A week off to find the offense
Appalachian State has an open date next Saturday.
Coach Jerry Moore said that it’s a good time to have one, an extra week to figure out what’s going wrong with his team’s offense and fix it.
The Mountaineers struggled to score for the second straight week in a 28-14 loss to Wofford today.
Just five games into the season, the Mountaineers have had three games in which they’ve scored 14 points or less. The last time they scored 14 or less three times in a season was in 2003, the year before they switched to a Spread offense that has served well in the point-production department.
Something’s not right. Moore said that his team has “no identity” on offense right now, and that the aim during the open week will be to find one.
“The open date is probably coming at a good time because of the way we’re struggling and it’s going to take some time to fix it,” Moore said. “If we were in synch and just lost a ball game that’s one thing, but we just don’t have an identity on offense right now.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve been this way.
“We’ve got enough talent, although we’re young up front… That hurts us somewhat but we’re halfway through the season now, too.”
Today’s loss was a setback in ASU’s quest for an unprecedented seventh-straight Southern Conference title, but not a significant one. It’s still early in that regard.
Of the four perceived front-runners for this year’s title, top-ranked Georgia Southern still has all three top contenders to play – ASU, Chattanooga and Wofford.
ASU has only Georgia Southern to play of the four, and that game is in Boone.
Chattanooga will play at Georgia Southern next Saturday and close the season at home against Wofford, which will play Georgia Southern and at Chattanooga on the last two weeks of the regular season.
“The last time we got beat by Wofford (in 2007) we went on and won a national championship,” Moore said. “Now whether these guys, and coaches, have the stuff for that or not we’ll find out.
“The positive side is that we’ve just got one loss in this league and most everybody knows it’s hard to go through this league undefeated. It’s very rare. And sometimes we play better with our back to the wall. That’s what I’m banking on. Sometimes we coach better, sometimes we play better.”
Cornerback Ed Gainey and linebacker Lanston Tanyi, both of whom sat out ASU’s last two games for an unspecified violation of team rules, had their suspensions lifted Friday and returned to play yesterday. Neither had practiced this past week but both participated in a Friday walk-through.
Four true freshmen started for the Mountaineers yesterday on defense, including first-time starter Brandon McGowan at middle linebacker.