| 27. Appalachian State Mountaineers |
| #1 in Sun Belt |
Appalachian State lost their coach, but that’s about it, from a team that went 11-2, and had Penn State dead to rights in the opener. I hope Mountaineer fans enjoyed that one, because they didn’t really play another good game the rest of the season, every game being decided by double digits, including their lone loss. The offense in particular looks unstoppable, coming off back to back years being the top scoring offense in the Sun Belt, raising their average to 37.3 ppg last year. What had been the conference’s best rushing attack seemed doomed when all-conference senior captain Jalin Moore suffered a season ending injury in Week 5, while averaging 6.3 ypc. Instead, sophomore Darrynton Evans stepped up, after totalling 9 carries to that point of the season, ran for 1,060 yards over the final 9 games, on 6.6 ypc. The Mountaineers will be heavy favorites to win their fourth straight Sun Belt title, and even doing it going undefeated in conference play, which they have yet to do, still might feel a little hollow. The next goal for this program has to be a New Years Six bowl, and from the Sun Belt, anything less than undefeated won’t even have a shot. That means also winning both of their Power 5 games. The way the program are now, winning at North Carolina is almost assumed, so the 2019 season almost singularly boils down to a November 9 trip to Columbia, to face South Carolina. To take that next step, it’s time for the new coaching staff to trust Zac Thomas. The running game should be outstanding still. A full season of Evans running behind a line with three returning all-conference players. But we saw last year, that doesn’t work against better competition. Penn State held Moore and Evans to a combined 97 yards on 21 carries (4.6 ypc), almost 2 yards per carry below their season average. Appalachian State nearly pulled that game out because Zac Thomas threw the ball a season high 38 times, for 270 yards, which was over 100 yards above his season average. The Mountaineers were 15th in the nation in rush rate in 2018, passing the ball only 38% of the time. New head coach Eliah Drinkwitz threw the ball over 50% of the time last year as NC State offensive coordinator. Even accounting for being taken out in garbage time, that’s an additional 100 passes over the course of the season, or between 8 or 9 more attempts per game. That would put Appalachian State as the second most pass happy team in the Sun Belt, so while I don’t think he goes as far, expect a difference look. There’s no reason to think he can’t handle the workload, after leading the Sun Belt in passing efficiency among qualified quarterbacks. He was #13 nationally in Total QBR (#5 in Raw, which doesn’t adjust for competition), two spots ahead of Ryan Finley, who Drinkwitz worked with last year. He is a slightly different quarterback, with the second lowest points expected on pass plays of quarterbacks in the Top 20, while Finley was #8; but Thomas was 5th highest on run attempts, while Finley was 6th worst. Not to say he can’t throw the ball, he still completed 63% of his passes. The offense just needs the defense to be close to what it was last year, when it led the Sun Belt in scoring defense, total defense, run defense, pass defense, pass efficiency defense, etc...you get it. The front seven looks to be fine, even with the graduation of Myquon Stout from the middle of the three man front, led by a linebacking group that is probably the best in the Group of 5, and would hold up just fine in a comparison to a great deal of Power 5 teams. The question is in the secondary, where it’s Desmond Franklin, and a lot of question marks, particularly at cornerback, where Clifton Duck decided to enter the NFL Draft a year early, a problem Appalachian State doesn’t typically have, to join graduating senior Tae Hayes on their way out of Boone. This was a pass defense that allowed just 5.3 ypa last year with an opponent passer rating of just 98.0, both were #2 in the nation. It’s naive to think there isn’t depth there, but it’s also unclear who much the play of the front was aided by a nationally elite pass defense, considering the pass rush was not.
| KEY PLAYERS |
| QB | Zac Thomas, Junior |
| RB | Darrynton Evans, Junior |
| T | Victor Johnson, Senior |
| . |
| LB | Jordan Fehr, Senior |
| LB | Akeem Davis-Gather, Senior |
| S | Desmond Franklin, Senior |
