BOONE, N.C. — Another season, another strong start for Appalachian State's special teams.
For the second straight year, thanks to
D'Marco Jackson's 16-yard return of
Shaun Jolly's blocked punt and
Darrynton Evans' 45-yard return of an onside kick against Charlotte, App State has recorded multiple special teams touchdowns in an early season home victory.
The Mountaineers finished 2018 with four special teams touchdowns. With special teams coordinator
Erik Link overseeing Saturday's output, Appalachian leads the nation with six special teams touchdowns since the start of last season.
"I'm very proud of our special teams," head coach
Eliah Drinkwitz said. "That's a tribute to Coach Link, all the hard work he's put in and those guys believing in what we're doing."
Jackson's touchdown gave App State a 28-13 lead with just 39 seconds left in the first half, and Evans helped seal the 56-41 win against Charlotte by turning a dangerous scenario into a productive one with 3:10 remaining in the game. The third career kickoff return for a touchdown put Evans in sole possession of first place in school history.
Those two sequences highlighted a stellar overall performance from Link's groups against the 49ers.
Xavier Subotsch, whose fifth and final punt was downed inside the 20, had a net average of 50.0 yards on his first four attempts. Those punts of 44, 48, 46 and 48 yards included two fair catches along with returns of minus-1 and minus-13 yards. Redshirt freshman
Mike Price and true freshman
Brendan Harrington delivered the big tackles on those plays.
Through two weeks, with a true freshman long snapper in
Christian Johnstone, Subotsch ranks 10th nationally with a net punting average of 45.3 yards.
Chandler Staton had three touchbacks on kickoffs, with coverage players such as Price, Harrington, Jackson,
Tyler Bird,
Nick Hampton and
Zareon Hayes assisting on return tackles shy of the 25-yard line, and junior
Jalen Virgil gained 45 yards on his first career kickoff return. As a team, App State's average of 36.3 yards per kickoff return is No. 2 nationally.
Virgil assumed a leading role in the kick return game Saturday with Evans piling up 234 rushing yards at running back, but Evans capitalized on his opportunity as a member of App State's "Hands to Win" team when Charlotte needed to recover an onside kick in the closing minutes.
The blocking efforts of
Henry Pearson,
Jordan Fehr,
Caleb Spurlin and
Noel Cook created a clean path for Evans to catch the ball and run free down the left sideline.
"If the hands team is out there, it's to win the game," Drinkwitz said. "The unsung heroes are the four guys on the front that made key blocks so Darrynton could field that. Just an unbelievable awareness from him to go score."
Evans and San Diego State's Rashaad Penny are the only players to rush for more than 200 yards and return a kickoff for a touchdown in the same game since 2000. In that time, Evans is only player to do those two things and accumulate three rushing touchdowns in the process.
Jackson, a sophomore linebacker, posted the first touchdown of his young career after flirting with a score on a blocked punt return last season.
Less than a minute after a forced fumble by App State's defense had set up a short touchdown for a 21-13 lead late in the first half, a three-and-out defensive series with three called timeouts from Appalachian caused Charlotte's offense to quickly give the ball up again.
Jolly rushed the punter from the left side and stuck out his right hand to knock the ball off his foot. The spinning ball bounced around between a few players before Jackson extended his right hand, scooped it up — he called it a "country ball" because no one was around it — and raced untouched down the left sideline for a 16-yard score.
"We had been repping it in practice every day, and when an opportunity happened, I took advantage of it," Jolly said. "Meech (
Demetrius Taylor) and Spurlin did their jobs, and I had an open lane."
"It felt good, and I was just glad to help the team," Jackson said. "It was a momentum play."
