Appalachian vs. Texas St Game Thread (and gameday menu thread)

[Yosef84]

My general feeling watching the game was that we weren't playing with much intensity. That said, this was a 21 point road win against a dangerous Bobcat team. Note the use of the word "dangerous" rather than "good." Coach Clark's comment that they are better than their record isn't just coach speak. This 21 point loss handed to the Bobcats was their second largest margin this year. Only BYU (ranked 11/12) beat them by a wider margin than we did yesterday (playing AT BYU). They lost by 7 to SMU and b 3 at Boston College. Let's not pretend we were playing against a team with no athletes or ability.

Are there things I wish looked better yesterday (and last week)? Absolutely! I would love to see App lighting up the scoreboard and winning by 50 point EVERY week! Is that a realistic expectation? Absolutely NOT. I understand some of the people who want to "manage" our ranking by blowing out every single opponent. I just think that is not how good football programs actually work...or businesses for that matter. Managing the metrics will ultimately lead to problems. We need to manage each game with the goal of winning (hopefully comfortably) and that is EXACTLY what we've done the last two weeks. The metric will ultimately reflect that performance. It just takes some times.

App is dealing with tons of issues including the fact that our offense was dependent on some athletes who are not currently available due to injuries, Covid issues, or opting out. I get that people are concerned, but "projecting" these performances to future games is not a valid exercise. There is never a guarantee that we will win EVERY game. Eventually Coastal will beat us. They're good this year, but they looked less than stellar against a bad USA team yesterday (on their own field). Winning championships usually involved peaking at the proper time. I think App is absolutely on track to do exactly that.

GO APPS! Next up....GSU!

[hapapp]

On a side note. Did anyone catch Spavital standing over the injured Harrington and give him a pat on the head when he got to his feet? Class act. Those are the types of coaches that you don’t run it up on when the decision is not in doubt.

Its clear he and Clark are close as they were in conversation for a while postgame. I do think we will continue to see Texas State improve their play. If they can avoid so many self-inflicted wounds, they will be a tough out.

[AppFan11]

This is clearly a better overall team than we have seen in some years. While they have some offensive punch; I don’t think they were as good as Everett Withers’s last season. They had a very good defense his last year, they haven’t been very good on any of the three major parts of the game since.

[AppStFan1]

Real question...do we feel like we have the tools to beat Coastal in 2 weeks?

I am hoping we are just hiding things to keep CCU from knowing what we have but part of me just thinks maybe we have other issues. I know the injury bug has gotten us at times but we are mostly healthy now. If we don't play better and open things up more we will lose bad at CCU. I'm frustrated because I know we have the talent to do better. We just aren't doing better. If we play to our potential then CCU will go down but if we play like this then we will lose by double digits.

We passed to a DL...

We are vanilla most of the time but yes we do sprinkle 1-2 plays like that a game. It would be nice to be creative a lot more. We do make a lot of mistakes as well. There are way too many penalties. I know Shawn has to be upset with that. I would bet there is a huge emphasis on it this week. We better correct a lot of that before November 21. We are way better than we are playing.

Clark made a comment at halftime that he had spoken to Peterson (OC) about opening up the play calling. Thus, it appears he may be aware of the situation and is ready to take action.

Yes, it is good to see Clark noticing that stuff on the fly. I don't think any of us who are critical are being too hard. We just know that if we want to have a NY6 shot or be ranked that we must do better. We don't have P5 wins like we did last year. Luckily, CCU and ULL have P5 wins and are ranked high enough to help us if we beat them. They are both way too good to beat if we play like we have been.

So many people are obsessed with the top 25 and think we are a top 25 team but top 25 teams don't allow awful teams to still be in the game in the 4th quarter. CCU was not too great against USA and they ended up dropping in the coaches poll. Voters see these scores and if the stats and score is not convincing then you will drop.

[dtrain4prez]

It's obvious that Zac isn't completely healthy. His turnovers hurt us deeply today. Play Huesman until he is healthy and have Zac come back next year for a NY6 run.

[WataugaMan]

Play Huesman, the future of App State Football in my humble opinion.

[AppStateMtneer]

Play Huesman, the future of App State Football in my humble opinion.

Yea... he’s a senior

[WataugaMan]

Play Huesman, the future of App State Football in my humble opinion.

Yea... he’s a senior

With another year of eligibility, according to current rulesl

[AppStateMtneer]

Play Huesman, the future of App State Football in my humble opinion.

Yea... he’s a senior

With another year of eligibility, according to current rulesl

So you have a crystal ball that shows which seniors App State chooses to pay scholarship money for to come back or you are assuming App pays for all seniors to play again next year with money they don’t have?

[WataugaMan]

No crystal ball, just stating the facts as they currently are.

[WataugaMan]

Then again after some thought, even though both Zac and Jacob can technically come back next season I doubt they will. As I've heard Sutton will be back, great news. Nevertheless, just wonder who'll be under center next year.

[Yosef84]

I don't know who the future of the App QB position is, but some of those options aren't yet on campus. My understanding was that many people believe DBG is leaving the program, but I haven't seen anything official and he remains on the roster. Shuler is on the roster, but hasn't seen the field yet. Gibbs is a junior, but hasn't been talked about much. Fan speculation, even from reasonably knowledgeable fans, is just that...speculation. I do acknowledge that Zac hasn't looked his best this year, but I would guess that, if a current senior returns next year, he would be the coach's choice.