Michigan loss ruins element of surprise

ORANGEBURG

APPALACHIAN STATE WENT and ruined it for all Football Championship Subdivision schools such as South Carolina State. Never again will a smaller school be able to sneak up on a Football Bowl Subdivision power.

If you are not familiar with those fancy NCAA titles, they represent the new terminology for Division I-AA and Division I-A football. More succinctly, the divisions break down this way: There are the little guys, and there are the big guys.

Early in the season, the little guys are there to supply a nice easy win for the big guys at a handsome price — somewhere between $250,000 and $500,000. Just about every big-guy team schedules a game like this these days.

But Appalachian State came out of the mountains of North Carolina two weeks ago and kicked college football’s apple cart over by stunning fifth-ranked Michigan. It was hailed as the greatest upset in college football history and was celebrated by every little-guy school from Arkansas State to Youngstown State.

Then the thrill wore off, and reality set in. At least that’s the way Buddy Pough sees it.

“The Appalachian State effect probably has had a bigger effect on those (big) guys than it has on us,” the S.C. State coach said Monday as he began preparation for Saturday’s game at USC. “It has opened their eyes to the point where I don’t think they leave anything unattended in preparation for a game such as this.

“There is too much to lose, and they see what Michigan is going through. That makes it much more imperative that they do what they’ve got to do to make sure that doesn’t happen to them.”

In his sixth season at S.C. State, Pough has gone about building a Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference powerhouse. The Bulldogs have won 26 of their past 32 league games and have a 2004 MEAC championship to their credit.

But beating up on MEAC opponents and taking on an SEC club such as USC, which holds a No. 17 national ranking, are entirely different animals. Pough knows that because he served as a USC assistant under Brad Scott from 1997-98, then again under Lou Holtz from 1999-01.

Pough says he knows what USC’s approach will be.

“Put the game away and get their first-line people out of there,” he says. “That’s generally what we tried to do (at USC), hurry up and get them put away. At that point, you go ahead and play your backups and guys who don’t generally get a chance.”

As for Pough’s plan of attack, well, it is pretty simple: Get out of Columbia alive. Or, better yet, make a respectable showing and learn something about your team. Pough says he will not treat this game as if it is “World War III,” and his players will not be brainwashed into believing they are of the same ilk as USC.

“I’m going to try to convince my guys that we can compete,” he says. “That’s what our main objective is in any of these kinds of settings. You want to go out and actually compete favorably and hang in there. If that would happen, then you go about the task of saying, heck, maybe we might even be able to win.”

S.C. State already ventured into big-guy territory two weeks ago, and came away with a 34-3 loss at Air Force. The Bulldogs managed 160 yards against an Air Force team that is picked to finish near the bottom of the not-so-powerful Mountain West Conference.

That kind of showing is par when the little guys challenge the big guys. The little guys dole out 63 scholarships, or 22 fewer than the big guys. The little guys rarely land big-time recruits, often settling for leftovers or players who might develop once they get to college.

A program such as USC has a larger recruiting budget than S.C. State’s entire football budget. USC has better weight-room facilities, better practice facilities, better training table, better everything.

It all adds up to almost no one believing S.C. State can win.

“They shouldn’t (give us a chance),” Pough says of fans’ opinions. “There’s no reason for anybody to give us any chance. We talk all that stuff about them putting on their pants the same way we do, and they do. But they’re more advanced than we are.”

Of course, the same kind of talk preceded Appalachian State’s victory over Michigan. Now, Pough says, that game has erased maybe the only possible advantage S.C. State had against USC. He says USC understands the consequences of not playing its best against an inferior opponent.

At Florida, Steve Spurrier once said he would be disappointed if his Gators did not put up a 50 spot on one opponent. At USC, he figures his program is not to the point where it can blow away any opponent, no matter how small.

In fact, Spurrier says he does not even have to broach the subject of Appalachian State to his team.

“We won’t mention that,” Spurrier says. “We ain’t that good. We’re not that good a team to worry about being overconfident. We have to play our butts off every week and hope we get a few breaks to win.”

That might be so, but it didn’t help the little guys’ cause that Appalachian State beat Michigan. In fact, that game pretty much ruined the cover for all the S.C. States of the college football world.