BOONE, N.C. — App State Football returned to The Rock last weekend and picked up its first win within the Sun Belt Conference, which appears to have a wide-open race in the East Division.
For the Mountaineers to be part of that conversation, they need to continue winning, starting with another home game at Kidd Brewer Stadium on Saturday against Old Dominion.
With a standard November kickoff time of 2:30 p.m., App State (3-4, 1-3) faces the Monarchs (4-4, 3-1) on Heroes Day. Armanti Edwards, the record-setting quarterback who will be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in December, will also be honored at halftime with his On-Campus Salute from the National Football Foundation.
The Mountaineers, who went 0-2 in league games against West Division foes, improved to 1-1 against the East Division with a 33-26 victory last weekend against Georgia State. With a 3-1 league record that includes three straight wins since a 45-37 loss at Coastal Carolina, ODU moved into a tie for the top spot in the East thanks to its 47-19 drubbing of co-leader Georgia Southern last Thursday.
The Monarchs' 0-3 start to the season included a 23-19 loss at South Carolina, a 20-14 home loss to East Carolina and a 37-17 home loss to Virginia Tech. The loss at Coastal left them at 1-4 before they beat Georgia State and Texas State on back-to-back Saturdays.
Redshirt freshman Colton Joseph has started five of the last six games for ODU, including the last four. He has totaled eight touchdown passes, two interceptions and 837 passing yards (209.3 per game) in that 3-1 stretch to go along with 346 rushing yards (86.5 per game) and four touchdowns.
After rushing for 111 yards and three touchdowns in a 24-14 win against Texas State, he put up 373 total yards with a hand in five touchdowns against Georgia Southern, which gave up four first-half touchdown passes before allowing Joseph to score on a 30-yard run in the third quarter of an abbreviated appearance cut short by a lopsided margin.
ODU's spread-out offense puts defenses in tough positions, as Aaron Young has rushed for at least 70 yards in three games, receiver Isaiah Page has a pair of 100-yard games and tight end Pat Conroy leads the team with three touchdown receptions, including a 56-yard score in which he ran free in the middle of the field against Georgia Southern.
App State struggled to stop the running from dual-threat quarterbacks Gio Lopez (South Alabama) and Braylon Braxton (Marshall) in Sun Belt losses, but the defense performed better in a loss at Louisiana, which capitalized on several short fields created by turnovers.
Georgia State moved the ball effectively in Boone but converted just one of its eight third-down tries against the Mountaineers, who used up-front pressure to record three sacks.
App State has lost the turnover battle in six straight games, with five turnovers playing a big role in the loss at Louisiana and the lone giveaway against Georgia State turning a chance to move ahead by two scores into a swing that left the Mountaineers trailing by one in the final six minutes.
Joey Aguilar and the App State offense came through on a day in which
Ahmani Marshall rushed for 115 yards and
Kaedin Robinson hauled in five passes for 121 yards. App State has actually had a different leading rusher in each of its last five games, with better numbers in the last two contests, while Robinson has been steady as the team's top receiver in all seven games. He ranks 10th nationally and first in the Sun Belt at 98.0 receiving yards per game but is still seeking his first touchdown of the season after scoring 10 times a year ago.
Monarchs head coach Ricky Rahne announced in mid-October that All-America linebacker Jason Henderson would redshirt this season, technically meaning he could play in three more regular-season games after appearing in just the 2024 opener, but ODU has received a big lift from the likes of defensive back Jahron Manning (64 tackles, three interceptions, 4.0 tackles for loss) and linebacker Mario Thompson (9.5 tackles for loss, 4.0 sacks, 52 tackles).
