By Steve Behr
sports@wataugademocrat.com

Two down, two left.
Big plays by Eastern Washington on special teams could not topple Appalachian State’s quest for a third FCS national championship. Eastern Washington directly and indirectly scored 21 points from its special teams, but it was still not enough to topple the two-time national champions in the FCS playoffs.

Instead, Appalachian State quarterback Armanti Edwards threw for two touchdowns and ran in a third in leading the Mountaineers to a 38-35 victory over the Eagles in front of 16,947 at Kidd Brewer Stadium.

The win puts the Mountaineers (11-2) in the semifinals of the FCS playoffs. They’ll host Richmond, a 21-10 winner over Wofford Saturday, at Kidd Brewer Stadium this Friday at 8 p.m. Richmond (11-2) is the co-champion of the Colonial Athletic Association.
The game will be televised on ESPN.

Edwards, who completed all nine of his first-half passes, finished with 221 yards passing on 15-of-22 attempts. Edwards also ran for 126 yards, helping the Mountaineers roll up 325 yards rushing and 529 yards in total offense against the Eagles, who crushed No. 3 seed McNeese State 44-15 in the first round of the playoffs last week.

Eastern Washington, which finished second in the Big Sky Conference, saw its five-game winning streak come to an end. Appalachian State won its sixth straight.

“Obviously we’re very tickled to be one step further along in the playoffs,” Mountaineers coach Jerry Moore said. “I was talking to Paul (Wulff), their coach, and we were both a little apologetic. In a quarterfinal game, you would think that 13 games in the season we would not make as many mistakes as we both did (with) their fumbling the ball at the 1 (yard line) and our kicking game coverage.”

Eastern Washington (9-4) turned the ball over three times, once on a fumble at the 2-yard line that Appalachian State’s D.J. Smith recovered. The Eagles lost another fumble and quarterback Matt Nichols tossed an interception. The mistakes were rare for the Eagles, who were a plus-10 in turnover ratio going into the game.

“The bottom line is that we did not play a great football game,” Wulff said. “I though Appalachian State did some things better than us and therefore they won. Ultimately the key to the ball game for us were (ASU’s) zero turnovers to (EWU’s) three. That’s the bottom line.”

Edwards opened the scoring by capping an 11-play, 95-yard drive with a 4-yard touchdown run with 6:20 left in the first quarter. His 41-yard touchdown pass to Dexter Jackson and his 15-yard scoring strike to Hans Batichon with 25 seconds left in the first half gave the Mountaineers a 21-7 halftime lead.

The Mountaineers had to overcome three holding penalties during the final drive of the first half. Devon Moore saw his 19-yard touchdown run wiped out by a holding penalty, and it took six more plays before Batichon scored — one play after the third holding call on the drive.

Moore, starting for the injured Kevin Richardson, finished with 100 yards rushing on 24 carries. He also caught three passes for 36 yards. Two of his receptions set up his 10-yard touchdown run that gave Appalachian Sate a 31-21 lead.

Richardson saw limited action, mostly when the Mountaineers were in a two-back set. He rushed for 69 yards on eight carries. His 18-yard touchdown run was set up by a Nichols fumble that Corey Lynch recovered.
Lynch also partially blocked a field goal in the first quarter and intercepted a pass that stopped an Eastern Washington drive that began at the Appalachian State 45-yard line following a good kickoff return and a personal foul penalty.

“From what I saw, it was just me and the ball,” Lynch said. “I just went up and got it.”
But the Mountaineers ran into trouble with their special teams. Last week, in a narrow 28-27 victory over James Madison, they had trouble blocking on extra points.

This week, they had trouble tackling on kickoffs. It started with the Mountaineers in front 14-0 when Eastern Washington’s Nicholas Ramos returned a kickoff 82 yards to set up Matt Nichols’ 7-yard touchdown pass to Aaron Boyce.

“We did think we could exploit their kickoff team,” Wulff said. “Other teams had some returns on them and when we hit the first one earlier and they started kicking the ball around, we had to make sure we had the right kids in place, so when they did kick it short, we had a capable body that could return it and give us some positive yards.”

It got worse for the Mountaineers in the second half. A running into the kicker penalty on an Eastern Washington punt gave the Eagles a second chance to kick the ball at the Appalachian State 49-yard line. However, instead of punting, the ball was snapped to up-man Bryan Jarrett, who ran through a big hole in the Appalachian State defensive line and raced 51 yards for a touchdown.
Appalachian State struck back with a 21-yard field goal by Julian Rauch, but A.J. Jimerson returned the ensuing kickoff 78 yards for a touchdown to pull the Eagles to within 24-21 with 5:45 left in the third quarter.

“We didn’t do a good job tackling,” Moore said of the kick returns. “We had people there. When you say that you almost sound like you’re taking away from the effectiveness of the team you’re playing and I don’t want to do that. Eastern Washington is a terrific football team. But we had people in position to make tackles and just didn’t tackle. To be quite honest, some of it was a lack of effort.”

Appalachian State’s offense was able to cover for any mistakes made by the special teams. Moore’s 10-yard touchdown touchdown run capped a 61-yard, six-play drive with 4:07 left in the third. Richardson’s score with 6:07 left in the game gave the Mountaineers a 38-21 lead.

Appalachian State’s defense did its part to contain Nichols, who went into the game averaging 303 yards passing per game. Nichols completed 24-of-42 passes for 185 yards. The 368 yards the Eagles gained in total offense was well below their 463 yards per game average.

“Last week, it was like you were digging your toe in because there was a cliff behind you,” Moore said. “This week, it was more of a 50-50 deal. We were rushing the passer and a lot of times, he had time to throw because we did a good job coverage-wise.”
Nichols led two fourth-quarter touchdown drives, the final being 2-yard touchdown pass to Matt martin with 28 seconds left. Appalachian State recovered the ensuing onside kick and ran out the clock.

“We felt we could throw on them because our offensive line is pretty good,” Wulff said. “I felt for the most part they protected pretty well all day long. When they got pressure, it was usually because they brought more than we could handle. I think our receivers didn’t win the battle today. Their senior secondary ultimately won the battle over our receivers.”

Appalachian State 38, Eastern Washington 35
Eastern Washington 0 7 14 14 — 35
Appalachian State 7 14 10 7 — 38
Scoring summary
First quarter
ASU—Edwards 4 run (Rauch kick)
Second quarter
ASU—Jackson 41 pass from Edwards (Rauch kick)
EWU—Boyce 7 pass from Nichols (Macias kick)
ASU—Batichon 15 pass from Edwards (Rauch kick)
Third quarter
EWU—Jarrett 51 run (Macias kick)
ASU—Rauch FG 21
EWU—Jimerson 78 kickoff return (Macias kick)
ASU—Moore 10 run (Rauch kick)
Fourth quarter
ASU—Richardson 18 run (Rauch kick)
EWU—Morris 1 run (Macias kick)
EWU—Martin 2 pass from Nichols (Macias kick)

EWU          ASU
First downs 24 28
Rushing 12 15
Passing 9 11
Penalty 3 2
Net yards rushing 183 308
Rushing attempts 34 59
Avg. per rush 5.4 5.2
Rushing touchdowns 2 3
Yards gained rushing 211 325
Yards lost rushing 28 17
Net yards passing 211 325
Comp.-Att.-Int. 24-42 1 15-23-0
Avg. per comp. 7.7 14.7
Passing touchdowns 2 2
Total offensive plays-yards 76-368 82-529
Avg. gain per play 4.8 6.5
Fumbles-lost 2-2 0-0
Penalties-yards 4-40 9-85
Punts-avg. 2-42.0 4-29.8
Net yards per punt 39.0 29.8
Third-down conversions 9-of-17 6-of-14
Fourth-down conversions 4-of-5 1-of-3
Red-zone chances 3-of-5 5-of-5
Sacks by-yards 1-8 1-10
Time of Possession 27:35 32:25