Ragin' Dave APP STATE Breakdown Part Deaux
This has a lot of the same information as the first game vs App State, but I have added some new information as well. Geaux Cajuns!!!!!! You need to be there early, Wear Red and Stay Late. We need every available Cajun Fan to send Coach Napier off with a F'N Bang!!!!!!!
Geaux Cajuns!!!!!!!!!
App State Preview
The standard bearer in the SBC, App is always great and when they are not great, they are good. Last year they were just good, and it was disappointing, this year they might be great again. The more I see them and CCU, the more I believe they are the best team in the East, by far. They are good on offense and on defense and special teams, other than that they aren’t that good. I think I expected them to be good, but not this good. This is a team that has had a coaching carousel over the past few years, but I think they have their guy now. Shawn Clark is an App guy, he played there, he coached there as an assistant and now he is the HC. As good as App has been in the past, this could be one of their best teams we have seen in the SBC. So far this season they started off defeating a common peer conference team in East Carolina in neutral site game, they then lost a really close on to Miami (Fl) in Miami, then beat an overmatched Elon team at home and then beat a pretty good Marshall team at home and a big win over Georgia State on the road. They then were disappointed in a road loss to UL but followed that up by going on a tear to finish the season with a surprise win on the road at Coastal, a home win vs ULM, road win at Arkansas State, a home win vs USA, a road win at Troy and a home win vs Georgia Southern and were not really challenged in any of these games with the exception of Coastal. This team is hot and playing good football right now. Since losing to UL they have won 6 straight games by a combined score of 240-86 or an average of 40-14.
QB—Chase Brice is a grad transfer from Duke, but this is a high-end recruit. Brice was a high level 3 star recruit out of HS that signed originally with Clemson. Brice started his career at Clemson behind Kelly Bryant and Trevor Lawrence, when Bryant decided to transfer, he was promoted to 2nd string. Brice’s claim to fame was the fact that while the backup for Lawrence early in the season of 2018, Lawrence got hurt vs Syracuse and Clemson was down by 10 points late in the game. Brice came in and led a comeback to win, Clemson went on to win a National Championship that year. Without that win, this never happens. Brice was at Clemson in 2019 but decided in 2020 to transfer to Duke to work with David Cutcliff. Brice played the 2020 season at Duke, but was a turnover machine, throwing 15 INT’s to only 10 TD’s. After the 2020 season, Brice announced he would be transferring to App to play the 2021 season there. Brice has started the season very good; he is completing 64% of his passes with 22 TD’s and only 10 INT’s. This is by far his best season to date. He is also averaging 242 yards per game through the air. And while Brice is like Jake Bentley in the fact that he is not an accomplished runner, the does have the athletic skills to move in the pocket and by time to make a pass down field. Brice still has the tendency to turn the ball over but has done a pretty nice job of limiting his turnovers this year, compared to years past. His biggest problem is when he has pressure on him, he will try to force plays, which we saw in the previous UL game.
RB—While QB is a strength of this team, it is not the best position, that could be argued between RB and WR. At RB, they have 2 good ones. Cam Peoples (who seemingly has been there for 100 years) and the younger Nate Noel. They are both good, but Noel has been special this year. Noel is averaging 5.6 yards a carry as well as 86 yards per game. And by the way, the 2nd guy is Peoples, and he is averaging 5.3 yards per carry and 76 yards per game. Neither are really doing much in the passing game, but we will get to that shortly. Noel is 5’10 190 and Peoples is 6’2 220. They are different types of backs, but they are both good. Noel has become the main guy, but Cam Peoples could start for almost every team in the SBC and probably most if not all G5 teams around. The question mark is their 3rd guy in Daetrich Harrington, Harrington is a very good RB, but has only played in 4 games this season, but did play in their last two games vs Troy and Georgia Southern. And while he has not put up great numbers, he has added to a very dynamic running game for App State.
WR/TE—Remember when I said QB was good, but not the best position on the team, well RB is not that either. It is possibly WR, where they have 5 guys that are weapons. Previously, I stated that USA did not have the deepest WR corps in the SBC, but they had some good ones at the top and possibly the best. Well, App has by far the deepest WR corps in the SBC and if Jalen Tolbert from USA is the best WR in the conference, APP might arguably have 3 guys in the Top 10 if not better and the guys behind them are good to. We will start with the big 3, Corey Sutton, Malik Williams, and Thomas Henigan. Those 3 have combined for 157 receptions 2357 yards and 18 TD’s. All 3 of these guys are Super Seniors. Hennigan feels like he has been killing us for a long time. Jalen Virgil and Christian Wells are behind these 3 and they are good to. They don’t get a ton of production from the TE position, but they don’t need to when you have 3 top notch WR’s and 2 pretty good ones behind them. Their starter at TE is Henry Pearson. Pearson has 9 catches for 103 yards with no TD’s.
OL—They are a veteran group on the OL, with their starters being only 1 underclassman. They have a couple of transfers including Right Guard Isiah Wells, who is a transfer from Western Carolina and only a sophomore, the other transfer is from Colorado State and is Left Guard Damion Daley. The rest of that group is Left Tackle Redshirt Junior Anderson Hardy, Redshirt Senior Center Hunter Baer, and Redshirt Junior Right Tackle Cooper Hodges. They are very young behind this group with mostly Freshman and Sophomores as their backups, but the guys who start have been doing an incredible job for them as seen by the offensive numbers above. One incredible stat for this team, is they have only given up 10 sacks all season. 2 of those were vs us. So, they are averaging less than 1 sack per game. That is very impressive. But again, the key is pressure vs Chase Brice, not necessarily sacks because he will make mistakes under pressure as we saw vs UL last game.
Offense—No change in the offense from earlier in the season, they are still a tough team. All their starters that played against us (with the exception of Harrington at RB will be back). App is averaging almost 36 points per game on offense with about 189 of those on the ground and about 251 of those via the air. They are still a very balanced team. They do struggle on 3rd down, only converting around 37% of those but have been really good at 4th down, converting 20-30 or 67% of those. They score allot when they get to the red zone converting 42 of 46 attempts, but only 29 of those have been for TD’s. So, forcing them into FG’s is going to be what we have to do if they get into the redzone.
DL—The are pretty good on the D-Line, but they have one special player and we saw him a couple years ago really dominate on defense and that player is Demetrious Taylor. While Taylor has not put up the numbers he has in the past, he is still a disruptor behind the line. He has 8 QB hurries and 6 sacks on the season. On the other side of Taylor is Caleb Spurlin and he is a pretty good one, Spurlin has 32 tackles and 4 TFL on the season. At NT you have Jordan Earle. They are experienced at D Line, with 5 of the 6 on the 2 deep are either Juniors or Seniors. Off the bench they Tommy Dawkins and Deandre Dingle Prince off the bench. Slowing Taylor and Spurlin down are key vs App State.
LB—App plays a 3-4 Defense and just like on the D-Line they have a bunch of good players, but one special player, they are the same at LB. D’Marco Jackson is the leader on Defense in the middle. He has 103 tackles through 12 games. He is good. He has 15 TFL and 5 sacks and leads the team in TFL. Next to him is Trey Cobb and on the outside, they have Brendan Harrington and Nick Hampton. All 4 of their LB’s are in the top 7 of their tacklers. Hampton is 2nd on the team in tackles and 2nd on the team in TFL with 14. Trey Cobb is 3rd on the team in tackles and Harrington is 8th. They are strong in the middle 4. Off the bench one to watch out for is Grad Transfer TD Roof, from Ga Tech. He gives them some quality depth at LB.
DB—This team is a veteran team all over the field, the starting defense is full of Juniors and Seniors. In the back half, they have another special player and a handful of good ones. Shawn Jolley at CB is a special player. But opposite of him is another good one in Steven Jones Jr. At safety they have Nick Ross and Ryan Huff. Jolley and Jones are in the top 10 in tackles. Where they might struggle is depth in the defensive backfield. Two of their backups are either a freshman or RS Freshman in Ronald Clarke and Travis McNicholl. At Corner they have a transfer from Morgan State in Donte Small and a Safety from Wisconsin in Madison Cone. Both are pretty good players.
Defense—They are just good, really good. They give up only around 19 points per game on defense and only 320 yards per game. The key to their defense is stopping the run, they only give up about 113 yards per game on the ground and 206 through the air. They are stout on 3rd down defense, only allowing 32% on 3rd down and 38% on 4th down. They also can pressure the QB as they have 32 sacks or close to 3 per game. Teams also don’t score much on them in the red zone. They only have allowed 16 of the 35 offenses in the redzone to score TD’s and only 26 of the 35 to get any points at all. They are +1 in turnovers on the season but have a ton of INT’s at 15, but they do not recover a bunch of fumbles with only 6 on the season. We will have to be very efficient with the ball when we have it in our hands.
ST—At Punter they start Xavier Subotsoh, he has not been great, he is only averaging 40.5 yards per punt, but is effective as 21 of his 40 punts have been within the 20-yard line, so part of his punting average could because he is punting on short fields and trying to knock it down inside the 20. Their PK has been another senior in Chandler Staton and he is good. He is 18-19 on the season on FG, 10-11 including 5 of them between 30-49 yards with a long of 48. They do utilize a Freshman for Kickoffs in Michael Hughes. Hughes has 27 of his 18 kickoffs have been for touchbacks. Punt Returner is WR Thomas Hennigan and Malik Williams splitting time and while his numbers have not been great on Punt returns, they are good ones and capable of breaking a return. Williams is a little more explosive then Hennigan. Their Kickoff guy is Jalen Virgil, Virgl is averaging 32 yards per return including 2 TD’s one of which is a 100-yard return for a TD and a 97 yard return. Virgil is good and explosive.
As stated above they are good on Offense and Defense, on offense they are averaging 36 ppg and on defense they are only giving up 19 ppg. On offense they are balanced averaging almost 200 yards per game on the ground and 284 through the air. On defense they do struggle a little vs the pass and that is where they have been a little vulnerable. They are only giving up 117 yards on the ground, but 247 yards per game through the air. This is a team that is fundamentally sound, they don’t give up a bunch of penalties, sacks, or turnovers. They also like to control the clock on offense as they are averaging about 32 minutes per game in TOP.
They are good in all phases of the football game. Shawn Clark has been there for a couple of seasons and again he is an App guy. They are proving that they make good choices at coach as they just move on with plug and play coaches, but I think we might see Clark there for a little while as he loves Boone, NC.
Matchups—
• UL OL vs App DL—O’Cyrus Torrence is the key, we need him back, when we had him, we were dominant vs App on the OL. We held App’s best Defensive Lineman quiet in that game. Without him will be different, with him I think we are better than them.
• UL DL vs APP OL—I think we are better here and have improved as the season has gone along. App’s OL is good, real good, but we are better on the line and we need to make sure we are better in this game. That will spell the difference.
• UL DB’s vs App’s WR—App is very good at WR, but we held them quiet during that game, key will be for our DB’s to play as they did earlier in the season.
• UL RB’s vs App LB—2nd level is the key, getting into that second level will be a key for the UL offense. Emani Bailey and MJ run hard and big, we have an advantage once we get to the 3rd level, so beating these guys at the 2nd level are a huge key.
• ST—Control the game on kickoffs and don’t let their guys get loose. Virgil, Hennigan and Williams are good and can change a game quickly, we must keep them from breaking the big ones.
POSITION VS POSITION MATCHUPS
UL RB CORP and APP RUNNING BACK CORP are both good, it is a matchup of Cameron Peoples, Nate Noel and Daetrich Harrington vs Chris Smith, Montrell Williams and Emani Bailey---PUSH
UL OL vs APP OL—Both are good, really good. With O’Cyrus Torrence, slight advantage to UL, without, huge advantage to APP.
UL WR vs App WR—Advantage APP in quality at the top, advantage UL with depth. Slight advantage to APP.
UL QB vs APP QB—Depends on which LL shows up, Levi is a great manager of the game, Brice is more dynamic as a passer but very little mobility. If LL plays like he can Advantage UL.
UL DL vs APP DL—Both are good, but UL is deeper and better, while App might have 1 better player, UL has the better unit. Advantage UL
UL LB vs APP LB—Same as above, but an argument could be made for the way that Chauncey Manac is playing right now vs D’Marco Jackson. Advantage UL
UL DB vs APP DB—UL DB’s are arguably the best in the Belt as a unit. APP is good, but Advantage UL.
Special Teams—Very close all around, but UL has the better punter, but APP has the much better FG Kicker. Advantage APP, specifically if their returners can make some plays. Advantage APP
Coaching Staff—APP’s is good, but I would put CBN and Patrick Toney up against anyone in the Belt. The question is going to be that our staff is not (specifically CBN) looking for the move to UF. Advantage UL
This is going to be a good one, the fact that we are at home helps allot. I see UL pulling out a much closer game than we saw vs APP the first time, but still winning.
My Prediction UL 35 App 24.
Geaux Cajuns!!!!!!!
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Re: Ragin' Dave APP STATE Breakdown Part Deaux
Originally Posted by LaCajunsFan
