Blakeney on ESPN2 First Take
September 04, 2007
Caught the “replay” of it and here’s pretty much all of it. Sage Steele interviewed Blakeney over the phone. He wasn’t shown live - just his mug, name, and picture of a phone
On what he thought about Appalachian State over Michigan
It was a shocking event to me, but I wasn’t surprised as I thought about it. I do know Jerry Moore and Coach Carr. Great football men at two storied programs that have been around for a long time. On any given Saturday, things can happen, especially if you have a team that has the personnel that Appalachian State has.
It’s all about emotion, who you think you are and who you think they are. Sometimes coaches can do everything perfectly and not have their team totally ready to play against a team.
On the transitions between classes
The I-AA to I-A transition has been the toughest transition for us. Division II to I-AA wasn’t as tough. We got a lot of players in recruiting through the I-A transfer. The program at App State has been around for a long time. The I-A transition is the most difficult when you transition, especially without a conference which we tried to do without a conference.
What he thinks about going to Florida
I don’t think our kids will be intimidated. We hope we’ll be well-prepared and have a way to scheme and compete with the Gators. I think our guys will be excited to play and look forward to playing the Gators. THey’re an awfully good, well personnel, well-coached football programs, but we’re going in there - they’ll probably have their guard up even more based on what happened last week.
We can’t be living off what happened to Michigan ... (Florida has) a lot of speed on defense, a great quarterback and tremendous skill on offense. The Wolverines and Appalachian State is history.
I think there was too many questions about App State-Michigan, but it was good exposure for Troy.
On another note, I went 15-1 in the fearless forecasters in the Dothan Eagle, going into Week 2 with a three-game lead over whoever is in second place. Last year I was tied for last and in 2005, I held last place all by myself. Lost in the emotion of going 8-0 in the college games (my only loss was high school - Houston County beat Ashford and I had predicted the 4A Yellow Jackets to beat the 2A Lions, which didn’t happen) was losing my lead in Fantasy NASCAR. Oh well.
