App State's time has come
Both good and bad came out of Tuesday.
The bad, obviously, is Jalin Moore’s right ankle injury. Appalachian State has plenty of talent in its backfield, but Moore’s skill set and on-field leadership will be hard to replace. He’ll still be around the program, and he proved against Arkansas State that he can still impact a game without playing.
The good, however, is that App State stayed on course as the top team in the Sun Belt Conference. The 35-9 win against the Red Wolves did the most important thing it could have for the Mountaineers: it proved Appalachian could manhandle more than just average football teams.
Plus, a national ranking could be coming in the very near future.
And now for a little more on that: games against Charlotte, Gardner-Webb and South Alabama minimally boosted App State’s case. Missing the Southern Miss game, plus the off Saturday a few days ago, didn’t help either. It left App State stuck in the “others receiving votes” section of top-25 polls.
I’m going to be frank with you all: If I had a ballot, I wouldn’t have ranked the Mountaineers at this point either. I would have held that belief no matter how many of you politely pressured me on social media (like how you guys have poked at my coworker Conor O’Neill, an AP Top 25 voter). That didn't discount how good or special of a team I think App State is. The quirks of its schedule made it a little more difficult.
But my mind changed Tuesday night as I watched App State intercept two Justice Hansen passes near the end of the first half. That let the Mountaineers pad their lead to 12 points. The game was their's from there. The Red Wolves couldn’t make anything work. App State had zapped all the energy from them.
That game will be the toughest on the Mountaineers schedule for a while. The looming matchup against Georgia Southern on Oct. 25 builds up in importance as it inches closer. And the home finale against Troy will be the last milestone for an App State team that could win out the rest of its regular-season schedule.
This team has nothing left to prove. The only remaining question is can the Mountaineers, which could go down as one of the program’s most talented groups, achieve what it’s capable of? Because right now, the bar is moved higher with every game they play.
Appalachian has shown no sign of stopping so far. And that’s why I think the time has come.
It’s time to rank App State.
Take care and thanks for reading,
Ethan Joyce
ejoyce@wsjournal.com