BOONE, N.C. -- If Appalachian State coach Jerry Moore is
worried his Mountaineers will suffer a letdown Saturday against
Division II Lenoir-Rhyne, he needs only to speak two words: Chadron
State.
A week after their stunning win over then-No. 5 Michigan, the
Mountaineers are playing the opposite role this week: huge
favorites against a lower-division team.
"We've wasted a lot of time in Ann Arbor if we take a day
off," Moore said. "It's all for naught, that's the way I look at
it."
And Moore can tell the story of Chadron State's shocker to get
his players' attention.
Montana State, which like Appalachian State plays in the
Football Championship Subdivision -- formerly Division I-AA --
stunned Colorado in last year's opener.
A week later, the Bobcats lost to Division II Chadron State
35-24.
"A slap in the face," Montana State coach Mike Kramer said
after that game.
The Mountaineers will try to avoid the same fate in capping a
week unlike any other on this picturesque mountain campus.
Thousands of fans greeted the team as it arrived back on campus
after the Michigan win. Players have done hundreds of interviews,
receiver Dexter Jackson is on the cover of Sports Illustrated and
the team did funny out takes for ESPN after a practice this week.
A school spokesman said more than 30,000 fans are expected at
Kidd Brewer Stadium Saturday afternoon, which would shatter the
school's attendance record.
But it will all come crashing down if Appalachian State is
tripped up by Lenoir-Rhyne, a private Lutheran school of about
1,600 students located 45 miles away in Hickory.
Quarterback Armanti Edwards, who threw three touchdown passes
against the Wolverines, promises the Mountaineers will be ready.
"We don't care what division it is. We're going to come out and
play them like they're the best," said Edwards, who has been
slowed this week by a shoulder injury but is expected to play.
The Bears would seem to pose little challenge. Under first-year
coach Fred Goldsmith -- a former head coach at Duke and Rice -- they
lost their opener to Virginia Union 28-13 on Aug. 30.
Starting quarterback Justin Sanders broke his hand in that game
and will be out at least a month, meaning freshman Daniel Anderson
will start against the current darlings of college football.
"I wasn't all that surprised," Goldsmith said of Appalachian's
win over Michigan. "I had seen them practice three times last
year. I told Jerry after one of the practices, 'I may have been out
of this thing too long, but it looks like you could probably beat
half of the Division I-A schools.' He said, 'Yeah, that's probably
true and we'll be a lot better next year.'
It took Lenoir-Rhyne athletic director Neill McGeachy five years
to get Appalachian State to agree to play and renew a longtime
rivalry from when the schools were in the same Division II
conference.
Goldsmith knows he faces a near-impossible challenge. But he
also recalled that in 1980 he was an assistant at Air Force when
the Falcons tied Illinois. The next week Air Force lost to Yale.
So why couldn't Lenoir-Rhyne be the next Chadron State?
"It's clearly an opportunity and we work here for our
students," McGeachy said. "Our student-athletes are as excited
about this game as Appalachian was a week ago."