By Dan McDonald
Special to the Sun Belt Conference
Mountaineers Survive Road Test
A four-minute stretch at the end of the first half was enough to turn the momentum and keep Appalachian State as one of three unbeaten teams in the Sun Belt Conference’s East Division.
That stretch turned a 9-7 deficit into a 21-9 halftime lead, and the Mountaineers never looked back last Tuesday in taking a 35-9 win at Arkansas State in a much-anticipated matchup of the preseason favorites in the Sun Belt’s two divisions.
“That was a big win for us on the road,” said App State coach Scott Satterfield. “I’m really pleased with how the guys focused all week and played really well against a good football team.”
The Mountaineers trailed after A-State’s Blake Grupe hit his third field goal of the game 4:37 before halftime, but Zac Thomas found Corey Sutton with a 25-yard score exactly 100 seconds later to end a quick-strike four-play, 74-yard march. Moments later, Tae Hayes picked off a Justice Hansen pass and returned it to the Red Wolves’ three-yard-line, and Darrynton Evans scored from one yard out 45 seconds before halftime for a 21-9 lead.
Appalachian State also had another interception right before the halftime horn, and added two more second-half touchdowns while pitching a shutout defensively in the second half. The Red Wolves were only 3-of-18 on third down and Hansen was picked off three times.
“We have to look forward and not back,” said Arkansas State coach Blake Anderson. “This is obviously not where we expected to see ourselves, with two conference losses this early, but it is what it is. We have to regroup and find a way to scrap and claw and find a way to win the division.”
The Mountaineers did not leave Jonesboro unscathed, as they lost returning first-team All-Sun Belt and Maxwell and Doak Walker Award nominee Jalin Moore with a broken ankle that ends his college career. Moore, who was injured at the end of a 27-yard touchdown run early in the second quarter, finished his career with 3,570 rush yards and 33 touchdowns including 400 yards and six scores in five games this year.
Satterfield said that Moore’s absence will be felt in more than numbers heading into Saturday’s home game against Louisiana.
“It’s going to take our whole team having to step up when you lose a guy of that caliber,” he said. “Physically what he can do running the football, but also emotionally just being around, that’s going to be difficult. We’ll get our running backs into the game and figure it out, see who has the hot hand and can settle in there. I think all of them can give us what we need in the running game, whoever’s in the game at running back is just going to get a few more carries.”
Record Setting
Louisiana coach Billy Napier said his team played to its potential on offense last Saturday, and it would be hard to argue with that.
The Ragin’ Cajuns scored their highest-ever point total against an FBS opponent and celebrated Homecoming by rolling past former Sun Belt member New Mexico State 66-38. The Cajuns scored touchdowns on each of their first six possessions and led 42-14 less than 21 minutes into the game, and the only possessions UL didn’t score touchdowns on came on a field goal at the end of the first half, a punt on the first possession after halftime and a game-ending 12-play, 71-yard march that came within 10 seconds of running out the game’s final eight minutes.
“By far the best football game we’ve played in terms of the quality of the tape,” Napier said. “We’re making improvement. We’re by no means a finished product, but we are finally headed somewhere and I like the way our team in working.”
Louisiana posted 759 offensive yards and 37 first downs, both school records by a sizable margin, and balanced things with 344 rush yards and 415 pass yards – the highest team passing total since the 2011 R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl. The Cajuns converted on 12-of-14 third-downs and had a 38:08-21:52 time of possession advantage, and have now scored 108 points in their last two games heading into a trip to face league unbeaten Appalachian State Saturday. But Napier said his team still has issues.
“We do have things that we need to correct, certainly defensively and on special teams, but they’re all fixable,” he said. “Everybody wants to point out the final score, but at one point in the second quarter it was 42-14 and we’d only given up one defensive score. We had them on the mat and we have to finish them at that point, but we gave up a 75-yard drive for a touchdown which gave them a little bit of momentum and some hope.”
New Mexico State, ironically, opened a stretch of three games against Sun Belt members. The Aggies (2-4) host Georgia Southern Saturday and visit Texas State on Oct. 27.
Three-way Attack
ULM shook loose its three biggest offensive weapons at the right time Saturday, and in the process snapped a four-game losing streak in impressive fashion.
The Warhawks took a 45-20 win at Coastal Carolina, in part because of the performances of quarterback Caleb Evans, running back Derrick Gore and wide receiver Marcus Green.
Evans hit 16-of-22 passes for 224 yards and one score, and also ran for two touchdowns including a game-clinching 20-yard tally with just over four minutes left. Gore ran for 147 yards on 16 carries and added two touchdown runs, while Green had 111 yards and a score from his five catches.
“We had some balance and finally scored in the red zone consistently,” said ULM coach Matt Viator. “That was big for us. Any time you can win on the road and be able to beat a good team like Coastal it’s big, but we finally had a complete game. We played good defensively and we created turnovers, and offensively we had some balance.”
The Warhawks had 14-0 first-quarter and 24-10 second-quarter leads, a stark contrast to any of the four previous games that included SEC squads Texas A&M and Ole Miss. Viator said that was a huge benefit for Evans.
“The last several weeks we had gotten down quick,” Viator said. “We were pretty much done before we even turned around in a couple of those, and I think we pressed, trying to get too much back too quick. Any time we’ve been close to the lead, he (Evans) has been very efficient, and he was on Saturday.”
Confidence boost
South Alabama’s Jaguars needed a confidence boost after three straight losses and a 1-5 start, and they got it last Saturday.
The Jags shook off a slow start and took a 14-0 lead, and then scored three touchdowns in a stretch of just over seven minutes surrounding halftime in rolling to a 45-7 victory over Alabama State in USA’s first home game in a month.
“That was big for us,” said coach Steve Campbell. “We started out a little slow offensively but we got it going after that. Those last two scores before the half were big, we were able to build a lead and build some confidence. That showed us that we were able to execute and let us go in at the half knowing that if we do the things we talk about, execute and protect, we have a chance to move the football.”
Quarterback Evan Orth and running back Tra Minter each accounted for two scores, with Orth running for one score and throwing for another in the first half’s final five minutes after Alabama State had closed to within 14-7.
“You watch the film and you see we’re not that far off,” said Campbell, whose team had given up 100 points to Appalachian State and Georgia Southern over the previous two weeks. “But when you calibrate things, you don’t have to be far off for the end product to not look good. We got a couple of things corrected. Offensively we had one penalty, the week before we had seven and that kills you.”