VIEW FROM THE MIDWEST: SEPTEMBER 1, 2007

Appalachian State Shocks the World in Ann Arbor

By Paul Smith / smith@collegeblitz.com

This was along about 4:30 Eastern time, possibly the first of many times the expression "ashen-faced Lloyd Carr" will see the light of print this fall.

By the time Carr's 13th season at the University of Michigan has rattled and rumbled to completion, it is even-money the above phrase will achieve "Throw him under the bus," "Think outside the box," "Reinvent the wheel" status with those who discuss Wolverines football.

Lose to a I-AA team (forget the newfangled contraption the N.C.A.A. has attached to teams who play in stadiums with capacities slightly larger than phone booths and with 22 fewer scholarships than the major schools), lose in Michigan Stadium, which to U-M followers is St. Peter's Square, the Mormon Tabernacle and the Taj Mahal all wrapped in one, and a world stops.

"Gone," bellowed one U-M fan being interviewed by Detroit T.V. station WDIV. "Done." You didn't have to ask the meaning.

The opponent's name, a name that will live in infamy throughout the Maize and Blue community from Ann Arbor to Annapolis to Anaheim, is Appalachian State.

Division I-AA Appalachian State, of course.

Boone, N.C. for those of you who ask where.

The mournful lights on the Big House's end zone scoreboards proclaiming "MICHIGAN 32 ... APP. STATE 34" and the words of stadium public address announcer Carl Grapentine -- "The final score, Appalachian State 34, Michigan 32"...and the funereal departure will last forever in Wolverines everywhere -- be they Chinese chemists, British botanists or Livonia lawyers.

Anybody aware the U-M has a football team will never forget Sept. 1, 2007.

"It's not (anger) because you're disappointed," said Wolverines' All-American running back Mike Hart to Detroit Free Press U-M beat writer Mark Snyder.

Hart groped for words and, good guy that he is, avoided the usual cliche crutches. Along with Wolverines quarterback Chad Henne, he is in the Heisman Trophy conversation this year.

And with 188 yards and three rushing touchdowns, including a 54-yard bob-and-weave, juke-and-jive oddyssey to the Mountaineers' end zone and a 32-31 lead that on most days would have stood tall, Hart had seemingly carted Michigan past a potential step into an unimaginable abyss.

This despite suffering a fairly deep thigh bruise that caused him to miss most of the second and third quarters. Had his teammates carried the same sense of urgency, The Score Seen 'Round the World never would have happened. But, lamentably for Michigan, it did.

Hart battled shooting pain to return. "Obviously I wanted to go back in," he told Snyder. "When that happens (a fourth quarter fumble by replacement Brandon Minor), you just get ready to go.

"When something like that happens, I knew I was needed on the field. I had to put what happened (with the thigh bruise) behind me, and I was well enough to go."

Hart's absence had contributed to an offensive stallout and a stunning 28-17 halftime deficit and who knew the Joey Whoozitses and Jerry Whatzitses wearing the white, olive green and gold uniforms?

Weren't they were supposed to come in like grateful Southern gentlemen, bow to the then No. 3 Victors Valiant a few times, and behold the multi-tiered traditions of Michigan football?

Weren't they supposed to maybe provide 1-2 token offensive thrills for their few hundred fans high in the south end zone among the 110,000 U-M regulars, then ritualistically collect their $400 thou guarantee, warm up the bus and not let the stadium gates hit you on the way out?

That was the way it was supposed to be, if you read Detroit Free Press columnist Michael Rosenberg, a reasonable reporter and homilist of some credential who was there to behold this "Alice in Wonderland" phenomenon.

"And the perception," he wrote, "is that Michigan just lost to the Washington Generals. There is no response to that. If you're Michigan you simply cannot lose to Appalachian State."

That mantra followed the U-M team around campus, Ann Arbor, down I-94 to the Detroit metro area, west to the industrial towns -- Jackson, Battle Creek, Kalamazoo.

"What happened?" one WOOD-TV reporter asked a Grand Rapids viewership bereft of answers. "Appalachian State?"

Which brings us back to Carr, the brilliantly-successful coach who, yes, was still ashen-faced Monday as he tried to focus on Saturday's upcoming game with Pac-10 toughie Oregon, which pinned the Wolverines' only regular-season loss on them in Eugene in 2003.

"We have learned how to deal with success," Carr told Grand Rapids' WOOD TV and a thicket of other print and statewide electronic media. "Now we have to learn to deal with disappointment."

The Wolverines' proud defense has been strafed for 108 points, 36 per game, in what is now a three-game losing streak (at Ohio State [42-39, a football classic], against U.S.C. in the Rose Bowl [32-18, not that close] and Saturday's loss).

Twenty-eight first half points -- to a I-AA team. And never mind the App. State Mountaineers, who might actually be as good as a mid-level I-A club, are two-time defending I-AA (Playoff whatchamacallit is the new label) champions.

"We were not a well-prepared football team," Carr told Snyder. "That's my job and I take full responsibility for that."

Even when Hart raced those 54 yards late in the fourth quarter to give Michigan its first lead since the game's early minutes, and the fact the Wolverines held App. State to just two Julian Rauch second-half field goals, including the game-winner with 26 seconds left, could never fully evaporate that sinking feeling within the stadium.

Sure enough, when the Mountaineers ground out the game-winning 69-yard drive, the U-M defense reverted to first-half form, as Kevin Richardson found those tiny openings and turned them into killer drive-sustaining 4- and 5-yard bursts.

"Basically just will power," Richardson told the media. "I think that was their best effort," he later told Snyder.

Uh, no, the U-M players said, almost in unison. "I don't know if we weren't ready or what it was," linebacker Shawn Crable told The Ann Arbor News' Michigan beat writer John Heuser.

And at times, for sure, the Wolverines did look clueless.

Quarterback Armanti Richardson, whose four-receiver formation confounded Michigan's secondary all day, had hit Dexter Jackson for a 68-yard first-half touchdown as the Mountaineers built a 28-14 lead before Jason Gingell's field goal got Michigan within 28-17 at the gun, still drove App. State.

When the Wolverines threatened to take the game over and angrily stuff it in their back pockets in the second half, particularly when Hart re-entered, App. State had just enough left to produce what Hart called "Probably the biggest loss in Michigan history."

Gingell had two fourth-quarter field goal tries blocked, including the potential 37-yard game winner at the final gun by cornerback Corey Lynch. On one, the Wolverines only had 10 men on the field, a point the 109,000-plus assistant coaches were only too willing to let Carr hear about.

When Henne hit Mario Manningham with a 48-yard bomb to the Appalachian State 20 in the final seconds, on came Gingell and failure was light years from both his and the crowd's mind.

But to reiterate, this simply wasn't just any day. A snafu on the Wolverines' offensive block formation sprung Lynch uncontested from the left side and the ball thumped off his chest, he scooped it up and was deprived of a final T.D. by a desperate, lunging Gingell tackle inside the 15.

Lynch's block occasioned the now-infamous David Jackson/Steve Brown 30-second broadcasting scream-a-thon that ended with "That's App-a-LATCH-ian State, nation. And we just beat the Michigan Wolverines in the Big House!!!"

Expectedly, Richardson used his own version of the David-Goliath analogy to the max, talking about Michigan's "larger, stronger, faster players" vs. heart.

And who could argue? Michigan had Hart, which was damn near enough. But on this day where flying pigs, hell freezing over and angels at midfield converged to twist fates for an eternity, heart won out over Hart.

To invoke one final current-day cliche...

Who knew?