Boone — (WLOS) The price of playing football is high, and in the eyes of outsiders, it may not be the fairest trade. Players train for eight months to prepare for four months. But the cheers of the crowd at Kidd Brewer Stadium or the adrenaline rush of a game-winning play more than make up for the time lost.
“For me, it’s about giving back to the players,” said App State head coach Shawn Clark. “These kids work hard all year long and they have 12 opportunities that they’re guaranteed. We have to take full advantage of them.”
Clark and his team will face a familiar opponent on the other side of the court. The East Tennessee State Buccaneers are a former Southern Conference rival that the Mountaineers have only played once since leaving the league to join the FBS.
“It’s a great conference with great players,” Clark said of the SoCon. “It’s a great program. I know they dropped football for a couple of years and then brought it back, which I’m really happy about. But there were great games in the past. I played there in the Dome, I still have a scar on my knee from the Dome back then.”
ETSU is a different team than the one they started with last year (Gardner-Webb), but is led by the same head coach, Tre Lamb. 24 Runnin’ Bulldogs followed Lamb to Johnson City, 14 on offense and 10 on defense.
“It’s really going to be a mix and match of things,” Clark predicted. “I think his scheme will be his scheme, both offensively and defensively.”
The most dynamic transfer is quarterback Jaylen King, who has taken over the starting position for Gardner-Webb’s last seven games, during which time he has thrown for 1,223 yards and 11 touchdowns and rushed for 401 yards and five scores en route to leading Gardner-Webb to the Big South/OVC championship.
“He’s very difficult to tackle. We have to keep him in the game because when he comes out of the pocket he can really hurt you,” Clark said. “He has a very strong arm, can throw the ball from the sideline to the finish line and is a great decision maker.”
While the Mountaineers will have to sort out the Buccaneers’ transfer moves as the game progresses, they have retained most of their own players and have also brought back two prominent off-field players in offensive coordinator Frank Ponce and defensive coordinator Scot Sloan.
“I think first and foremost we were able to keep both coordinators and that’s very important,” Clark said. “Our kids weren’t looking to learn a different scheme, they were just looking to improve on what we had.”
Most of the preseason hype revolved around the returning skill player. Quarterback Joey Aguilar is the most productive player returning to a Division I FBS team, and wide receiver Kaedin Robinson was named to the Biletnikoff Award watch list in the preseason. The Mountaineers also return five of their top six rushers from last year.
The offensive line, however, is not as experienced and has only one starter back. Clark and his staff have done everything they can to fill some of those gaps, and during fall practice he was pleased with the unit’s progress.
“These teams have probably made the most progress throughout fall camp, and it was evident in our last scrimmage,” he praised. “Nothing was planned in that scrimmage, but I thought we moved the ball well. There were hardly any pre-snap penalties, which is always something you worry about before the first game.”
There are plenty of returning players on defense that fans will be familiar with, but Clark previewed one that might catch their eye early in the season.
“He’s a player I’m so excited for,” Clark said of defensive lineman Kevin Abrams-Verwayne. The fifth-year redshirt junior started the final five games of the 2023 season at defensive end. “We have a saying here: If you don’t cheat the game, the game won’t cheat you. When you watch him, you see that he’s redefined his body and shaped his body and his work ethic.”
The one constant in college football this decade has been constant change, and this year is no different: The NCAA has adopted the NFL’s 2-minute warning at the end of halves, tablets are now allowed on the sidelines, and quarterbacks can now wear earpieces in their helmets to communicate with coaches.
With that, everything is set for Clark and the app’s fanbase to see how her team adapts and what 2024 might look like starting at 3:30 p.m. Saturday.
“I want to see how we handle different situations. Throughout fall camp and throughout spring, we always play situational football,” Clark said of what he wants to see in Week 1. “I think when you look at how the game has changed, it’s all situational football.”
