MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- Little kids in South Carolina want to grow up and play for the Gamecocks; block, run, tackle in the Southeastern Conference.

Some, maybe dream of rubbing Howard's Rock, wearing their bright orange Clemson helmets before dashing down the hill and playing for the Tigers.

But not many little boys say, "When I'm older, I want to play for the Chanticleers."

Just doesn't happen -- everyone strives to play at the highest level, not the Division I-AA level where Coastal Carolina play. The Chanticleers team is West Virginia's opening game opponent at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Mountaineer Field.

So, when you are one of the young men who have reached the top -- a BCS school such as West Virginia -- how do you look at players who play in a classification a notch down from yours?

"With respect, you have to," West Virginia junior left tackle Don Barclay said. "Guys like that, on teams like that, maybe came up short in reaching the level they wanted to. They know they could make a huge statement by beating us, though."

Just as Division I-AA Appalachian State did on Sept. 1, 2007 when they traveled to, and beat, No. 5 Michigan, 34-32.

"These guys live to upset the big teams," West Virginia senior linebacker J.T. Thomas said. "The same way we work hard for a bowl game, I think that's how they work hard for a game like this. The Appalachian State against Michigan game, that reminds you that, once that ball is snapped, it is all about who does their job that day. It isn't about what their uniform says."

There's a reason the 96-men on the Coastal Carolina roster play Big South Conference football rather than in a Division I conference. West Virginia senior receiver Jock Sanders thinks he has it figured out.

"Most of those guys could have played D-1 football," Sanders said. "But you fall into grade issues, academic issues, injuries, stuff like that that kept them from going to the highest level out of high school. I grew up with guys that happened to.

"Or, there are some who were at the highest level and it didn't work out and they found a new home and transferred to a school like Coastal Carolina."

Such as Chanticleers senior quarterback Zach MacDowall, who enters his third season as a starter.

He was an Associated Press all-state quarterback in Georgia as a high school senior who threw for more than 4,000 yards in his final two years of high school.

MacDowall had those Division I dreams -- and scholarship offers.

So it was off to Wake Forest.

He lasted a year-and-a-half.

MacDowall never played at Wake Forest, getting redshirted before transferring to Coastal Carolina.

In two years at this Division I-AA level, he's propelled the Chanticleers' offense to 3,728 passing yards and 25 touchdowns.

He's just the type of player who Sanders was speaking of; who got a taste of the big-time and then got caught in a numbers game.

And then there are the players on the Division I-AA level who never got the chance.

Thomas, West Virginia's linebacker from Florida, knows a guy just like that.

"Devan James was the best running back I saw in my life when we were growing up, no doubt, and he ended up going to Morgan State," Thomas said. "He played there for four years and broke all kinds of records. If he would have been in the right system at a Division I-A school, put him behind the right line, I'm telling you, he could have won the Heisman. I mean that. There is talent everywhere and I just think about Devan when I think about these teams.

"They have players and we'd better understand that Saturday."

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