Mountaineers look to neuter The Citadel Bulldog's on Saturday

by Chris Boyce

After taking last Thursday, Friday and Saturday off, the Mountaineer football team returned to regular practice Monday in preparation for the start of conference play, which will begin on Sept. 23 against the Citadel.

Appalachian State University (1-1, 0-0 in conference) will have had two weeks to think about what went wrong against Troy State University and make adjustments to prevent the same mistakes from happening again.

The Citadel (1-2,1-0 in conference) was demolished the last time they played ASU, losing 51-0 last year in Charleston. Statistically, the Mountaineers cast a long shadow over the Bulldogs, averaging 405 yards of total offense compared to Citadel's 138 yards total offense and scoring 24 points per game to the Bulldogs 5.7 points per game, but Appalachian State head coach Jerry Moore knows that numbers aren't everything.

"Number one, the two teams they lost to were both probably ranked in the top 10: Clemson in I-A, they're undefeated, and Delaware," said Moore. "The two teams they lost to were really good football teams."

After dropping its first two games 38-0, the Citadel comes into the game fresh off an upset of Western Carolina University and is making improvements to a slightly different offense from last year, the option flexbone.

Said Moore, "They were a very opportune team against Western. The Citadel has always had a background in wishbone (offense). There was a time when they were pure wishbone. They've got enough coaches that are still there that it's no big deal to them to get back into the option game."

The Mountaineers hope to contain the Citadel's offense, mainly running back Maurice Murphy, who ran for 135 yards and two touchdowns against the Catamounts.

"Anytime you're dealing with option football, it becomes assignment football," said Moore. "One of the things that I think will be important for us this week in practice is to make sure we're executing right and have the right people on the right people."

One thing that plagued Appalachian against Troy State was inconsistency in the kicking game, an aspect that Moore hopes to correct after two missed extra points, despite kicker Mark Wright's 57 yard field goal.

"The extra points, there's no excuse," said Moore. "They were good snaps, the ball was held properly and he (Wright) just missed them. That's gotta get corrected. You can't afford to miss extra points."

Offensively, it will be a necessity for the Mountaineers to capitalize in the red zone and spread the ball out more than in their previous two contests. "That was probably the difference in the ballgame," said Moore. "Us not scoring in the red zone."

As far as the passing game is concerned, Moore expects more involvement from some of Appalachian's playmakers such as Rashad Slade and Troy Albea, but promises Appalachian will not stray from its running-game mentality.

"We're always gonna run the football," said Moore. "I don't think you're going to win championships if you can't run the football. I think you've got to be able to run the football to win big ballgames. Our players believe that, but we're not blind.

We know that we've got good receivers and good quarterbacks and for the most part we've always had good protection here. We're gonna try to utilize those kids that we've got and get the ball to them a little bit more from this point on maybe than what we've done up to this point."

Distributing the ball to the likes of a talented recieving group that includes Joey Gibson and Daniel Wilcox, as well as Slade and Albea, has not been a terribly tough task for Moore because of the group's team-oriented attitude.

"They're kind of special guys," said Moore. "Every one of them would like to catch a bunch of balls but I think as long as they're winning and playing well, competing for a championship, I don't think they really care who catches however many number of balls."

With the start of conference play, Appalachian football likes the fact that they come in with a clean slate. "We're in the conference play now. You could be 0-2 or even 0-3 and it wouldn't mean anything, you could go win it all," said Moore.

"We lost to one of what I think is one of the better Division I-AA teams in the nation. Now it's bounceback time. It's conference time. It's time to roll up our sleeves and weigh into this thing." Moore expects this season's race for the Southern Conference Championship to be quite heated but likes his team's chances.

"It's gonna be a real battle to see who can come out of this thing winning a championship," said Moore. "I think that we're capable of doing it but it's a week to week situation and you just gotta get yourself mentally and physically ready to play every week."

The Mountaineers kickoff their Southern Conference season at 2 p.m. on Saturday.