Worst Moments in Big Ten Football History #2: Michigan vs. Appalachian State, 2007

FanHouse is counting down the ten best, ten worst, and ten weirdest moments in the history of Big Ten football.

Oh, like you didn't know this was coming. Come on. How could the single most disastrous game in the history of the conference not be the next item on this list?

You know the particulars already. Michigan was #5 in the country; Appalachian State was supposedly just another Division I-AA Football Championship Subdivision tomato can who was only supposed to be in it for the money. You know the game came down to a last-second blocked field goal, and you also know that Michigan was doggone lucky that they were ever in a position to win this game. The block happened, though, so the chants of "Down goes Frazier!" spread across the college football world. Appy State had pulled off the greatest upset of all time, being the first Not Ready For Prime Time Player to drink the milkshake of a top-5 team.

The day after, the Grave Dancers Union got a record number of applications for membership. "Overrated!" "End of an era!" "Fire Lloyd Carr!" Gosh, it's hard to argue with people when they're right.

My concern, though, is not with what this game meant to Michigan. My concern is with what this game meant to college football in general.

Though I am but a lone voice crying out in the wilderness, I'm convinced that good Division I-A Football Bowl Subdivision teams have no business slumming among the Not Ready For Prime Time Players. Competition creates competitors. The teams with the toughest schedules usually seem to be in the mix at the end of the year, while the teams that spend September snacking on cupcakes invariably spend November puking pastry all over their pants. Heading into last season, I decided that I would no longer pick these silly slumlord games in Pickin' On the Big Ten. That policy lasted all of one week, thanks to this game.

Spare me your "any given Saturday" pieties. Appy State was known to be a rock-solid program. Most of the big boys don't pick the top-notch FCS teams for their exhibition games. They pick overmatched teams willing to come to the Great Big Stadium and play dead for three hours in exchange for a large check which almost certainly won't bounce. The big-timers get a win that, inexplicably, counts towards bowl eligibility. Some teams (I'm looking at you, Illinois) even have the temerity to schedule two of these stinkwad games, meaning the Illini could go 4-6 against real competition and still make it to a bowl game.

And now, thanks partly to Appalachian State's once-in-a-lifetime performance and partly to Michigan's early-2007 incompetence, these games are less ridiculous than they should be. "You never know," says the fan. "Remember Appalachian State?"

Fine. I promise to remember Appy State, just as long as you promise to remember, when you're watching your team's third-string quarterback light up Eastern Delaware's secondary, or you're watching a true-freshman defensive end dominate a Saint Appolonia tackle who is four inches shorter and 80 pounds lighter, that your team could be proving something today, but isn't.