CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — No stranger to Boone, Mack Brown was visiting the High Country this summer when he crossed paths with Appalachian State offensive lineman
Victor Johnson while getting a haircut.
There are lots of connections between App State and Brown, the former Mountaineers head coach who has returned to Chapel Hill for his second stint in charge of North Carolina's program.
There's not much actual football history between App State and UNC, but that will change Saturday, when the
Eliah Drinkwitz-led Mountaineers (2-0) face the Tar Heels (2-1) in a sold-out Kenan Stadium at 3:30 p.m. Fans not attending the game can
click HERE to learn more about how to watch the nonconference matchup.
It will be only the second football game, with the first occurring in 1940, between two high-level programs separated by less than three hours.
"This is a great game for us as far as a program and an opportunity to play an ACC opponent at their place, so obviously that's a lot of fun, but at the end of the day, it's one of 12 opportunities to play the game," Drinkwitz said. "For our team, our mindset, every day is as important as the next day, and every game is as important as the next game. We're not trying to make one game bigger than the rest. We're making each game important and, again, small daily improvements are the key to long-term success.
"We're just trying to be better today than we were yesterday, and we're trying to be better Saturday than we were the previous Saturday."
App State, which moved up to the FBS ranks in 2014, is facing a school from a Power Five conference for the seventh straight year. Each of the last three seasons, the Mountaineers have played a tight game against a P5 opponent, with close calls in 2016 (20-13 overtime loss at Tennessee), 2017 (20-19 loss to Wake Forest) and 2018 (45-38 overtime loss at Penn State).
Drinkwitz, like Brown, was hired late in 2018, and App State's head coach came to Boone following three seasons as the offensive coordinator for UNC rival N.C. State. With four straight bowl wins and three consecutive Sun Belt Conference titles heading into 2019, the Mountaineers have posted their first 2-0 start since 2010 thanks to a 42-7 victory against East Tennessee State and 56-41 win against Charlotte.
Appalachian was off last Saturday, a day after UNC fell to 2-1 with a 24-18 loss to Wake Forest. True freshman quarterback Sam Howell led fourth-quarter comebacks in wins against South Carolina and Miami to open the season, and he nearly produced another one as the Tar Heels cut a 21-0 halftime deficit to 21-18 last Friday night.
Howell and App State quarterback
Zac Thomas have combined for 11 touchdown passes and no interceptions this season, and the Mountaineers will receive a boost from the return of wideout
Corey Sutton. It's already a deep pass-catching group, as juniors
Thomas Hennigan,
Malik Williams and
Jalen Virgil all set or matched single-game career highs in the first two weeks.
With four returning starters on the offensive line, App State has increased its streak of consecutive games with at least 200 rushing yards to eight.
Darrynton Evans ranks No. 2 nationally at 166.5 rushing yards per game, as the junior who wears No. 3 has rushed 33 times for 333 yards in two games. Since the start of the 2018 season, he has 19 runs of at least 20 yards and eight runs of at least 50 yards, and he's rushed for 1,393 yards in his 11 career games as App State's primary back.
The offensive balance should come as no surprise given that Drinkwitz's final NC State offense in 2018 had a 1,000-yard rusher for the third straight year, two 1,000-yard receivers and a QB with nearly 3,800 passing yards.
"We've gotten off to a good start, and there are definitely a lot of things to clean up from the first two games," Hennigan said. "I think our team got rested up (during the off Saturday), and now we're ready to go going into a big game for us."
Defensively, the Mountaineers continued their stingy ways in the 42-7 win against ETSU and held a 42-20 lead late in the third quarter of their high-scoring win against Charlotte.
With two special teams touchdowns, two touchdown drives lasting less than 20 seconds and another touchdown drive that lasted just 1:06, App State scored frequently and quickly against the 49ers, one reason why Charlotte had 15 possessions in the game. ETSU finished with 10 possessions in the opening game, and it was the highest number of possessions through four quarters of an App State game since the eighth game of the 2017 season — a 30-27 loss against UMass.
App State did force one turnover and record five three-and-outs in Charlotte's first eight possessions, and
Shaun Jolly's interception in the final minute sealed the victory.
For the redshirt seniors on App State's roster, it was their 43rd win, a total that is No. 7 nationally and tied for No. 1 among Group of Five programs since the start of the 2015 season.
"When you start looking at App State, look at what their seniors have accomplished the last few years," Brown told reporters this week, "it's the best in the state."
