Bobby Lamb was articulately apropos when he dubbed this weekend’s football game between the second-seeded Appalachian State Mountaineers and Furman, “High Noon in Boone.”
For those that do not catch the reference, Lamb is referring to Old West showdowns and the Appalachian-Furman game is nothing short of a showdown.
A great deal is on the line: a place in the NCAA Division I-AA championship game next weekend in Chattanooga, TN, and the chance to vie for a national championship.
Furman, the only private school to win a I-AA national crown, has been there before, as the Paladins took the overall I-AA prize in 1988 and found their way to the championship game two other times.
In fact, the Paladins have been to the championship game in this decade, falling 13-6 to Montana in the 2001 championship game in Chattanooga.
The Mountaineers, on the other hand, have never advanced farther than the semifinals of the I-AA playoffs. So, in essence it is not unfamiliar territory, yet one could muse that the Apps have more of the pressure on them this weekend.
Appalachian is the outright champion of the SoCon this season and the program owns the higher seed.
The pressure might be there, but during the SoCon weekly teleconference nobody would ever have known the pressure that the Mountaineers or Paladins for that matter were facing, as both coaches downplayed the game as a rivalry.
That may sound weird put in that particular way, but this is more than a rivalry game.
These teams may own a great deal of disdain for each other on the gridiron, but that is usually in the regular season.
This is the playoffs and as always alluded to by everyone when discussing the playoffs, the teams have to survive and advance.
To make matters even more stringent for those in the familiar black and gold of the Mountaineers, Appalachian fans are nowhere near downplaying the importance of this contest, voting on the school’s official athletic website by an extremely strong margin that this is the biggest football game in the school’s history, with 90.9 percent of 1,043 fans that voted as of Wednesday morning noting that it is thusly.
Nevertheless, these two teams are familiar with each other.
Lamb noted during the SoCon weekly teleconference on Tuesday that, “we probably won’t even have to exchange tape.”
Probably overselling a bit, but a good point by Lamb and one that Appalachian coach Jerry Moore agreed with during the same teleconference.
The Paladins and Mountaineers played arguably the best game in the SoCon of 2005 in the first game that the two teams played on Oct. 8. Furman won the contest 34-31.
That game was at Paladin Stadium, though.
This playoff game is in Boone, NC, at Kidd Brewer Stadium where the Paladins continuously struggle.
Furman has picked up nary a win in the friendly confines of The Rock since 1996.
The Paladins do own the best mark by a SoCon school in Boone at 8-7-2 and own a 21-11-3 series mark against the Mountaineers all-time, but the two schools have split the last 10 meetings and the last five meetings have been settled by a total of 14 points.
The staggering statistic is that the home team has won eight of the last nine meetings, with Appalachian grabbing the only win at the other’s stadium in 2003, 13-10.
Anyway construed, The Rock is a touch place to play for visiting programs, SoCon or otherwise.
If the Paladins should take the victory in the game they would be the first team to win in Boone since 2002 when Wofford downed Appalachian 26-19 in Kidd Brewer Stadium. Since then, ASU has won 17 in a row at home.
Rivalry or not, Saturday’s semifinal between the two schools will more than likely go down to the wire, which will do wonders for Moore and Lamb’s programs, as the game will be nationally televised by ESPN2 at 12 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 10.
One team will fall, one will advance for the chance for a national title.
Only one thing is known for sure: a SoCon team will be in the final.