Paul Sherar - Chief Photographer

Appalachian State wide reciever Jermane Little hauls in a
pass during the Mountaineers’ practice session Tuesday
afternoon. ASU hosts Western Carolina Saturday at 2 p.m.
at Kidd Brewer Stadium.

Surging Catamounts final
SoCon foe for Mountaineers

Chris Boyce - Sports Beat

After a close call against the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) last Saturday, the Appalachian State University football team faces another huge game Saturday when the Western Carolina University Catamounts travel to Boone.

The game will be another must-win situation for the 6-3 Mountaineers who enter the game with a 5-2 Southern Conference (SoCon) record. Eleventh-ranked Appalachian State defeated a much-improved Keydet team last weekend 27-17 but needed a late-fourth quarter touchdown drive to win.

The Catamounts bring an overall record of 6-3 with a SoCon record of 4-2 into Kidd Brewer Stadium and are fresh off a 63-0 drubbing of Liberty University last weekend.

“It’s the most important game in the nation,” said Appalachian State head football coach Jerry Moore. “I’ve known for the last couple of weeks that both teams would be coming in with the same record. I’ve expected this to be exactly like it is.”

Western Carolina is currently the conference’s hottest team, winning its last four games and accumulating 618 yards of total offense in the rout of Liberty.

The Catamounts have outscored their last three opponents by a combined score of 128-20 and have the third-ranked rushing offense in the conference at 206.3 yards per game.

Appalachian State’s passing game continued its improvement in the win against the Keydets, as the Mountaineers lead the league in passing last week with an average of 204.9 yards per game.
Appalachian State also leads the conference in passing defense allowing only 122.6 passing yards per contest.

The game has supreme significance in terms of playoff implications with both teams desperate for wins at the end of the season.

“We only beat them by seven points last year, and they’ve got a lot of people back,” said Moore. “They’ve been winning very convincingly… They’re just a good football team. To win, we can’t go out there and have a bunch of penalties and turnovers. If we don’t do that we’ve got a good enough football team to go win.”

Despite the win against the Keydets, Moore said the Mountaineers have numerous areas to address on both sides of the ball.

“We didn’t rush the ball for 100 yards on offense and on defense we didn’t tackle particularly well. We missed some tackles against VMI that gave them big plays and in a ball game like that it only takes four or five plays to make a difference.”

In addition to poor tackling, the Mountaineers had two facemask penalties offensively, both which cost Appalachian State big yardage.

In a season in which the Southern Conference has perhaps its most even field in recent memory, no team has been immune to the upset.

“I heard a quote from [Georgia Southern head football coach] Paul Johnson last week that he kind of felt this coming on, talking about the East Tennessee loss. If you don’t get yourself mentally ready to play and if you’re not on top of your game in this league right now, you’re gonna get beat. I don’t care who it is,” said Moore.

The Mountaineers cannot afford such a letdown when the Catamounts enter Kidd Brewer Stadium Saturday afternoon for a 2 p.m. kickoff.