Presley lifts

Appalachian over Cats
By Steve Behr
 
CULLOWHEE — Appalachian State quarterback Armanti Edwards was available to the Mountaineers only in the case of an emergency when they played at rival Western Carolina Saturday. And though the Mountaineers’ offense struggled in the first half, Appalachian State’s defense made sure they didn’t need to dial 914.

Instead, the No. 2 Mountaineers, who trailed by a field goal at halftime, scored two third quarter touchdowns, added another early in the fourth, and cruised to a 35-10 victory over the Catamounts in front of 14,217 chilly fans at E.J. Whitmire Stadium.

Appalachian State not only secured an outright Southern Conference championship, but retained possession of the Old Mountain Jug for the 22nd time in 24 seasons.

More importantly, the Mountaineers go into the FCS playoffs with a nine-game winning streak and was awarded the No. 2 seed. They’ll host South Carolina State Saturday at noon. Should the Mountaineers keep winning, they’ll host playoff games until the finals, which are in Chattanooga, Tenn.

“The most important thing going into the playoffs is knowing that it’s one game at a time,” linebacker Pierre Banks said. “Whoever we got next week, we’ll prepare for that team like we do every week. We’ll prepare as hard as we can to beat that team and that’s what we’ve been doing over the past few years.”

Edwards, who is nursing a hip pointer suffered the previous game against Elon, watched the game from the sidelines while understudy DeAndre Presley ran the offense. Moore said Edwards could have played and actually considered putting him in if Appalachian State struggled offensively in its first two series of the second half.

Appalachian State trailed 10-7 at halftime and the entire offense was not playing well.

“We had already talked about it, but we never mentioned it, obviously, to DeAndre and we never mentioned it to Edwards,” Moore said.

Though Edwards was available, Moore was happy he could stay with Presley.

“We didn’t want it to (get to that point). I didn’t want it to for a couple of reasons. DeAndre needed that. I’m not sure you could have written a script to do better. …Last year he was playing high school football. Now it’s all on his shoulders for the (SoCon) championship, or to direct us to a championship. I think you’ve got to give a guy like that a real chance.”

Presley, a freshman making his first start of his college career, made sure that a change was not necessary by running for three touchdowns and threw for another. It not only gave ASU a victory, but also gave himself some needed confidence.

A conference with offensive line coach Shawn Elliott helped calm Presley down.

“Coming out of the first half, I didn’t have much confidence in myself,” Presley said. “Being my first game starting, I wanted to do everything perfect, so I began to get rattled a little bit. In the second half, I was talking to coach (Elliott) and he was telling me, ‘Look, I believe in you, the team believes in you, play with confidence and everything will take care of itself.’ Coming out in the second half, that’s what I did, play with confidence and it took care of itself.”

Presley ran for 156 yards on 25 carries, and led the Mountaineers (10-2) to 382 yards in total offense. He completed 16-of-25 passes for 158 yards and a 17-yard touchdown to tight end Ben Jorden with 6:08 left in the third quarter that gave the Mountaineers a 21-10 lead.

“It was play-action,” Presley said. “All week in practice I was supposed to read the safety, he’s going to bite on the play fake, and sure enough that’s exactly what he did. Ben Jorden was wide open in the end zone.
“My only thing was, don’t mess this throw up.”

It was more than enough for the Appalachian State defense, which buried, Western Carolina’s offense, particularly in the second half. The Catamounts (3-9) finished with just 72 yards in total offense, minus two on the ground. Western Carolina had 83 yards in the first half, leaving them with minus nine in the second.

The Mountaineers made life particularly difficult for Western Carolina quarterback Zack Jaynes. The redshirt freshman connected on just 5-of-26 passes for 63 yards and was sacked five times.

“They blitzed a lot more than we expected,” Jaynes said. “But I think it’s just the fact of us making plays and running with it and we didn’t do it.”

Western’s running game wasn’t much more effective. Warley led the Catamounts with 28 yards on 11 carries and was the only Western runner to gain more than five yards.

“We tried to do what we do every game, which is dominate,” defensive end Lanston Tanyi, who had 2.5 sacks, said. “I didn’t feel like there was any pressure was on us because I knew our offense would eventually come through.”

The Mountaineers also leaned on their defense in the first half while the offense struggled with holding on to the football. Appalachian State turned the ball over once on a fumble, another time on a muffed punt and a third time on an interception.

Appalachian State was also stopped on a third-and then four-and-one at the 5-yard line when Trey Hennessee was stopped for no gain and for a 1-yard loss.

“At the half, we were down 10-7 and the way it worked out, it was good for us because there really wasn’t a panic, but there was a little bit of a crises there,” Moore said of the halftime locker room scene. “The players handled it well and came back out and handled their business.”

Things went much smoother in the second half. Presley took advantage of a short field caused by a B.J. Frazier punt return by capping a 40-yard, five-play drive with a 3-yard touchdown run.

After finding Jorden for a 17-yard touchdown pass, the Mountaineers capped a 47-yard, seven-play drive with an 8-yard Josh Jackson touchdown run, giving them a 28-10 lead with 13:07 left in the game.

ASU’s defense took it from there, keeping Western Carolina (3-9) to just one second-half first down, none in the third quarter. Appalachian State made the Catamounts pay with a 30-yard Presley touchdown run with 3:47 left in the game.

Western Carolina made things interesting in the first half by taking a 7-0 lead on a 1-yard run by starting quarterback Zack Jaynes, which capped a seven-play, 48-yard drive set up by a short punt. After Presley tied it with a 6-yard touchdown run, Western went up 10-7, a lead the Catamounts took to halftime, on a 43-yard field goal by Blake Bostic.

Western Carolina coach Dennis Wagner was disappointed in the four dropped passes in the first half and the fact that the Catamounts failed to take advantage of other time when they had good field position.

“Most of it was on us,” Wagner said. “We had three or four opportunities to get the ball in the end zone and didn’t get it there.”