Perfect storm

[The Rock]

I give GSU credit, they put us down quick l, capitalized on our mistakes when they had the opportunity. They didn’t let us hang around to figure things out or get any momentum , but I still think this game was much closer with ZT. It was 17-7 at halftime with 14 off turnovers

[CornCobPipes]

Missing Jalin and Thomas and Fehr bites....but that's football.....it takes funny bounces.

[scatman77]

Haven’t you noticed the big runs were where Fehr would have been?

With Zac I’ll always believe we win this game. He wasn’t there, we lost.

Fehr's targeting was BS. He can't alter the physics once airborne and he form-tackled the QB.

Nope good call the fact that he left his feet and launched is the basic tenant of targeting. Textbook example of always keep your feet and put your facemask in his chest

Agree to disagree. I'm an athletic trainer (retired) but I'll always look at that play as textbook tackle.

[Goapps15]

I was there. Perfect storm. They beat our tails. It stings. You move on and life goes on.

When you are minus 80 in penalty yards and -5 in turnovers you would be lucky to beat a JV team.

Now you find out the true character of a team. So far it has been very easy for these kids.

[CornCobPipes]

Fehr was in bad circumstance on the tackle but what got him in trouble was the elevated launch heel raising his feet but when their QB jumped he was aiming textbook for the chestpads.

[CornCobPipes]

The idea is to protect the QBs especially and to reduce concussions but not much consideration to a defensive player injuring himself trying to put on the breaks.

[hapapp]

For three successive games we have started slow, that eventually catches up to you. The killer was the turnovers that were quickly turned into points. You have to tip your hat to a team that takes advantage of such. We failed to do the same. We had great field position on our first possession and blocked a point later, but failed to take advantage of either.

[diehardapp18]

Then don’t respond if so ridiculous. But then I guess Based on your post gsu should be ranked even though they have barely beat a team we crushed, barely beat two of the worst teams in our conference and country in Texas st and n mex st.

We have had every bad break in this game. Losing starting qb in first series, penalties, 2 fumbles not recovered, 1 freak int hit twice by wr, could go on. Not excuses, but real facts of what has happened. Part of the game but to expect any of our backups to overcome all of that is insane when they have only played in garbage time.

To say the game is not a reflection of GSU at all is ridiculous. I acknowledge that things haven’t gone our way but be realistic. They ran the ball effectively throughout the game, played mistake free football (including not taking stupid mental penalties) and completely stuffed our run game. That’s good football. I don’t think they should be ranked, but they beat us like a drum tonight.

They actually fumbled 3 times we just couldn’t get any of them

[Yosefus]

Bad performance and the worst luck on everything I have ever seen. Not a single thing went right or bounced our way all night.

[Yosef84]

It was certainly a disappointing and painful game to watch. It's easy to watch a game like that and say the team didn't "want" it. In the heat of the game, I'm sure I made comments about "focus" and "not really wanting" it. Frankly, that's how it LOOKS, but I'm sure that's not the case.

Zac being out was the biggest factor and then Fehr's ejection added to that. I think the OL was trying to over compensate for Zac's absence but the result was 10 drive killing penalties that prevented App from getting into any rhythm in the first half. Only one of PD's interceptions was really a QB issue. The other two interceptions (including Huesman's) bounced off the hands of the receiver and straight into the hands of a GS defender. Damn bad luck and heads up D by GS.

I think without those drive killing penalties in the first half, App is in this game with either of our backup QBs.

[bigdaddyg]

There are different ways to look at this game. It was going to be tough for us even at full strength. Short week, travel, tough opponent, bitter rival. Despite our ranking we had to really bring it. As soon as ZT went out I told some folks that we were in trouble. How many reps do we think that Derrick or Huesman got this week? Once they went in it wasn’t like we could just go to page 3 of the playbook. We had chances despite what happened- block a punt and immediately shoot ourselves in the foot. Drive the ball and then have balls ricochet off receivers hands. Allow runs up the guy virtually uncontested.

One thing that killed me were the announcers who made it sound like GAS was upsetting Alabama. Sure we came in ranked but after 6 games who the hell knows if any ranking is justified. They have a good team down there. I should go grab all the comments several guys on this board made that said- “it’s good for the conference and the rivalry for Stink to be good again”. Well, they are.

As a comparison to what happened I’d say, NCSU was at UVA last night and had Finley go down early and then got throttled by the Cavs would it be a comparable situation?

[AppFan11]

Whether we like it or not this is a game of turnovers. If you’d have said that we’d be down 5 net turnovers; we should get beat by 60. It completely changes the game. It allows the other team GASO to pin their ears back defensively and send more players than we could block.... and they did. It’s crazy to think that for all their emotion, they had like 50 yds more of offense. This is before we lost the QB and our leading or second leading tackler. We will be better for it. This kind of reminds me of some of the seasons in Socon when Wofford and GASO were good and we’d hope to at least split.

[Yosefus]

Last night never happened. We did not play GaSo last night. It did not happen.

[Yosef84]

It is unfortunate that the conference is so imbalanced this year with the 3 best teams all in the East. Teams in the West already have TWO conference losses and are still in the hunt. App is very possibly out of the CCG now after a single loss. It stinks but that's how it goes.

This will leave a bad taste in the team's mouth for a long time. We could still have a shot (with help) but I hope it pays dividends moving forward (next year). Looking hard for that silver lining.

[Apptrain]

Embarrassing! We are overrated. Defense exposed big time.

A young defense that will wear down when the offense can’t sustain a drive. That offense will pound you if you can’t keep it off the field with your own offense. I definitely put this loss on the lack of offense.

[WataugaMan]

So much for next man up/depth.

[AppFan11]

The offense certainly didn’t help but it was primarily the 24 pts they got off of 5 turnovers that sealed our fate.

[appstatealum]

Embarrassing! We are overrated. Defense exposed big time.

Like I said before, if you think this way, you are more of a casual football fan. You simply cannot keep going 3 and out and turn the ball over against an option offense. An option offense is only effective with a lead and when you can keep the opposing defense on the field for long drives. It is a grind, and our defense was put in horrible situations all night by the inept QB play. The minute you start getting tired, or start pressing because your losing, the option will take over. It is a disease that waits for your immune system to wear out.

And I'm sorry if it's taboo to comment on officiating when your team loses, but I can't get some of that out of my head this morning. I respect officials because I used to be certified and did alot of officiating when I was younger, but those guys were awful.
1. The hit on Zac. Clear shot to the helmet, incidental, but the player followed through as Zac went down. Should have been a penalty under today's rules. Not a big fan of those penalties, but they are penalties to protect the athletes.
2. The targeting call on Fehr. Sorry, shouldn't even have been a penalty. The fact that they reviewed it for targeting and upheld it was even more of an atrocity. QB was still in the air after releasing the football as contact initiated, our LB did not lead with his helmet and form tackled. Not a penalty, not targeting.
3. The Duck muffed punt. Players have to give the returner a clear path to make the catch and not touch the player prior to the arrival of the football. Both of those warrant a penalty. No call.
4. This one is more subtle, and may indicate what App was against all night. Every time our defense made a big play, the officials immediately ran over and would put their hands on our player's telling them to calm down. GS could not have been more obnoxious and I never saw the officials "calm the down".
Ive never believed in people being on the take... But I absolutely know officials can do subtle things to influence momentum in a game. Doesn't matter if I was watching the App Mountaineer game or the WV Mountaineer game, if I saw things like that, I would be raging mad. That kind of crap is ruining sports, especially football (Pro and College). More rules, more ways for officials to dictate a way a game goes. I can't stand the Falcons, but was fuming about some bogus calls in one of their games earlier this year. I want to see sport at its purist....

[Longrifle28]

It will be interesting to see how the coaching staff and team come back from this. I hope we don't let GS beat us twice. The heading of this thread is exactly what happened.

Short week, and we have had plenty of distractions (top 25 ranking, numerous newspaper stories, worrying about our coach leaving, etc.).

Rain (which generally can disrupt a passing game-noted the number of passes that slipped or tipped through hands and were intercepted).

Rivalry, and going up against coaches that know us pretty well and how we plan for games.

I also think we need to be a little critical of the coaching staff. We seemed overly hyped and let GS get into our heads. Turnovers and penalties can be a product of lack of focus (although I think the loud stadium and weather also helped with this). I don't think we did much with the game plan (maybe because of the rain) but once we got down by two scores I figured it was going to be hard to come back (especially with the rain and QB out).

The last two games may be enough to humble us back to reality. It appears we weren't as good as most thought, and this is compounded by injuries and ejections to key players.

I've said this before, GS has always had good athletes. Now they have some good coaches. With the right leadership it doesn't take much to right the ship. They are definitely a different animal from years past.

Maybe we can get back to not worrying about where we will be coaching at next year, not being ranked and all the exposure, and start back playing some App State Football.

[hapapp]

It will be interesting to see how the coaching staff and team come back from this. I hope we don't let GS beat us twice. The heading of this thread is exactly what happened.

Short week, and we have had plenty of distractions (top 25 ranking, numerous newspaper stories, worrying about our coach leaving, etc.).

Rain (which generally can disrupt a passing game-noted the number of passes that slipped or tipped through hands and were intercepted).

Rivalry, and going up against coaches that know us pretty well and how we plan for games.

I also think we need to be a little critical of the coaching staff. We seemed overly hyped and let GS get into our heads. Turnovers and penalties can be a product of lack of focus (although I think the loud stadium and weather also helped with this). I don't think we did much with the game plan (maybe because of the rain) but once we got down by two scores I figured it was going to be hard to come back (especially with the rain and QB out).

The last two games may be enough to humble us back to reality. It appears we weren't as good as most thought, and this is compounded by injuries and ejections to key players.

I've said this before, GS has always had good athletes. Now they have some good coaches. With the right leadership it doesn't take much to right the ship. They are definitely a different animal from years past.

Maybe we can get back to not worrying about where we will be coaching at next year, not being ranked and all the exposure, and start back playing some App State Football.

That about sums it up. No amount of whining, rationalizing, or what ifs will change the outcome. It's what we doing moving forward that matters.