Cowboys show no fear in face of long odds (9/14)

Posted September 13, 2009 at 11:34 pm
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There is a sandwich known as the Cowpoke at the fine downtown Boone, N.C., establishment Macado’s. Despite being delicious, it did not appear to be a very popular menu item Saturday night. Hopefully, it will not find its way off the menu in light of recent events that have left the locals despondent.

They were still scratching their heads in Boone well into Sunday, no one quite certain what they witnessed this weekend. People don’t walk into The Rock and score at will against an Appalachian State defense. No opponent had put 40 on the board there since Furman in 1978.

And it wasn’t as if the Mountaineers looked bad — they just ran into someone that looked that much better.

Of course, Appalachian State fans weren’t the only ones left dumbfounded by what went down in their backyard. That includes the present company, who so boldly proclaimed that the matchup represented the “least winnable game” on the McNeese schedule.

It made sense on the surface. Since the beginning of the 2003 season, a grand total of two other teams had earned road wins at The Rock — Georgia Southern and Richmond. Richmond did a particularly noteworthy job of backing it up, proceeding to win last year’s national championship.

Predicting a McNeese victory in that venue would be like picking Y.E. Yang to beat Tiger Woods in the final round of this year’s PGA Championship. Woods’ record with a lead in the final round of tournaments is pretty much comparable to Appalachian State’s home mark in the past six years.

Sometimes it turns out that being wrong is the best part of the job.

Just as Yang did the unthinkable in August, McNeese was able to take down the Tiger Woods of recent Football Championship Subdivision history. Both underdogs had something in common against the unlikely odds. They were fearless, and flawless. Or certainly near-flawless.

In just about every phase of the game, the Cowboys seemed to dial up the equivalent of Yang’s stunning approach shot to the 18th green at the PGA.

Matt Viator and his staff figured out how to attack the Appalachian State defense, using passes to tight end Corday Clark and running back Toddrick Pendland that gave the slower linebackers trying to cover them fits.

On a pair of fourth-down plays in the final quarter, Viator decided to go for the first down rather than settling for a field goal or punt. Both times, it worked.

Quarterback Derrick Fourroux likely had the finest game of his career, matching Payton Award winner Armanti Edwards blow-for-blow.

The defensive line that was shoved around by Henderson State in Week 1? It bit back against the Mountaineers with one of the more significant plays in a game that featured a never-ending cavalcade of such plays.

Early in the fourth, defensive end Josh Ellison sacked Edwards for an 8-yard loss that pushed Appalachian State out of field-goal range. The ensuing punt set up the 95-yard drive that the Cowboys used to retake the lead.

If Saturday was any indication, by the end of the season it might turn out that the Henderson State game was the best thing that ever could have happened to the Cowboys. It’s certainly not what anyone would have predicted.

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ALEX HICKEY covers McNeese State athletics. E-mail him at ahickey@americanpress.com.

Rating: 4.3/5 (6 votes cast)

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