Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Armanti Edwards, limited since spraining a medial-collateral ligament in his right knee against Elon on Nov. 14, says his knee is a lot better now.
“Definitely,” Edwards said Wednesday morning. “We get to run any play in our offense this week. I ran the ball yesterday in practice and cut on it with no problem.”
Appalachian State will play at Richmond Saturday in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision playoffs.
Edwards said that he could have run the ball more last week in a first-round victory over S.C. State if he had needed to, although no plays were called designed for him to run.
“One time there was a big hole and I took off running and it didn’t bother me,” Edwards said. “After that I told the coaches I could run if I needed to.”
Edwards apparently is in much better shape than he was a year ago when the Mountaineers played Richmond in the quarterfinals. He was hampered with knee and hip injuries then, and said he was basically unable to run in that game. Edwards rushed for just three yards in that game and the Mountaineers, also hampered by injuries to running backs, totaled just 39 yards rushing.
Edwards passed for 323 yards last season against Richmond but threw a career-high five interceptions in a 33-13 loss that ended the Mountaineers’ three-year national title streak.
He ran for a school-record 313 yards in a semifinal win over Richmond in 2007.
“He’s such a tough kid, no one knew how bad he was hurt last year,” Coach Jerry Moore of the Mountaineers said Tuesday. “He had to have that knee scoped after the season was over, and he also had a hip pointer that hurt him just as bad as that knee. We didn’t really know that. He’s not a guy that’s going to go hang out in the training room.
“In some ways, I’ve thought if we had known that we might have been better to play (backup DeAndre Presley) last year…. We could have spotted him in there, we could have done some things with DeAndre to relieve some of the pressure.”
It doesn’t sound as if Moore will face that dilemma this time around.
“There’s no question Armanti is better than he was this time a week ago,” Moore said.
Edwards said that last year’s loss, and given that he wasn’t at full speed and threw five interceptions, adds personal motivation for this year’s game.
“It’s going to play a lot into it,” Edwards said. “(It’s) a playoff game, we don’t want to go home, and at the same time we get to face the team that put us out of the playoffs last year. There’s a lot of motivation for those two things.”
By Tommy Bowman at 11:42 AM
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Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Blake Elder, former walk on, had a career-best day against S.C. State.
His top performances have been in the playoffs, and Saturday’s game continued that tendency. Elder, helping fill a void left by CoCo Hillary, who is out for the season with a knee injury, had five catches for 57 yards against the Bulldogs.
“I stepped into CoCo’s position for the first time since he’s been down,” said Elder, a junior from Duncan, S.C. “They asked me to make plays and I went in there and tried to do that.
“And I kind of live for the playoffs. You either make it happen or you don’t have a next week, and I want to know we have a next week. I love knowing at the end of the day that I get one more chance to play with these guys.”
Elder played in pain for much of the game. He took a hit in the early stages that left him down on the turf for a while.
“I came across the middle and when I reached up for the ball their outside linebacker just drilled me straight in the stomach,” Elder said. “It was a good, clean hit but it knocked the breath out of me. I have a rib injury and it kind of re-aggravated that a little bit. But as soon as I got up, I was ready to go.”
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Give him a “10” for the flip.
Actually, Dominique McDuffie got 15 for the penalty that followed his post-touchdown exuberance, but that fact seemed to be a mere footnote as Appalachian State celebrated a 20-13 victory over S.C. State in the first round of the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision playoffs on Saturday.
McDuffie picked up a fumble after S.C. State’s center prematurely snapped the ball past an unsuspecting holder on a field-goal attempt that could have given S.C. State a 16-13 lead midway through the fourth quarter. Instead, McDuffie won a race to the ball, scooped it up, and his 50-yard return for a touchdown provided the Mountaineers with the decisive touchdown.
“I saw the ball back there loose and said, ‘I’ve just got to get it.’” McDuffie said.
He celebrated with the flip in the end zone, which drew the attention of officials and resulted in the Mountaineers kicking off from their 15-yard line.
Coach Jerry Moore called McDuffie an “acrobat,” and did give at least a wink to the fact that celebration penalties could be detrimental to a one-touchdown lead.
“He gets a ‘10’ today, a zero tomorrow,” Moore said.
McDuffie was a hero Saturday, turning a potential first-round exit into extended life in the playoffs. The game-changing play was reminiscent of the Mountaineers’ first-round victory in 2007 when all James Madison needed was a chip-shot field goal but fumbled away its chance. The Mountaineers’ Pierre Banks gave chase and recovered, preserving a 28-27 victory.
“I feel like it was kind of like a James Madison experience,” McDuffie said. “Me and Pierre were talking about that in a meeting yesterday. Good teams find a way to win. We found a way to win.”
Moore said: “When you’re in the playoffs, you’ve got to be good enough but somebody could say you’ve got to be lucky enough to win a ballgame like today.”
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Armanti Edwards, renowned as a great runner, has perhaps become an even better passer as his career has progressed.
Consider these statistics:
>His best two seasons running the football were in 2006 and 2007. His best two seasons passing are 2008 and 2009.
>Rushing yards in his first two seasons: 2,741 (6.5 per carry). His last two: 1,516 (5.3 per carry).
>Passing yards in his first two seasons: 4,199 (8.5 per attempt). His last two: 5,406 (9.5 per attempt).
One of the most significant figures in regard to Edwards’ passing proficiency is the reduction of interceptions. He dropped the total from 17 in 496 attempts his first two seasons to 12 in 567 attempts the last two (and the reduction would have been more dramatic if not for a five-interception game against Richmond last season, when Edwards was playing with knee and hip injuries).
Edwards had just two interceptions during the regular season last year. He has just three this year. Over the last two years, Edwards has had strings of 176 and 141 consecutive attempts without an interception.
And perhaps the most impressive fact is that Edwards ranks No. 1 among all Football Championship Subdivision players this season with a completion percentage of .724.
Edwards has been on the money.
“We had a play last year against us where he’s throwing off his back foot and he hums it 65 yards and drops it down a stovepipe into the receiver’s hands, and we’ve got him bracketed.” Coach Mike Ayers of Wofford said earlier this season.
Coach Jerry Moore of the Mountaineers said: “I think everybody got caught up in his running ability and ability to escape, they get caught up in the running part, but he’s always thrown the ball well. He threw the ball well in two-a-day camp coming in as a freshman.”
Now he throws it even better.
NOTE: For more on Edwards and his career, see Friday’s Winston-Salem Journal.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Appalachian State players and staff typically spend Thanksgiving together, in the midst of preparing for a first-round playoff game.
This year is no different. The Mountaineers are in the playoffs for the 17th time.
“It’s a great time for us,” Coach Jerry Moore said. “Fortunately here we’ve done it from the get-go, all the way back to 1989. We have a nice Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving night and the players’ parents that are within travel distance – and some of them come from a good ways and stay Thursday night and Friday night if we’re playing at home. Even when we played at Boise in 1994, parents came here for the Thursday night dinner and we went on to Boise on Friday.
“It’s been a neat deal. We used to bring in speakers – David Jeremiah has spoke, and Franklin Graham speaks – but now of late we’ve used our own players. It’s really been a special night, a special dinner.”
Monday, November 23, 2009
I hate making predictions.
That said, here’s the first and most likely last NCAA Football Championship Subdivision/Formerly I-AA/Actually Called NCAA Division I Football Championship/Otherwise Known as “The Playoffs” contest.*
Post your picks by 12:18 p.m. Friday or anytime you feel like it before the first kickoff Saturday. You can use your name or make one up one if you’re resistant to public ridicule like me, but only one post per person please (try saying that last part fast three times).
You get one point for correctly picking first-round winners, two points for quarterfinal winners, three for semifinal winners and four for nailing the champion.
The first person to name the program in this year’s field that has lost in the championship game the most times will get half a bonus point.
No tiebreakers. If it’s a tie, it’s a tie. You can split the honor and the glory.
No prizes, just bragging rights.
If nobody else enters, I win.
Here goes (comments with your picks very optional):
FIRST ROUND
Montana over South Dakota State (I might regret this one)
Stephen F. Austin over Eastern Washington (Lumberjacks attack Timber Country)
Richmond over Elon (Going with the experience)
Appalachian over S.C. State (Déjà vu)
Villanova over Holy Cross (Probably not close)
McNeese over New Hampshire (Could be close)
Southern Illinois over Eastern Illinois (Definitely not close)
William & Mary over Weber State (The reward for 7-4 is jet lag)
QUARTERFINALS
Montana over Stephen F. Austin (The Griz at home)
Richmond over Appalachian (Strategic pick, everybody and their neighbor will pick ASU)
Villanova over McNeese (Cowboys have had their big road win this year)
William & Mary over Southern Illinois (Don’t think this is an upset)
SEMIFINALS
Montana over Richmond (The Griz still at home)
Villanova over William & Mary (V comes before W, barely)
FINAL
Villanova over Montana (The Griz a long way from home)
*Extremely unofficial, and NASCAR rules apply.
By Tommy Bowman at 10:07 AM
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Sunday, November 22, 2009
The Bulldogs are coming back to Boone.
For the first time in Appalachian State’s 17 years in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision playoffs, it will face the same first-round opponent in successive appearances.
The Mountaineers will play host to the S.C. State Bulldogs at noon Saturday. In last season’s first round, the Mountaineers beat the Bulldogs 37-21 in Boone.
“There is familiarity since we played each other in the first round last year,” cornerback Cortez Gilbert of the Mountaineers said. “It’s good that we know about them, but of course it’s the same thing for them.”
The Mountaineers aren’t one of the four seeded teams in this year’s 16-team field and, if they win Saturday, they could have to travel for a playoff game for the first time since 2001 (not counting neutral-field appearances in the championship game).
If the Mountaineers beat S.C. State, they could wind up playing at home if Elon knocks off No. 4 Richmond. That would run the Mountaineers’ string of consecutive home playoff games to 14 in a row (not counting title games in Chattanooga).
But if Richmond wins and the Mountaineers advance, they’ll play at Richmond.
“It will be different if we have to do that, but I feel that we are old enough, confident enough and experienced enough to go get a win wherever we have to play,” defensive tackle Anthony Williams said.
Quarterback Armanti Edwards said first things first.
“We’re not going to focus on that yet,” Edwards said. “We’ll just focus on S.C. State. If we lose this one, we won’t be playing anywhere.”
The Mountaineers know that feeling.
Richmond ended the Mountaineers’ three-year national championship run with a 33-13 victory in Boone last season and went on to its first title.
“That’s been on our mind ever since and now we are in the playoffs again,” Gilbert said. “We don’t want what happened last year to happen again.”
Williams said: “We have a little different mentality since we went down in the second round last year. We’ve had that on us all year. That’s motivation in itself.”
Friday, November 20, 2009
Jack Branch is known as the “Apple Man.”
You could just shorten it to “App Man.”
Either applies.
Branch is arguably the Mountaineers’ No. 1 fan. It would be hard to argue that he’s not.
“I travel up and down that road every day, just about,” said Branch, 79, who lives in Wilkesboro. “I’m up here at least three times a week, sometimes four or more.”
He brings along a box of apples every Monday, purchased from an orchard near his home, for anybody that wants one.
He attends every football game, volleyball (his favorite), soccer, field hockey and any other ASU game that he can.
“I run into a conflict once in a while, when two teams are playing at the same time,” Branch said. “Sometimes I’ll just go to both.”
Branch, originally form Morganton, graduated from Davidson in 1952 and was drafted into the Army soon after. He served as an instructor near the end of the Korean War, and discovered that he loved teaching.
After his time in the service, he enrolled in graduate school at ASU, earned a master’s degree in education, helped as a graduate football assistant under Coach E.C. Duggins and began teaching in ASU’s health and physical education department.
“I taught trampoline,” Branch said. “No instructor wanted to teach it. But I enjoyed it. And I just fell in love with the place from the moment I got here.”
And he’s been coming back ever since.
NOTE: Branch has a road at ASU named in his honor – the street that runs along Owens Field House at Kidd Brewer Stadium – as well as an award, given annually to supporters of ASU athletics.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Appalachian State’s offense, ranked first in total yards among Football Championship Subdivision teams, and Elon’s defense, at the top in fewest yards allowed, were most heralded going into Saturday’s Southern Conference showdown.
Not far behind was Elon’s offense, ranked fifth nationally.
But it was Appalachian’s defense, ranked No. 54, that stole the show.
The Mountaineers held the Phoenix to 270 yards – less than half its season average – on the way to a 27-10 victory.
Quarterback Scott Riddle of Elon was sacked five times and intercepted three times. The Phoenix wound up with 58 yards rushing and was 3 of 11 on third-down conversion attempts.
Two interceptions by safety Mark LeGree, one of which was set up by coverage of cornerback Cortez Gilbert on receiver Terrell Hudgins, and one by Ed Gainey led to three ASU touchdowns and a 21-0 lead.
“We felt going in that this was the most talented secondary, probably comparable to Wake Forest,” Coach Pete Lembo of Elon said. “The corners have excellent size in addition to great hips and speed. And their safeties can cover. There are a lot of teams in this league that just don’t have safeties that can cover the way these kids can…. It’s a very athletic secondary. It’s a very experienced secondary.”
A couple of the sacks could be traced to pass coverage.
LeGree grinned when it was suggested that the sacks were “coverage sacks.” Anthony Williams, a defensive tackle who had two of the sacks, smiled as well. He said: “Those guys are giving me three, four, five seconds. And I appreciate it. Sometimes it doesn’t happen too quickly, but we get there.”
Appalachian scored three touchdowns right off the bat, after interceptions, but then struggled to get points despite driving the ball well and totaling 486 yards. The Mountaineers missed two field goals, failed on a fourth down inside the 10 and settled for two field goals. The total: just six points in five trips into the red zone.
Jason Vitaris missed two field-goal attempts in a game for the first time.
“He’s like me on the driving range,” Coach Jerry Moore said. “He kicked that ball as good all week in practice as you can kick it. He made one 61 or 62 yards in practice…then he goes and misses two (in the game). He pulled one and he pushed one.”
With Saturday’s victory, Armanti Edwards became the first player in Southern Conference history to be the starting quarterback for four championship teams.
Friday, November 13, 2009
As of noon Friday, about 200 tickets for Saturday’s Appalachian-Elon game at Rhodes Stadium were available for purchase through Elon’s ticket office. The remaining tickets are for seating on a grass bank beyond an end zone at Rhodes Stadium.
Saturday’s game will be televised by SportSouth.
More on the Mountaineers and Phoenix:
Elon’s Terrell Hudgins, a friend of Armanti Edwards (the two communicate frequently by text messaging), will be a focal point in a matchup of two of the most prolific offensive players in FCS history.
Hudgins has more pass receptions than any player in NCAA Division I history (362) and last Saturday surpassed Jerry Rice as the all-time leader in receiving yards (4,812) in FCS history.
“I think if you break Jerry Rice’s record, you’re probably pretty good,” Coach Jerry Moore of the Mountaineers said. “He’s a great player. He’s got a world of talent…. A guy like that is going to make plays on you. You’ve just got to hope to have good enough scheme to keep those things to a minimum… That guy can grab it with one hand or could probably get two fingers around the ball and catch it.”
Hudgins didn’t have a particularly productive day last season in the Mountaineers’ 24-16 victory over the Phoenix. Hudgins, covered mostly by cornerback Cortez Gilbert, had three catches for 23 yards.
Elon won no more than four games in any one season from 2001 through 2005. Pete Lembo took over as coach in 2006 and the Phoenix improved to 5-6, 7-4 and 8-4 leading up to this year’s 8-1 mark.
Lembo on the rise of the Phoenix: “I think we’ve continued to evolve into more of a complete football team, whereas in the early stages of building a program we were a passing offensive team. We really couldn’t run the ball and we pretty much had to outscore you to be in the game. Really over the last two years a quality defense and a balanced offense has emerged. We’ve gone from being a team that got some attention for being able to throw it around to now being more of a complete football team.”
Still out there for the Phoenix is a first Southern Conference title, and first FCS playoff berth. It came close last season, but lost three of its final four games after a 7-1 and were left out of the playoffs.
Hudgins, a senior, says this has to be the year for a complete breakthrough.
“We’ve had the opportunity the last couple of years but couldn’t get it done and that hurts,” Hudgins said. “If we don’t get a conference championship or if we don’t get to the playoffs, that’s really going to hurt. It’s not the way I want to end my college career.”
Mario Acitelli, an offensive tackle for the Mountaineers, is looking forward to Saturday’s showcase game.
“Ever since I’ve been here there hasn’t been two unbeaten teams going against each other this late in the season,” Acitelli said. “We’re getting their best and they’ll be getting our best. That’s the way you want to play for a championship.”
Appalachian and Elon are 6-0 in Southern Conference games this season. Only once since the SoCon was classified as Division I-AA (now Football Championship Subdivision) have two teams met with 6-0 records, when Marshall and East Tennessee State played in 1996.
The Mountaineers have won 18 straight games against SoCon opponents, which is league’s longest streak since West Virginia won a record 30th straight game in 1959.
The Mountaineers have won all six games against Elon since it joined the SoCon in 2003. Last season’s 24-16 victory in Boone is the closest game yet since the series resumed.
In last year’s game, the Mountaineers took a 14-0 lead in the first half but the Phoenix charged back and led 16-14 in the third quarter. The Mountaineers then took the lead for good with a 22-yard touchdown pass from Edwards to Brian Quick.
Edwards, who sat out most of the fourth quarter with a hip injury, wound up passing for 147 yards and rushing for 104. Elon’s Scott Riddle passed for 196 yards.
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