Wednesday, January 04, 2012
Scott Satterfield has been “an ASU guy” ever since he arrived at Appalachian State as an obscure walk-on in 1991.
He wound up starting 27 games at quarterback before his first career at ASU was done, and he experienced both the best and the worst of Coach Jerry Moore’s ASU career while he was there.
Satterfield was part of the 1993 team that was 4-7 – Moore’s only losing season in 23 years as ASU’s coach. He endured a season with an unsettled quarterback situation.
“I started the very first game that year as a sophomore and ended up turning the ball over about five times,” Satterfield said. “It was disastrous. I went from first string to fifth string.”
He worked his way back up, and led a much-improved 1994 team as a junior that stumbled in a regular-season finale to winless VMI but roared back to win in an overtime playoff game at New Hampshire. The Mountaineers then gave Boise State a run in the national quarterfinals before losing 17-14 on blue turf.
In 1995, Satterfield’s senior season was a perfect 11-0. There was nearly another stumble in a regular-season finale at The Citadel, but Satterfield teamed with receiver Ron Gilliam for a desperation touchdown pass with little more than a minute remaining to pull out a 28-24 victory.
“We had a lot of players that just had grit and fight, and I think that’s what the whole program has been made of,” Satterfield said.
After graduating, Satterfield wanted to coach at ASU but there wasn’t an opening on the staff at the time. So he sold insurance during football season.
“It was the most miserable fall of my life,” said Satterfield, who landed a job as an assistant coach at Mitchell County High School the next year.
In 1998, Satterfield began an 11-year run as an ASU assistant when he was hired as wide receivers coach. He coached running backs for four seasons beginning in 1999, and then moved to quarterbacks coach for six seasons.
He expanded his horizons and padded his resume in 2009, moving on to Toledo as co-offensive coordinator. The last two seasons, he was offensive coordinator at Florida International – a young bowl-division program that jumped from a three-win season to back-to-back bowl appearances while Satterfield was there.
Today, Satterfield returned to ASU for a third time. He was named assistant head coach and offensive coordinator.
Moore, who hasn’t designated an offensive coordinator since Rob Best left for Buffalo in 2002, said the time is right for one after this past season’s team produced the program’s lowest scoring and yardage totals since 2003. And for Satterfield to return, he would need to do so at least as an offensive coordinator.
Moore and Satterfield both said that the title of assistant coach is not part of any guarantee that Satterfield will automatically take over as head coach when Moore, 72, is finished coaching.
But Satterfield hopes it is a step toward becoming ASU’s next head coach.
“I felt like I could have stayed at Florida International – I get down there and we’ve had two of the best seasons in the history of that program – and a lot of those kids coming back and they’re going to be good next year,” Satterfield said. “But I just wanted to come back here and do as much as I can do…to help this university No. 1 and hopefully prove to people that I’m ready to take the program after Coach Moore decides that it’s enough for him.
“Whether it’s me or somebody else, that remains to be seen, but (athletics director) Charlie (Cobb) obviously told me that I would get an opportunity (to be considered) to be the next head coach here and that’s all I can ask for.
“I just want to prove myself worthy of that….I’ll just do my best and let the chips fall where they may.”
Satterfield will fill the role of quarterbacks coach, and Moore said that three other open positions – as result of Mark Speir becoming head coach at Western Carolina and taking ASU assistants with him – will likely be filled by next week.
Satterfield said that the move of ASU assistants to Western Carolina will add “a little juice” to that rivalry. He said that he thinks a lot of Speir, but personally wouldn’t have taken a job at WCU.
“It would be very, very hard for me to put a purple t-shirt on, I can tell you that,” Satterfield said.
Read more on Satterfield’s return to ASU in Thursday’s Winston-Salem Journal.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Omar Carter isn’t just Appalachian State’s top scorer, he was a leader in making Christmas a bit more merrier for children from needy families in the Boone area.
Carter and his mother Stephanie organized a project in which about 20 kids were invited to the Dec. 22 basketball game against Campbell, got to meet ASU team members afterward and were given donated toys to take home.
Carter said that he was involved in a similar Operation Christmas Child community project when he was at Charleston Southern before transferring to ASU.
“The whole team got involved with this,” Carter said. “We signed autographs, gave out toys, played ball with the kids and just talked to them. It was very nice, and they all seemed to leave happy.”
Carter, a Sociology major from Charlotte, said that he loves working with children.
“And not everybody has what they need and this was a way to give back to the community,” he said. “I love doing this.”
Sunday, December 04, 2011
Looking ahead to 2012, a quick survey of returning starters for Appalachian State (includes players who started at least half of this season’s games at their respective position):
OFFENSE (4) – QB Jamal Jackson, WR Andrew Peacock, WR Tony Washington, C Alex Acey.
DEFENSE (8) – DE Ronald Blair, DE James Robinson, LB Brandon Grier, LB Jeremy Kimbrough, SS Troy Sanders, FS Dominique McDuffie, CB Demetrius McCray, CB Rodger Walker.
Saturday, December 03, 2011
Appalachian State’s lack of run-game production caught up in a big way today, and its season ended in a 34-12 loss to Maine in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision playoffs.
The Mountaineers, who totaled 275 yards overall, had only three yards rushing on 25 carries.
It was their lowest rushing total ever in a playoff game. The previous low was 28 in 2000 against Montana.
It was their lowest total overall since a minus-one yard performance against Northwestern State in 2004.
ASU entered this season with a string of six straight seasons with 10 or more wins. That streak ended today. The Mountaineers finished 8-4.
Today’s attendance of 15,291 at Kidd Brewer Stadium was the second-largest for an ASU playoff opener. The largest crowd for a playoff opener was 16,223 against Coastal Carolina in 2006.
Senior Brian Quick added one more receiving record. He became ASU’s all-time leader with 202 career receptions, breaking the previous record of 200 by DaVon Fowlkes. Quick set school records for career receiving yards (3,418) and touchdown catches (31) earlier this season.
Friday, December 02, 2011
Appalachian State hasn’t lost its opening game in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision playoffs since it began its now-seven-year run of playoff appearances in 2005.
The Mountaineers have won six straight and are 12-6 overall in playoff openers.
Their last loss in a playoff opener was to Maine, in 2002.
ASU isn’t a seeded team in this year’s playoff field, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The Mountaineers are 6-1 in their last seven playoff games as an unseeded team. They won the 2007 national title and got to the semifinals in 2009 without the benefit of a seed.
Quarterback Jamal Jackson said that he’s fine with the fact that his team is in more of an underdog role this season than it’s been in recent seasons.
“We just need to come out and play our game, it doesn’t matter if we’re the top dog or underdog,” Jackson said.
Coach Jack Cosgrove of Maine is wary of displaced quarterback DeAndre Presley, who has done a variety of things since Jackson took over – from playing defensive back, returning punts to most recently being at receiver.
“It has made it much more difficult to defend them as an offense with Jackson and Presley perhaps on the field at the same time,” Cosgrove said. “That’s a challenge in itself right there. Presley is now doing other things on the offense that really make him much more of a concern as you try to defend them.”
This is the sixth straight season that ASU has faced an opponent from the Colonial Athletic Association in the playoffs. The game against Maine will mark the eighth time in the Mountaineers’ last 13 playoff games that they’ve faced a CAA team.
Overall, the Mountaineers are 9-3 against CAA opponents in playoff games.
ASU and Maine have met once before – in the 2002 playoffs. Maine won 14-13 in Boone.
Cosgrove said that there isn’t much to draw from in regard to the 2002 game, however.
“I think it’s way too long ago, and it’s different styles of football,” he said. “We were an I formation, tailback-oriented team back then. We were down to our third-string quarterback so we were very, very conservative that day. We’re no longer in any way, shape or form built on offense like that now. Nor on defense. We were an eight-man front on defense then.
“Football is played a little differently now. We’re in the Spread game, using the sideline-to-sideline attack. And certainly Appalachian State was constructed entirely different then. They were more of a tailback-oriented team at that point as well. It was kind of an old-fashioned type of game when we played them.”
Most of both team’s players were in grade school then.
“There aren’t a lot of guys who are going to have recollection of it other than Coach (Jerry) Moore and myself,” Cosgrove said
ASU and Maine, both 8-3, are virtually identical in terms of statistics this season.
ASU has generated an average of 401 yards and 30 points a game from its Spread offense this season. Maine, which also runs the Spread, is averaging 372 yards and 30 points. Both rely on the passing game for most of the yardage. The Mountaineers average 231 a game passing; the Black Bears average 240.
Defensively, ASU has allowed an average of 343 yards and 23 points a game. Maine has allowed 348 yards and 24 points.
Read more on the ASU-Maine playoff game in Saturday’s Winston-Salem Journal.
Monday, November 28, 2011
This is a story published Dec. 1, 2002, in the Winston-Salem Journal about the first-round playoff game in 2002 between Appalachian State and Maine. The teams will meet again in the playoffs Saturday in Boone.
MAINE KNOCKS APPALACHIAN STATE OUT OF PLAYOFFS
BLACK BEARS RALLY FROM EARLY DEFICIT, EDGE MOUNTAINEERS 14-13 IN FIRST ROUND
BOONE
By Tommy Bowman
JOURNAL REPORTER
With three minutes left in the third quarter of yesterday’s Division I-AA playoff game, Appalachian State appeared well on the way to extending its season for at least one more week.
The Mountaineers had a double-digits lead and a shutout, but they didn’t finish. Their season ended as result, as Maine swept to a 14-13 first-round victory at Kidd Brewer Stadium.
The Black Bears (11-2) will play Georgia Southern in next weekend’s quarterfinals.
“Our team continues to persevere,” said Coach Jack Cosgrove, whose Bears have won 10 of their last 12 road games, including a first-round playoff victory at McNeese State last season. “We found another way to win. We found big plays from our offense, and our defense really responded.”
Other than a 1-for-12 performance by the Mountaineers on third-down conversions, the game was basically a statistical deadlock.
But it wasn’t that way throughout.
The Mountaineers outgained the Bears 154 yards to 50 in the third quarter and built a 10-0 lead. But the Black Bears took charge in the decisive fourth quarter, outgaining the Mountaineers 138-26.
“(Maine) never panicked, I think that was pretty obvious,” said Coach Jerry Moore, whose Mountaineers finished 8-4.
Josh Jeffries, Appalachian’s All-America defensive end who played with the flu and had to take an IV at halftime, said: “We gave up some key plays, that’s been our problem all year long. We play hard, it’s just always minus a couple of plays.”
After a scoreless first half, the Mountaineers found some offense on the first play of the second half.
Jerry Beard (119 yards on 18 carries) took a pitch around the left side for a career-best 56-yard run. Four plays later, Joe Burchette scored the first points on a 1-yard plunge.
The Mountaineers followed with a 63-yard drive that stalled inside the 10 but got a 19-yard field goal from Mark Wright to go ahead 10-0.
“We felt pretty good at that point,” Beard said.
But things turned in a hurry.
Burchette, who completed 9 of 17 passes for 73 yards on a blustery day, was pressured on a third-down play from his 9 and threw a high pass across the middle that got caught in the wind.
Joan Quezada intercepted at the 33, and three plays later, Ryan Waller scored on a 27-yard pass from Jon Meczywor. The Bears trailed 10-7 with 1:26 left in the third quarter.
The Mountaineers took a 13-7 lead on Wright’s 47-yard field goal 13 seconds into the fourth quarter.
The Bears, however, drove 80 yards for the winning touchdown. Two third-down conversions were part of the drive, including a catch of a tipped pass by Kevin McMahan on a third-and-7 play from the Mountaineers’ 39.
After an offensive pass-interference penalty against Maine had the Bears facing first and 25 at the 41, tailback Marcus Williams broke through the line for the go-ahead 41-yard touchdown with 9:41 left.
“He hit the hole about as hard as he had all day, and nobody was there to tackle him,” Jeffries said. Williams had a game-high 157 yards on 29 carries.
The Mountaineers drove to the Bears’ 39 on their final possession but stalled. They decided to punt with 4:50 left, and Andrew Layton couldn’t hang on to Nate McKinney’s pooch attempt that would have nailed the Bears at the 2.
“I didn’t want to give them the ball right there (at the 39),” Moore said of the decision to punt, feeling that the Mountaineers were out of field-goal range. “There were five minutes to go, and I thought we’d get the ball back.”
But the Mountaineers never did.
The Black Bears, converting on three third-down plays, stuck to the ground, drove from their 20 to the Mountaineers’ 42 and used up the remaining time.
“That was huge,” said Meczywor, a sophomore who started for the second time as a fill-in for injured senior Jake Eaton. “Everybody knew it too, in the huddle.
“Every first down was closer to a win.”
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Observations and statistics on ASU’s offense and defense this season:
The offense hasn’t been as good, but the defense has been a bit better.
You probably didn’t need me to tell you that. But the numbers do back it up.
The most striking drops on offense are in the running game and red-zone touchdown production.
The 169.7 yards a game rushing are the fewest since the 2004 team had just 102.9. Of course, the 2004 team, the first to operate from the Spread offense, holds the school record for passing yards.
This season’s team has scored 31 touchdowns from red-zone opportunities. That’s the lowest regular-season total since 2003. The red-zone scoring rate (79.6 percent) is about the same as last year.
Overall on offense, the Mountaineers are averaging 400.7 yards and 30.2 points a game. The yardage total has extended the string of 400-plus-yard offenses to eight seasons in a row, but is the lowest since the 2003 team averaged just 296 a game. The point average is also the lowest since 2003’s average of 22.9, but about the same as the 2005 team that won the first national title.
The Spread production hit its peak from 2007 through 2009, when the Mountaineers averaged 464 to 488 yards a game.
Some possible reasons why the offensive production is down this season: offensive line performance, inexperience and attrition; adjustment to a different quarterback; improved SoCon opponents; and teams have a better handle on defending elements of the Spread offense than a few years ago. And two irreplacable components of those national-title years: Armanti Edwards was so dynamic, and Kevin Richardson such a reliable running back.
Defensively, ASU’s numbers of 343.1 yards allowed and 22.9 points allowed per game are a shade better than last season’s total. But the 66 points and 518 yards allowed against Virginia Tech skew those numbers a bit. This season’s defensive totals are much better than in 2007, but that 2007 team was so prolific on offense it almost didn’t need defense.
Speaking of which, it’s interesting to consider the 2006 and 2007 national-title teams.
The 2006 team posted remarkable defensive numbers. That team allowed just 277 yards and 14.9 points a game.
The 2007 team was all about offense. It averaged 488 yards and 42.7 points a game – both school records. Perhaps the most incredible statistic from that team was red-zone efficiency. It scored 69 out of 75 times inside the 20-yard line, 92 percent of the time.
Read more on the Mountaineers’ offense and defense as well as playoff prospects in Friday’s Winston-Salem Journal.
By Tommy Bowman at 05:33 PM
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Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Offensive tackle Kendall Lamm has been dismissed from Appalachian State’s program by coach Jerry Moore for “conduct that is not appropriate for an Appalachian State football player.”
According to ASU’s sports-information department, Lamm did not break any laws or violate any university policies. He will remain on scholarship for the rest of this semester.
Lamm, 6-foot-6, 280-pound freshman from Charlotte, started the first seven games this season at left tackle before missing two straight games with an ankle injury. He didn’t start but played in last Saturday’s game against Western Carolina.
Jerry Moore moved past his former boss Hayden Fry on the all-time victory list for NCAA Division I coaches last Saturday.
Moore won for the 233rd time, which ranks 18th on the all-time list.
Fry won 232 games as head coach at SMU, North Texas and Iowa.
Moore played at Baylor when Fry was a position coach there. And Moore’s first job as an assistant coach at the collegiate level was under Fry from 1965 through 1972 at SMU.
Fry, 82, retired in 1998 after 20 years as coach at Iowa. Moore said that he still calls periodically.
“In fact, I’ll probably get a call from him tonight,” Moore said Saturday, after passing Fry on the victory list.
“He’s always been an inspiration to me,” Moore said. “He’s a high-energy, highly-motivated kind of guy. I wish I had half his energy, and his optimism.”
Moore said that he learned a lot from Fry.
“I learned you don’t go by the book,” he said.
He recalled SMU’s victory over Oklahoma in the 1968 Bluebonnet Bowl, and how Fry’s out-of-the-box thinking helped secure that victory.
“Sometimes Hayden would do things that were not orthodox,” Moore said. “He’d take tight ends – and we didn’t have tight ends that look like Ben Jorden – so he’d take wide outs and stand them up in tight end positions. Everybody thought it was ridiculous. So he goes to Iowa and does that and they (go to) the Rose Bowl.
“We line up in what we call the Spread offense, but he called it the Flying Wishbone. The media guys there in Dallas wore him out about it because we went up to Oklahoma and just got beat bad with it. Then, two years later, everybody’s trying to do that Flying Wishbone deal.
“He was just very innovative. I had great experiences, and he was a great guy to work for. I’ve always been appreciative of him. I’ve been one of the most blessed coaches to work for him, Tom Osborne and Ken Hatfield. It doesn’t get any better than that.”
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Jason Swepson, Elon’s first-year head coach, spent two days visiting with Appalachian State’s offensive staff and observing practice in the spring of 2010 when he was an assistant coach at N.C. State.
Swepson, whose Elon team will play ASU on Saturday, liked what he saw.
“I was just very impressed with the way they practice, how physical they practice and their attention to detail,” Swepson said.
“I remember watching practice, and every drill they tackled. I asked Coach (Jerry) Moore after practice and said, ‘Coach, are you concerned about guys getting hurt?’ He said, ‘Well, they get hurt they’re not tough enough.’”
Swepson said that he’s tried to incorporate similar traits in his practices.
“That’s something we’re trying to get done here at Elon – to be physical every time you put the helmets and shoulder pads on, even in practice,” he said.
Starting guard Matt Ruff, who sustained a head injury against Western Carolina, is considered questionable for Saturday’s game at Elon. Regan Dufort, a backup tackle, is also questionable with an ankle injury.
Running back Cedrick Baker Boney, who has missed the last four games with an a shoulder injury, could be available for the Elon game. He has been upgraded to questionable.
The Mountaineers are a bit healthier overall than they were midseason, and Moore said that being able to spread out the playing time among a lot of players in last Saturday’s 46-14 victory over Western was helpful.
“We’re 10 games into the season, and we’ve redshirted quite a few kids this year, so we’re a little bit thin in some spots but for 10 games into the season we’re probably about as good (health-wise) as anybody else is,” Moore said.
Two players got their first start and another his first game action for ASU last Saturday against Western Carolina. Running back Steven Miller started in a two-back set, and safety Jamill Lott, a former receiver, made his first start when the Mountaineers opened with five defensive backs.
Miller led the Mountaineers in rushing with 76 yards on 11 carries. Lott had three tackles.
Reserve quarterback Kalik Barnes made his playing debut. He had five carries for 29 yards in fourth-quarter duty.
Brian Quick, who last Saturday became ASU’s all-time leader with 3,227 receiving yards, has been added to the official watch list for the 2011 Walter Payton Award. Quick is one of 20 players under consideration for the award, which is given annually to the top player in the Football Championship Subdivision.
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