13 Years Ago Today, the Wildest Season in CFB History Started With a Historic Upset

As the calendar turns to September today, this would traditionally be the first week of the college football season — although we know that is very different this year.

But on this date in 2007, the sport's greatest upset was born when then-FCS Appalachian State went into the Big House and blocked a last-second field goal to stun No. 5 Michigan 34-32. And while this is still the lasting image of the 2007 college football season, it was just the tip of the iceberg for what was possibly the craziest season in the history of the sport.

The No. 2 team in the AP Top 25 lost seven times in the final nine weeks of the season — USC, Cal, South Florida, Boston College, Oregon, Kansas and West Virginia. The Nos. 1 and 2 teams lost on the same weekend three times — including the final week, which eliminated a potential Missouri-West Virginia national title game — which had not happened since 1996.

But when we think back to 2007, the lasting image will always be Michigan lining up for that field goal that was blocked by the Mountaineers to give App State the biggest moment in its football history, though it has gone on to great success since then. I'm a proponent of ending all these FCS buy games and going to 9- or 10-game conference schedules with a couple Power Five non-conference games and one allowed buy game from a Group of Five team — and I think a lot of people will be too once they see how much better this season is without spending a quarter of it watching games that don't matter — but every once in a while, a moment like this makes it worth it.