(09-22-2021 08:17 AM)Michael in Raleigh Wrote:  

(09-21-2021 09:50 PM)DavidSt Wrote:  

(09-21-2021 08:10 PM)bullet Wrote:  Note that the top 20, other than the 4 newbies from FCS (Boise, App St., Coastal Carolina and Ga. Southern) are exactly who you would expect. The 9 kings (OSU, AL, ND, MI, OU, UT, USC, Penn St., UNL), the 3 Florida noveau rich and 4 SEC powers (TN, UGA, LSU, Auburn)

1.Ohio State(933-328-53).730
2.Alabama(932-331-43).730
3.Notre Dame(921-329-42).729
4.Boise State(467-173-2).729
5.Michigan(967-350-36).728
6.Oklahoma(920-329-53).727
7.Texas(925-379-33).704
8.USC(854-353-54).699
9.Penn State(905-398-42).688
10.Nebraska(907-402-40).687
11.Tennessee(851-403-53).671
12.Florida State(553-273-17).666
13.Georgia(842-427-54).657
14.LSU(819-421-47).655
15.Appalachian State(640-343-28).647
16.Coastal Carolina(141-78-0).644
17.Georgia Southern(405-233-10).633
18.Florida(745-425-40).632
19.Auburn(784-451-47).630
20.Miami (FL)(637-373-19)

To be fair, this is Appalchian State's second time up in 1A/FBS.

App State fan here. I want to give proper context.

App State was D1 for football (pretty split between 1A and 1AA) from 1971ish to 1977. From 1978 to 1981, they were 1A. But this was in a SoCon that didn't even have a bowl tie in. Few if any P5-equivalent teams would visit SoCon teams in that era from '71 to '81.

To me, App State has been playing at its highest level of football just since 2014. Programs like Miami, Wake Forest, UNC, and South Carolina never visited, or scheduled visits, to Boone before then, even during the on-paper D1 or 1A years.

Most of the schools in App State's conference from 1971 to 1981 remain in FCS today. The exceptions are ECU (who left prior to the 1A/1AA split) and Marshall.

A lot of schools between 78 to 81 were 1A Independents, but still counted as games. Schools like SoCon, MVC, Southland, OVC etc were mostly 1A and others were playing 1AA. The rules forcing schools down a level should not have happened.