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by LINDSEY HUNTSINGER
Sports Reporter
Saturday marks Appalachian State’s annual Black Saturday game at Kidd Brewer Stadium, as well as the annual face-off between the Mountaineers and the Eagles of Georgia Southern.
The two programs traditionally have strong teams, and with the added draw of Black Saturday the anticipation and excitement for Saturday’s game is extremely high.
“Every time we’re at home the atmosphere here is great and it gets you up and ready to play,” wide receiver Matt Cline said. “On Black Saturday we know what we’ve got to do, and hopefully we’ll come out and get the win.”
The Mountaineers
are coming off a come-from-behind 44-34 win over the Terriers of
Wofford last weekend, and have used this week to prepare for the solid
game of the Eagles.
Appalachian
practices were slightly restructured this week to make sure the
Mountaineers were able to maximize practice time to prepare for the
upcoming game.
“We won
a ball game and they had to dig themselves out of a hole to do that,”
defensive coordinator John Wiley said. “We have to go into a game ready
to play, and because of that we changed the way we’re practicing a
little bit, and hopefully if it sinks in, if it takes, it’s positive.”
There
has been a lot of doubt this season about the Mountaineer defense and
their tackling abilities, but Wiley attributes much of that speculation
to players being misaligned rather than a lack of strong tacklers.
“The
bottom line is if you’re in position because you did the right thing
tackling becomes a whole lot easier,” Wiley said. “A lot of what looks
like missed tackles, yeah they’re missed tackles because you’re
recovering from being out of position in the first place and you’re
trying to make a wild-a-- grab.”
The
Mountaineers have had to prepare for the comprehensive offense and good
road game Georgia Southern is sure to bring with them Saturday.
“I
expect them to come out here, and depending upon how we line down,
either use [the] zone play and maybe keep it once or twice, or throw
the ball all over the yard,” Wiley said. “They use a lot of tunnels and
bubble screens so I know we’ll have to defend that.”
On the
offensive side of the ball the Mountaineers are averaging 34.7 points
per game, but are also allowing 26.3. Both Cline and quarterbacks coach
Brad Glenn agreed the offense’s sole job is to score every time they
have possession of the ball, and they cannot worry about how the
defense is performing.
“We
can’t really worry about if the defense is giving up a lot of points or
not,” Cline said. “It’s certainly a boost to get a turnover—the
momentum carries over to the offense—but either way [the offense] knows
what we have to do.”
The
offense has their work cut out for them against a Georgia Southern
defense that this season has had a total of 476 tackles, 46 tackles for
loss, and lost yardage totaling 190 yards.
“They’ve
got a great program,” Glenn said. “I know they’re hungry right now to
come in here and get a win, and we expect it to be close just like
always, and for them to give us their best shot.”
Once
again, focus and concentration are at the top of the team’s to-do list
as they head into another challenging Southern Conference game.
“We need
to make sure individually and as a team that we are focused on all of
our assignments,” Cline said. “I feel like everybody is giving really
good effort, but we need to stay a little more focused.”
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