BOONE, N.C. — A new home opponent — the 74th in Kidd Brewer Stadium, for those counting — will visit The Rock for the first time Saturday.
It's been a long time coming, as an Appalachian State program in its sixth season of FBS competition will play host to a Charlotte program in its fifth season of FBS competition. Kickoff for the "White Out" game between the Mountaineers (1-0) and 49ers (1-0) is scheduled for 3:30 p.m.
The two schools separated by two hours met for the first time last year on the 49ers' home field, and a large gathering of fans in black and gold helped Charlotte set a stadium attendance record during the Mountaineers' 45-9 victory.
This year, both programs are led by a first-year FBS head coach. Charlotte's Will Healy (34 years, 7 months) and App State's
Eliah Drinkwitz (36 years, 4 months) are the third-youngest and sixth-youngest FBS coaches in the country, respectively.
The 49ers won 49-28 against Gardner-Webb in the Charlotte debut for Healy, who coached the previous three seasons at FCS Austin Peay, and App State won 42-7 against ETSU in Drinkwitz's debut.
"Coach Healy's done a really good job of putting energy into their program," Drinkwitz said. "They are playing really hard, and we really do have our hands full. We're going to need our crowd to be loud and cause some disruptions."
While Charlotte's first football visit to Boone is noteworthy, App State is also doing something rare in playing back-to-back home games to start a season. The last time that happened was 1981, before Drinkwitz or Healy were born.
Each team ran the ball effectively in Week 1, with App State posting 277 rushing yards and Charlotte accumulating 322 yards on the ground. The Mountaineers did that with a first-time starter at right tackle in redshirt freshman
Cooper Hodges, who graded out high enough to make the PFF College site's weekly All-Sun Belt team, but they lost redshirt freshman running back
Camerun Peoples to a torn ACL.
Darrynton Evans,
Daetrich Harrington and
Marcus Williams Jr. were all productive in combining for 188 yards on just 27 attempts.
"We're feeling pretty confident and buying into the coaches' schemes," Evans said. "It's a shorter week where it's not like camp, where you had two weeks to game plan on a team, so we just have to buy into the game plan, watch our film and execute."
Utilizing unbalanced lines and run-pass options for a pair of quarterbacks, Charlotte relied on the legs of 215-pound running back Benny LeMay, who followed a 1,228-yard season with 120 more yards against Gardner-Webb.
App State will look to be more disciplined and force more turnovers on the defensive side. Offensively, Drinkwitz also has talked about his role in helping quarterback
Zac Thomas get in a better early rhythm and needing the offensive line to perform better than it did a year ago against the 49ers.
"I definitely think Week 1 was a confidence booster," Thomas said. "After the first quarter, that's when we started clicking on offense. I think we left some plays out there in the first quarter that really hurt us, knowing we had practiced those plays for a long time. I think the second half was big for us."
