Where are we at as Appalachian football?

[WASU 93]

I honestly liked the more plays per game. It has been frustrating at times over the years of our intentional slow pace of play. I think slow pace lead to stalled drives sometimes too. A little more tempo at appropriate times this year helped us. Want more!

They mentioned during the bowl game broadcast that the coaches adapted to Joey. He thrived on having more tempo, so they increased it.

Tempo is always fun as long as you are not going 3 and out and gassing your defense. If you are moving the chains, it works and it limits defensive subs. (and some teams used it against our defense this year)

[JTApps1]

A lot of people expected us to win eight or nine games going into the year due to all of the new faces on both sides of the ball and on the sidelines. That was prior to losing Burger, White, McKnight, and Harrington prior to/early on this season. Credit to the coaches and players for making the necessary adjustments to still hit the nine win mark.

[t4pizza]

I honestly liked the more plays per game. It has been frustrating at times over the years of our intentional slow pace of play. I think slow pace lead to stalled drives sometimes too. A little more tempo at appropriate times this year helped us. Want more!

They mentioned during the bowl game broadcast that the coaches adapted to Joey. He thrived on having more tempo, so they increased it.

Tempo is always fun as long as you are not going 3 and out and gassing your defense. If you are moving the chains, it works and it limits defensive subs. (and some teams used it against our defense this year)

I heard them say the same thing, but I really don't think we have used much tempo at all this year. Hell, at times it seemed as if our offense ran anything but tempo. I can think of too many games watching the offense look over at the sideline while the clock ticked down, sometimes intentionally but still it was hardly tempo. I chalked that up to broadcasters not really knowing our team.

[Bootsy]

A lot of people expected us to win eight or nine games going into the year due to all of the new faces on both sides of the ball and on the sidelines. That was prior to losing Burger, White, McKnight, and Harrington prior to/early on this season. Credit to the coaches and players for making the necessary adjustments to still hit the nine win mark.

App lost key players but made the necessary adjustments on both sides of the ball.

The Star was an existing scheme in our playbook...but Sloan, the position coaches and the players did a masterful job of pivoting to it as the base defense in mid-season.

On offense, I imagine Joey's equanimity probably drove Clark and Ponce crazy, but they all learned to work together. It's been great having dual-threat QB (again) and a capable OL (again) to maximize the talents of our deep RB/WR rooms.

[Bigdaddyg1]

Is Burger getting a medical redshirt?

[ericsaid]

Peoples and Noel were hurt in 2022 they only played in 9 games each team had a Toal of 2630 yards rushing collectively -

Taylor Lamb -- 2008 yards rushing in 4 seasons for his career -- playing against the worse teams we have faced since FBS era.


Rushing Statistics
Season GP ATT YDS TD Long AVG/A AVG/G
2014 12 78 483 4 56 6.2 40.3
2015 13 85 436 5 78 5.1 33.5
2016 13 89 505 9 48 5.7 38.8
2017 13 78 584 5 44 7.5 44.9
Total 51 330 2008 23 78 6.1 39.4


I am done with you Craig Mack.

Total rushing yards per year:
2022- 2,453
2021- 2,691
2020- 3,179
2019- 3,240
2018- 3,125
2017- 2,907
2016- 3,262

Pretty clear drop off the last two years.
If averages hold, App will rush for roughly 2,455 yards this year.

There are a lot of factors about the rushing production, but keep in mind that there are a different number of games each year:

In 2019, we played 14 games, had 43.6 attempts per game and averaged 232 yards per game on the ground (we had 2 games over 300 yards rushing)
In COVID 2020, we played 12 games, and had a massive year rushing with 45.2 attempts per game, averaging 262 per game (we had 3 games over 300 yards + rushed for 404 against Campbell and 506 against North Texas)
In 2021, 14 games/40.2 carries per game/192.5 per game/0 games over 300
In 2022, 12 games/39.5 carries per game/204 yards per game/404 yards against GaSt was the only game over 300
In 2023, 5 games--carries are up to 43.8 per game/204.6 yards per game/0 over 300


But, we also had a Pocket QB in 2021/22 and teams were stacking the box against our offense.

This year (purely my speculation) I think that Joey may be passing up some running opportunities because we are already using our backup/2nd QB and may want to limit the number of hits.

Some more stats that support your theory of moving to more balance:
2019 We averaged 21 first downs total per game/averaged 69.0 plays per game and ran the ball on 61.7% of those plays
2020 We averaged 23.4 first downs total per game/ran 70.5 plays per game and rushed on 64.4% of those plays
In 2021 with Chase Brice at the helm--22.7 first downs per game/ran 69.7 plays per game and rushed 57.7% of the time
2022 23 first downs per game/69.4 plays per game/56.9% rushing
Impressively, with the new clock rules in 2023:
78.8 plays per game (8 more plays than the previous high), 26.2 first downs per game/55.6% rushing plays

Finally--Total Offense:
2019 433.7 ypg
2020 452.1 ypg
2021 441.6 ypg
2022 455.3 ypg
2023 464.2 ypg

If my calculations are correct and we maintain this level (our lowest yardage output was against Gardner-Webb), it's encouraging considering we're starting a QB2 who is 4.5 games into his FBS career.

Just looking at where we finished the year:

Mr. Craig predicted that we would end up at 2,455 yards rushing for the year--We finished with 2,408-but played 14 games

"Total rushing yards per year:
2023- 2,408
2022- 2,453
2021- 2,691
2020- 3,179
2019- 3,240
2018- 3,125
2017- 2,907
2016- 3,262

Pretty clear drop off the last two years.
If averages hold, App will rush for roughly 2,455 yards this year."

Rushing Yards Per Game
In 2019, we played 14 games, had 43.6 attempts per game and averaged 232 yards per game on the ground (we had 2 games over 300 yards rushing)
In COVID 2020, we played 12 games, and had a massive year rushing with 45.2 attempts per game, averaging 262 per game (we had 3 games over 300 yards + rushed for 404 against Campbell and 506 against North Texas)
In 2021, 14 games/40.2 carries per game/192.5 per game/0 games over 300
In 2022, 12 games/39.5 carries per game/204 yards per game/404 yards against GaSt was the only game over 300
In 2023, 5 games--carries are up to 43.8 per game/204.6 yards per game/0 over 300
We ended 2023 with 38.14 runs per game/172.0 ypg/we did not have a 300 yard game/our season high was 254 yards rushing vs. GaSt

First Downs/Plays Per Game
Some more stats that support your theory of moving to more balance:
2019 We averaged 21 first downs total per game/averaged 69.0 plays per game and ran the ball on 61.7% of those plays
2020 We averaged 23.4 first downs total per game/ran 70.5 plays per game and rushed on 64.4% of those plays
In 2021 with Chase Brice at the helm--22.7 first downs per game/ran 69.7 plays per game and rushed 57.7% of the time
2022 23 first downs per game/69.4 plays per game/56.9% rushing
Impressively, with the new clock rules in 2023:
78.8 plays per game (8 more plays than the previous high), 26.2 first downs per game/55.6% rushing plays
We are currently 2nd in the nation with 334 First Downs (and should finish in the Top 5-7 after all bowl games are completed
We finished 2023 with 71.93 plays per game, 23.86 First Downs per game/53.0% Rushing/47% Passing That was our most plays per game in a 5 year span, even though the clock rules worked against us.

Finally--Total Offense:
2019 433.7 ypg
2020 452.1 ypg
2021 441.6 ypg
2022 455.3 ypg
2023 445.6 ypg

App also went from playing maybe 3 or 4 bowl teams a year to playing 10 or 11?

Next year, App will have 10 bowl teams on the regular season schedule alone. So people can keep making these comparisons all that they want but no one envisioned the Sun Belt Conference ever having 12 of 14 teams bowl eligible. There is a big difference between what was and what is now.

[Pikapp79]

On the bubble.

[Bootsy]

I'm sad that football season is done.
So I'm watching The Waterboy to cheer me up this evening.

[311neers]

I'm sad that football season is done.
So I'm watching The Waterboy to cheer me up this evening.

Wish there was a Bourbon Bowl. Louisville could host. Missed opportunity.

Do you remember when Bobby Bouchier showed up at halftime and the Mud Dogs won the Bourbon Bowl!?

[Bootsy]

Considering half the ads shown during football telecasts are hawking booze, you'd think someone would step up and make this happen.

[ericsaid]

Considering half the ads shown during football telecasts are hawking booze, you'd think someone would step up and make this happen.

Someone would have to have a brand of bourbon just called bourbon.

[Bootsy]

Considering half the ads shown during football telecasts are hawking booze, you'd think someone would step up and make this happen.

Someone would have to have a brand of bourbon just called bourbon.

Thank you for that gem, Eric.

[ericsaid]

Considering half the ads shown during football telecasts are hawking booze, you'd think someone would step up and make this happen.

Someone would have to have a brand of bourbon just called bourbon.

Thank you for that gem, Eric.

If someone has the capital and good enough lawyers, I'm sure it could be done.

Then you just need SELA to move up to FBS to play Louisiana (UL) in the bowl.

[AppWyo]

I would like to see Oregon State and South Carolina play each other just so the announcer could say, "The Gamecocks are penetrating deep into Beaver territory."

[ericsaid]

I would like to see Oregon State and South Carolina play each other just so the announcer could say, "The Gamecocks are penetrating deep into Beaver territory."

Or if Wyoming could somehow play Florida State?

"The Cowboys are penetrating deep into Seminole territory".

[Bootsy]

Considering half the ads shown during football telecasts are hawking booze, you'd think someone would step up and make this happen.

Someone would have to have a brand of bourbon just called bourbon.

Thank you for that gem, Eric.

If someone has the capital and good enough lawyers, I'm sure it could be done.

Then you just need SELA to move up to FBS to play Louisiana (UL) in the bowl.

You have to think Seagrams or some other liquor company will figure out a way to make this happen.

[ericsaid]

Considering half the ads shown during football telecasts are hawking booze, you'd think someone would step up and make this happen.

Someone would have to have a brand of bourbon just called bourbon.

Thank you for that gem, Eric.

If someone has the capital and good enough lawyers, I'm sure it could be done.

Then you just need SELA to move up to FBS to play Louisiana (UL) in the bowl.

You have to think Seagrams or some other liquor company will figure out a way to make this happen.

Bourbon Bowl, brought to you by Seagrams

Close enough. Make the pitch, throw my name in the idea hat so I can get a cut.

[goapps93]

Don’t think Seagrams makes bourbon. Diageo would be the better choice. Is any bowl sponsored by an alcohol beverage company? It may be frowned upon.

[BambooRdApp]

Don’t think Seagrams makes bourbon. Diageo would be the better choice. Is any bowl sponsored by an alcohol beverage company? It may be frowned upon.

Easy fix boys and girls....go the history angle..1776 Bourbon...sell the history to NCAA and what lessons can be learned from the revolutionary war...it's educational for the kids... Once approved, advertising can go a different direction.

[ericsaid]

Don’t think Seagrams makes bourbon. Diageo would be the better choice. Is any bowl sponsored by an alcohol beverage company? It may be frowned upon.

Easy fix boys and girls....go the history angle..1776 Bourbon...sell the history to NCAA and what lessons can be learned from the revolutionary war...it's educational for the kids... Once approved, advertising can go a different direction.

Networks like ABC wouldn't go for the 1776 angle anymore. They'd find that "divisive".