The Bulldogs Return
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.”