Commentary:

Road to finals

goes through The Rock
By Steve Behr, sports editor

Get ready for season four of Survivor: Kidd Brewer Stadium.

Appalachian State found out it is the No. 2 seed in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs Sunday night and will host MEAC champion South Carolina State in the first round at noon Saturday.

Kidd Brewer Stadium, home of the three-time defending champs, will be the site.

The FCS committee did good for the Mountaineers. For the fourth straight season, Appalachian State can play all of its playoff games at The Rock. They Mountaineers are 41-1 at home since 2003, have won 11 straight at home and are 9-0 in the playoffs at Kidd Brewer during the last three years.

Want to ride the Chattanooga Choo Choo? The tracks go through Boone — and good luck finding a ticket.

Now, we’re not trying to slight South Carolina State at all. The Bulldogs are 10-2 and must be taken seriously. I’m sure they have every expectation to come up to Boone and knock off Appalachian State.

They’d be wasting everybody’s time if they didn’t.

But the Mountaineers, young as they are, are playing extremely well. Even in the first half against Western Carolina, when they found themselves down 10-7, it was only a matter of time before backup quarterback DeAndre Presley was going to break through the Catamounts defense.

Presley, a true freshman (is there a false freshman playing anywhere?), was nervous subbing for the injured Armanti Edwards. It took a while for Presley to get comfortable behind center for the first time as the starter and not the understudy.

Eventually, the assumed heir apparent to Edwards settled down and played pretty well, completing 16-of-25 passes for 158 yards and a touchdown. He also ran for 156 yards on 25 carries, giving him an Armanti-like 314 total yards.

Offense was not the impressive aspect of Appalachian’s game. Unlike last year when the offense was unstoppable, but the defense suspect going into the playoffs, ASU held Western to minus 11 yards in the second half.

No team is automatic, but the Mountaineers are just flat-out tough to beat at The Rock. The band is always rocking. The team feeds off the big crowd yelling “APP!” “STATE!” back and fourth to each other like piranhas dividing up a school of goldfish.

The cliche goes that it’s easier to get to the top than to stay there. Appalachian State has made it much tougher to get to the top, especially when that road goes through KBS.