The Southern Conference football landscape looks a bit different than it did a week ago.
Citadel walked into Kidd Brewer Stadium on Saturday afternoon in Boone, N.C., and delivered a 24-point rout of Appalachian State that not many saw coming.
“Extremely shocking,” Chattanooga head coach Russ Huesman said. “Somebody texted me the score, and I texted them right back and said ‘It ain’t over.’ I thought (the Mountaineers) would come back.”
They didn't.
It wasn’t the fact that the visiting Bulldogs defeated the Mountaineers, it was the manner in which they did it. The No. 10 Bulldogs ran more than a quarter mile on ASU, rolling to a 52-28 victory.
“Citadel is obviously a good team,” UTC senior Adam Miller said. “It’s also hard to go into Boone, though. The App State fans are a very loud bunch, and Appy always wants to protect their home.”
“I’ve been on the losing end of those games before,” Huesman said. “It happens. It doesn’t make you a bad football team, and I’m sure Citadel right now is working hard and continuing to work.”
The upset didn’t come as much of a surprise to Georgia Southern head coach Jeff Monken, whose 11th-ranked Eagles squad was picked off by the Bulldogs two weeks ago
“This is a good league,” Monken said. “There’s a lot of parity in this league. We’ve got a bunch of good football teams, and a bunch of well-coached football teams. I only heard the bits and pieces, but it sounds like Citadel played a really great game on on offense, and obviously did so on defense as well.”
The Chattanooga players weren’t all that shocked at the result, either.
“Everybody was calling me up telling me ‘Did you see that, did you see the score?’ ” junior safety D.J. Key said. “But that’s the SoCon. Anybody can be beaten. These are good teams. You always have top contenders in this conference, and App State is one of them.”