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An exciting start to the college football season: A team that many people never heard of defeats one of the best in the country.
If you follow American sports, then you know we are talking about the Michigan-Appalachian State game. It happened on September 1st at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, in front of more than 100,000 people.
Appalachian State University is in Boone, North Carolina. Its team plays in a stadium that holds about 25,000 people.
The Mountaineers of Appalachian State and the Wolverines of the University of Michigan normally do not even play each other. Michigan is in the newly named Football Bowl Subdivision, the top level of college football. Appalachian State plays in the Football Championship Subdivision.
But they decided to meet for the first time. Michigan agreed to pay Appalachian State $400,000, win or lose.
Teams like Michigan need victories, even a victory over a lower division team, to get into big, nationally broadcast bowl games. These games are worth millions of dollars at the end of the season.
Fans expected an easy Michigan win. After all, in the preseason, sports experts had considered Michigan the 5th best college football team in the country.
But Appalachian State is a two-time national champion at its own division level. And its players wanted to show they could play well against a nationally ranked team. And they did.
The final score was Appalachian State 34, Michigan 32. The game quickly became known as one of the greatest upsets in college football history.
The win has brought national attention to Appalachian State. Local stores reported a huge increase in orders for college clothing and other items. And the university chancellor expects more students to seek admission next year.
The university has more than 13,000 undergraduates and 1,600 graduate students. It has four colleges and a school of music.
Last Saturday, at home, Appalachian State defeated another North Carolina school, Lenoir-Rhyne College, 48 to 7.
The Wolverines also played again at Michigan Stadium. And they lost for the fourth time in their last four games, this time to the University of Oregon. The score was 39 to 7.
