UT Volunteers get ready for season opener vs. Appalachian State
Vols have ‘no intention’ of overlooking Appalachian State
KNOXVILLE — Even nine years later, Appalachian State’s football team is unable to escape the long shadow cast by the program’s greatest moment and one of college football’s most iconic upsets. The Mountaineers are a very different program now than when they toppled fifth-ranked Michigan in 2007, but the association often remains.
After a brief hiccup Appalachian State is back to its winning ways, and it’s the recent history that has Tennessee’s attention as Butch Jones’ team prepares to open the 2016 season Thursday night against the Sun Belt Conference favorites.
“Every time we play a Power Five school, it gets brought up, about the Michigan game,” fourth-year Appalachian State coach Scott Satterfield said Saturday morning. “It kind of hurts us in a way, because everybody that we’re playing always references that game to their team. Coach Jones and his staff have done a great job this offseason of not overlooking us.
“They have Virginia Tech the next week and they’re playing it at Bristol and it probably will be one of the biggest crowds in the history of college football, but they’ve done a really good job of having their kids focused on us. They’re not going to overlook us at all. I think back then in ’07 we probably got overlooked a little bit.
“This year we want to focus on being the best we can every week. I feel like that’s one of our biggest things we need to focus on.”
— DARRIN KIRKLAND JR.
“Michigan lost several players off that (2007) Rose Bowl team, so I think they were a little bit different. This Tennessee team has so many players back off a team that was so close last year to being one of the best teams in the country. I think it’s totally different scenarios.”
For the Volunteers this particular season opener is a similar scenario to the last two against Utah State and Bowling Green.
In 2014 Utah State was coming off a nine-win season and a Mountain West Conference division title and went on to win 10 games, and last season Bowling Green was coming off an eight-win season and Mid-American Conference division crown and won 10 games.
Tennessee won both games by a combined 60 points, though Bowling Green pushed the Vols for two-plus quarters.
“This year we want to focus on being the best we can every week,” Vols linebacker Darrin Kirkland Jr. said. “I feel like that’s one of our biggest things we need to focus on. Appalachian State was an 11-2 team last year, and we really need to focus on them.”
Jerry Moore guided Appalachian State to three Football Championship Subdivision national titles and seven Southern Conference championships from 2005 to 2012 before handing over the reins to offensive coordinator Satterfield, who was a position coach for the Mountaineers from 1999 to 2008, as the program began its transition to the Football Bowl Subdivision.
The Mountaineers went 4-8 in 2013 as they prepared for their first FBS season. Appalachian State started 1-5 and lost in overtime to Liberty before winning six straight to close the 2014 season. Last season the Mountaineers lost only to national finalist Clemson and Sun Belt champion Arkansas State.
They will visit Neyland Stadium as winners of 17 of their last 19 games.
“I can relate to Coach Satterfield,” Jones said. “I’ve been on that other side. I’ve been at Central Michigan. I understand what it was like to prepare your team, and we had the mindset we were going in to win the game, just like they are.
“All you have to do is watch them on video, and they have the respect of our players and coaching staff.”
Recent games against college football’s power programs have produced lopsided losses for Appalachian State. In games at Georgia (2013), Michigan (2014) and Clemson (2015), the Mountaineers lost by a combined score of 138-30. Last season Clemson led 38-0 early in the third quarter.
“I think Tennessee has every bit as fine of a team as Clemson did last year, and of course we know Clemson played for the national championship,” Satterfield said. “We think Tennessee is going to be equally as good, if not better, really. That environment we played in down at Clemson last year was one of the better environments we’ve played in.
“We know the environment’s going to be the same if not better (on Thursday). We’re anticipating over 100,000 at this game. Our players that played last year, which we do have quite a few, they’ll be used to it.”
Jones said this veteran team has earned his trust, but he remains eager to see how the Vols perform.
“From the summer program to now in fall camp, everything’s been App State,” linebacker Cortez McDowell said. “There’s been no intention of looking past them, because we know how good of a football team they are.
“We’re doing a great job of preparing for them so we can play our best and play fast every play.”