Offensive lineman Daniel Kilgore provides cover for quarterback Armanti Edwards. Photo by Casey Gahagan

by RANDI KITTS
Intern Sports Reporter

As Georgia Southern fans filed into Kidd Brewer Stadium Saturday afternoon, their voices echoed throughout the hills, chanting, “Beware of lawn mowers!” On this particular Black Saturday, however, perhaps Mountaineer fans ought to have responded by warning the Eagles to “Beware of Armanti!”

Quarterback Armanti Edwards led the Mountaineers to a 52-16 victory with 381 yards total offense to advance the team’s Southern Conference record to 4-0.

“We’ve wanted this break for a while,” Edwards said. “We’ve been in a lot of dogfights, and we were waiting on this game.”

Edwards was removed from the game after just two second-half drives, throwing for 320 yards on 26-of-34 passing, including three touchdowns and no interceptions.

“We’ve been in a rhythm all year offensively, but we’ve had some trouble in the red zone,” Edwards said. “Today we eliminated that and cut some penalties and played a pretty complete game.”

A 31-yard run in the final moments of the first quarter made Edwards the second player in Division I history to attain 8,000 passing yards and 4,000 rushing yards in his career.

“It’s an accomplishment to a lot of my teammates, not only me; without them I wouldn’t have gotten it,” Edwards said. “It’s a great achievement.”

His 12,855 accrued yards also moved him to sixth in the NCAA Division I FCS history of total offensive yards in a career.

Despite Appalachian’s 712-yard performance, Edwards’ summary of a “complete game” meant that defense put in their fair share of work as well.

“It lets us relax some when the defense comes out and makes stops,” he said. “We know what those guys are capable of, so it was nice to see them out there playing like they did today.”

The Mountaineer defense recorded six sacks Saturday. Cornerback Cortez Gilbert led the team with nine tackles, and defensive end Jabari Fletcher contributed with two sacks of his own and two-and-a-half tackles for loss.

“Swarming to the ball, getting as many guys as possible, those are the things we did today, and those are the things that we’re going to keep doing the rest of the season,” Fletcher said.

Defensive players said the public’s criticism on their performance earlier this season fueled them to improve their game for the future.

“As a defense, we are tired of people from the fans to the media asking us about our defense, if we are as good as we used to be or as tenacious as we used to be,” Gilbert said. “So today we proved to everybody that we are better than what we used to be. This isn’t the ‘05, ‘06 or ‘07 team, this is the ‘09 team, and that’s how we are going to play from here on out.”

Overall, the defense held Georgia Southern to just 15 rushing yards on 27 carries.

“[I was impressed] with their attacking attitude, their tempo and their not worrying about making mistakes,” head coach Jerry Moore said. “Obviously this was a big win for us.”

Appalachian is now 4-0 in conference play for the third time in the past four years. After each of its prior SoCon starts, the Mountaineers have gone on to win the conference championship with an undefeated league record.

Photo by Casey Gahagan  |  The Appalachian

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