BOONE, N.C. — App State fans, it's time to return to The Rock, where a talented team with its own optimistic returners takes on the first challenge of an exciting new year.
Moving forward from a 9-5 season that included a five-game winning streak to reach the Sun Belt title game and a Cure Bowl victory, the Mountaineers make their 2024 debut Saturday against FCS neighbor ETSU in a sold-out Kidd Brewer Stadium. Kickoff is scheduled for 3:30 p.m., and the game will be streamed live on ESPN+.
The
updated A-to-Z Fan Guide is a comprehensive collection of information for fans heading to the High Country for Game Day. Please note that Kidd Brewer Stadium has a clear bag policy, and umbrellas are prohibited inside the stadium.
App State head coach
Shawn Clark's team ranks 33rd nationally by returning 68 percent of its production from 2023. The roster has 34 scholarship newcomers, including 15 from the transfer portal.
All 15 are listed on the opening-game depth chart, with six of those players being offensive linemen tasked with the jobs of protecting quarterback
Joey Aguilar and creating holes for a ground attack that brings back four of the team's top five rushers from 2023.
Defensively, portal arrivals are likely to make significant impacts at nose, the "Star" position and cornerback — where three transfers have contributed to that deep group turning heads in the preseason.
ETSU also has a rebuilt roster, but some of it is familiar to App State's coaches and fans. First-year head coach Tre Lamb — the highly respected cousin of App State Football alum Taylor Lamb — was Gardner-Webb's head coach when the Runnin' Bulldogs visited Kidd Brewer Stadium in the 2023 opener and held a third-quarter lead before falling 45-24.
Gardner-Webb won seven games and reached the FCS playoffs in 2023 as ETSU went 3-8, prompting a coaching change across the border in Johnson City, Tenn. Lamb returns to Boone leading a team with 49 newcomers, and 24 of his 29 transfers followed him to ETSU from Gardner-Webb.
That group includes 6-foot-3 dual-threat quarterback Jaylen King, who didn't play against App State last year but later became the starter for a team that won the Big South/OVC conference championship. Running back Bryson Irby was ETSU's leading rusher in 2023 with 531 yards, and 163-pound Devontae Houston played three seasons at UConn.
Who knew, when Aguilar took the field late in the first half of the 2023 opener against Gardner-Webb and threw a touchdown pass on his first FBS snap, that he was just putting his first fingerprints on a record-setting season. He finished with four touchdown passes that day and is the nation's only returning quarterback who had 33-plus touchdown passes and 3,700-plus passing yards in 2023.
Lamb and an ETSU team with plenty of players who were on the field that day get another crack at the Mountaineers on Saturday.
