an FBS level program. And I want the players (and the fans) to be excited about it, but not too excited, as it will hopefully be down the hand a bit of "most impressive" moments by season's end.

As for a score, I'm going with a closer game than most:

ASU 27

USM 24

ASU gets conservative with a lead, playing it close to the vest down the stretch, and USM getting picked while making a late drive to win. I believe USM will be fired up for this game, not really wanting to lose to a FBS newbie, and not wanting to lose to a team that many of the Golden Eagle fans who arrive at the other Rock on Saturday will arrive thinking is still a I-AA (FCS) team.

I'm hoping for a more comfortable victory, as I really hate sweating out wins, but the landscape is different now than it has been for us previously. Sweating out wins against Samford just aggravated the hell out of me, sweating out wins on the road against a C-USA team like BFU (Brett Favre U.) is a least bearable, and means much more in the grand scheme of this FBS big boy world in which we now live.

Great post, BigC...

The offense being able to score at will and the defense throwing a shutout had to have boosted the confidence of this team even if it was against a very weak Campbell team.

I'm inclined to believe our OL and RB play will continue to trend upward and our D has shored up the glaring mistakes (missed assignments) from Michigan.

Bold prediction: Regardless of who starts the game at QB: Lamb gets more reps than Kam and has a breakout game along with Ike Lewis and Montez McGuire.

App State - 38
So Miss - 27

No prediction in the score from me - gave that up several years ago as I was always way off --- I will say this - I will be disappointed if APP loses!!! - I will not call to fire coaches, nor bench players nor call out individual players for their performance - However, this is a game APP needs to win and should win - MOUNTAINEER VICTORY !!!

MEN WITH LONG GUNS 24 swamp bait 18

High South Black and Gold 31

Lowland Black and Gold 24

Running backs- 32
Running backwards- 27

bigCasu wrote:This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here »

The bye week could not have come at a better time last week for Appalachian State. After dodging rain drops and McNeese State almost two weeks ago, the rest of the Sun Belt laid a big fat egg while the Mountaineers prepared for Southern Miss. You’ll remember the rain delay that sent the crowd home prematurely, while the opponent that Appalachian had scheduled years ago for the same weekend they eventually played Campbell, McNeese State, was giving Nebraska fits. Not only did the Sun Belt lose every game last weekend, they lost some ugly ones. Troy fell to Abilene Christian, who nearly beat Georgia State on the opening Thursday night of the season. Meanwhile, those same Ga. State Panthers and Idaho lost in offensive shootouts. Georgia Southern lost a heartbreaker at Georgia Tech in another one of their patented goof ups. Pitching the ball late in the fourth quarter is never a good idea. The rest of the bunch had games that had more predictable results. So what does all that mean for Appalachian? It represents a chance to garner some early respect from their conference peers. Out of conference games are where the Sun Belt and their peer conferences can gain a little attention and can increase their profile. Whoever is raking in wins over Conference USA teams will get some major love from the Sun Belt teams who have been around for a while. Southern Miss isn’t the cream of the crop in C-USA, but a win on Saturday will give the Mountaineers some Sun Belt credibility it cannot get from beating the Campbell’s of the world.



please continue reading at www.bigctailgate.com

Good write up. Quite articulate as usual. I apologize if I jumped the gun.

johnoralex wrote:I'm going to go big and say

The Rock 45

The pebble 14

Also predicting breakout game for a young receiver!

Even wider than I predicted. I said 3 TD's or 2 TD's and a FG.

HkyMtneer wrote:In many ways this feels like the ultimate trap game, without really being a trap game. If that makes any sense. On paper we should win. No question about it. USM is just not that good. But at the the end of the day, if we do indeed win this game, it will be one of the biggest wins in App State Football history. That felt weird typing but a win against USM will be one of our programs few FBS wins.

It will obviously fall below the UM game, the national championships, and some of those big Top-10 FCS games (IMHO), but it has to be right up there with all those wins against Wake. Wake was *usually just as bad as USM. I know what everyone will say: we are now FBS so this won't mean as much as it would have 5, 10 years ago...or even last year, our last in FCS.

But just think about it a second: By winning Saturday we will have went on the road to a program with a lot of history, Brett Favre, Ray Guy, many bowl game appearances, C-USA in the tagline, etc. To me a win against a poor USM will still mean A TON in the growth and progression of our quest to build an FBS level program. And I want the players (and the fans) to be excited about it, but not too excited, as it will hopefully be down the hand a bit of "most impressive" moments by season's end.

I agree, it's one of the games I've been looking for now for years. It's us playing as a FBS against a FBS in what should be a fair and fairly equal game. Yes it was more impressive to win against a UM or maybe even a Wake when we played with different rules, but this is going to be our bread and butter from now on. This is APP coming with fairly equal resources and it's down to the will and skills of our players and the leadership of our coaches.

I'm not making a prediction (other than I expect APP to win) because it would totally be a WAG at this point.

Good luck team and let's start a new tradition of winning at a higher level.

ASU (FCS) - 24
USM (FBS) - 35

WAIT WAIT WAIT JUST ONE MINUTE YOU SOUTHERN MISS FANS!!!!! APP STATE IS FBS NOW....

ASU - 35
USM - 24

GO APPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Historically we've come out flat after bye weeks. I predict we'll go down 3-10 early, rally back and win the game 27-13. Cox and Upshaw will combine for 400 yards + on the ground.

And I predict Lamb starts.

Nice write up Big C!

App - 17 So Miss - 15