Why Dorman Upset Byrnes And Yosef, The Builder

I was stunned at Dorman’s upset of Byrnes Saturday night simply because I thought the Cavs’ one-dimensional offense (pretty much a running game and not much in the way of a passing attack) wouldn’t be able to keep pace with Byrnes’ potential to score a lot of points.

In the pre-season, Dorman head coach Dave Gutshall told me he thought he had the best offensive line in the state. I wondered about that. The coach is either dead on with that assessment or pretty close to it as Byrnes’ defense is no slouch and Dorman ran right over them. Dorman’s defense was pretty decent but this one was won for the Cavs in the trenches on offense.

The most intriguing Big 16 title match-up would obviously now come in a Dorman/Byrnes rematch. Football fans should hope they see that at Death Valley in early December because it could be a classic. South Pointe High near Rock Hill would like to have something to say about that, as would others.

Also on Saturday, I saw the building of a FBS (formerly known as Division I-A) program, in a literal sense.

At Appalachian State, where I was covering Furman’s game, they’re not just building a new suites and press box level, they’re constructing what can only be classified as a skyscraper behind their home stands. They’ve added to their stadium, too, and when the whole project is done they’ll have 30,000-plus seats and a whole lot of room to draw in corporate bucks, which is what the luxury level is for.

With all due respect to the Southern Conference, which again boasts an App. State team that could make a run to a fourth straight national title as well as very good Woffford, Elon, and Furman squads, the expansion they’re doing at the Mountaineers’ Kidd Brewer stadium is not the stuff that SOCON stadiums are made of.

Simply from a dollars and cents standpoint, they’re creating the kind of place that requires that you get at least one big-name opponent into your stadium either every season or every other year in order to satisfy the funding base they’re likely creating. It’s all about prestige at most places in college football and this appears to be the case here.

An FCS team will not get an FBS team in, except in the rarest of circumstances. But if Appalachian State makes the move up, and say lands in Conference USA or the Sunbelt Conference (their desire to get in the ACC isn’t shared by the conference) then they could conceivably do a three-for-one deal with schools in BCS conferences or on the FBS level. In other words, they’d go play three games over a period of time at, say, Pittsburgh, and in return the Panthers would come play one game in Boone. A home schedule in, say 2012, that features visits from a decent non-league, BCS opponent like Pittsburgh, plus C-USA teams Houston, Memphis, Southern Miss, and East Carolina along with a lesser FCS opponent would appear to have the cache that the corporate backers would find more “upscale” than the names currently on the Mountaineers’ schedule which, in a football sense and on the FCS level are nothing to shake a stick at but they lack those three key letters (FBS) next to their names.

Conference USA makes the most sense for App. State because they could probably go into that league and compete pretty well right away and in return be in the same conversation with some programs that have a decent reputation coming to their stadium, as noted above. I don’t know if that league would feel the same way because conferences assess potential members on things like TV market, travel logistics, and marketing as opposed to just quality of athletic program and university.

Going into a Sunbelt or Mid-American Conference situation would probably be considered a wash for an ASU program that’s been in the national spotlight over the past few years as much as any FCS program ever has and probably has better national appeal right now than just about every school in those leagues.

I’ll be anxious to see that when (I truly believe they’ve passed the stage of “if”) Appalachian makes the jump how short the time period will be for Georgia Southern to do the same as they’ve always considered themselves the most Division I-A-worthy of anyone in the SOCON.

Then, what does the SOCON do from there? Coastal Carolina will likely again clamor to join the league. Maybe others in the neighborhood will, too.