Dream comes true: Williams achieves goal of national champ
By Steve Behr

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Heading into Friday’s Division I-AA national championship game against Northern Iowa, Appalachian State quarterback Richie Williams had achieved nearly all of his dreams.

After failing to reach the I-AA playoffs in his sophomore and junior seasons, inwhich he was the Mountaineers’ starting quarterback, he guided ASU to a postseason berth. In fact, he did that one better by leading the Mountaineers to an outright Southern Conference championship.

Though he’s never been about numbers, Williams also rewrote the Appalachian State passing records and also penned a few chapters of the SoCon book, including the career total offense record, gaining 9,238 before Friday’s game. He also holds the SoCon mark with 59 career touchdown passes.

Yet Williams almost did not get a chance to realize his final dream, leading ASU to a national championship. An ankle injury in Appalachian’s 29-23 win over Furman knocked him out of that game and out of the starting lineup Friday night.

“It was crazy,” Williams said. “We were finally getting as deep as we were, and just being limited in what I could do, it hurt real bad emotionally more than anything. I had to be strong and go out and support my teammates.”

He also supported his backup, Trey Elder, during a rough first half. Elder guided the Mountaineers to one score, a Kevin Richardson 1-yard burst, after marching the team 64 yards in nine plays.

But the offense struggled during most of the half. Elder was not helped by three Appalachian State turnovers, including one interception he tossed himself, that led to 13 Northern Iowa points.

Mountaineers coach Jerry Moore turned to Williams to throw a “Hail Mary” type pass on the final play of the first half. To start the second half, Moore turned to Williams again.

“Going out in the second half it was like, ‘OK. The first thing we need to do is to move the ball.’ I didn’t want to think ‘OK, we’ve got to get six points right now.’ We just had to make some progress moving the ball up and down the field.”

There was one slight problem. Williams was under orders not to run the football. He broke the rule once, gaining three yards before sliding to avoid a sack.

This was from a quarterback who went into the game with 933 yards and five touchdowns rushing the ball.

His passing numbers weren’t exactly overwhelming either. Williams hit 10-of-26 passes for 129 yards. But seeing Williams, a three-year team captain, on the field gave everybody on the roster a boost.

“Trey did a good job,” said Marques Murrell, who made the play of the night when he forced a fumble on Northern Iowa quarterback Eric Sanders that Jason Hunter returned for a touchdown. “But when Richie came in, everybody knew it was going to be a gun-slinging show.”

When Williams saw Murrell make his play, Williams was one of the many to celebrate.

“Oh man, I started jumping up and down that sideline,” Williams said. “I was so excited. Right then I knew ‘we’ve got this.’”

Williams was right. Hunter scored with 9:41 left in the game, giving Appalachian State a 21-16 lead. The Mountaineers were able to keep Northern Iowa out of the end zone and ran off just enough clock to preserve the victory.

It also preserved Williams’ dream, and the dreams of his teammates, of becoming a national champion.