The Appalachian State Mountaineers are, almost a week after their historic upset victory over the Michigan Wolverines, still the talk of the sports world. But, while Michigan was penalized heavily in the polls that came out on Tuesday, the Mountaineers were nowhere to be seen, not even a single vote for Top 25 eligibility.
The reason it turns out, at least in the case of the Associated Press poll, is that the A.P. rules prohibited a Division I-AA Football Championship Division team from being in the poll.
NEW YORK (AP) — After pulling off one of the greatest upsets in college football history, Appalachian State is still shaking things up.
The Associated Press said Thursday that lower-division schools — that means you, Mountaineers — are now eligible for its 71-year-old poll.
“It’s great they opened the door,” Appalachian State coach Jerry Moore said. “Certainly we’re not going to be the No. 1 team in the country. We know that. We’re not even going to be in the top 10. But if you have a win over a nice football team, I like that it’s not out of the realm of possibility for a school like us to be one of the top 20 or 25 teams in the country.”
Several AP voters expressed interest in putting Appalachian State on their ballots after a shocking 34-32 upset at then-No. 5 Michigan last weekend. But the poll guidelines, which mirrored the coaches’ rankings conducted by USA Today, limited eligibility to teams competing in the former NCAA Division I-A, now known as the Football Bowl Subdivision.
The Mountaineers compete in the Football Championship Subdivision, known before this season as Division I-AA.
The AP decided to make the change because schools that show they can compete with big-time teams on the field should have a chance to be recognized with them in the top 25, Sports Editor Terry Taylor said.
“Why not? The poll was always intended to measure teams that compete against each other, regardless of division, based solely on on-field performance,” she said. “It was that way long before Division I was divided into I-A and I-AA in 1978.”
Since the A.P. has prohibited it’s poll from being used in calculating BCS standings, this move isn’t going to have any impact on Division I-A title runs and, if it means that a team from a small school in North Carolina gets some recognition for a week or two, then what’s the harm ?
