BOONE, N.C. — App State Football concludes its nonconference schedule Saturday with a sold-out home game against Liberty, starting at 3:30 p.m. in Kidd Brewer Stadium.
The Family Weekend matchup in Boone will also be a White Out game for fans, with those in attendance encouraged to wear white while cheering on the Mountaineers at The Rock. App State's other home "White Outs" in recent years were a 31-7 victory against Old Dominion in 2016 and a 56-41 victory against Charlotte in 2019.
Since Liberty began FBS competition in 2018, App State (2-2, 0-1 Sun Belt) is tied for eighth place nationally with 60 wins, while the Flames (4-0, 2-0 CUSA) are 12th with 57 wins. Those win totals rank No. 1 and No. 2 among current Group of Five programs.
Former Coastal Carolina head coach Jamey Chadwell took over Liberty's program before the 2023 season, and the Flames are 17-1 under his direction, with the only loss occurring against Oregon in last season's Fiesta Bowl. The Flames fell behind 17-0 at home against East Carolina last weekend and, like App State the previous weekend, rallied to beat the Pirates.
App State won 21-19 on Sept. 14 despite trailing 16-0 in Greenville, and Liberty followed a late ECU fumble in a four-point game with a sealing touchdown drive to close a 35-24 home victory. That game essentially began at 11 p.m. because of a lengthy weather delay that commenced shortly after kickoff.
App State is moving forward from a 48-14 loss to South Alabama last Thursday, when the running of powerful back Fluff Bothwell and elusive quarterback Gio Lopez created big problems for the Mountaineers. In Chadwell's offense, which Grayson McCall ran at a high level with the Chanticleers, Liberty has an elite-level, dual-threat quarterback in Kaidon Salter to pair with 5-foot-7, 220-pound back Quinton Cooley.
Salter has thrown for 949 yards with seven touchdown passes and one interception this season, giving him 3,825 passing yards and 39 touchdown passes since Chadwell became head coach. Three of Salter's four touchdown passes against ECU went to West Virginia transfer Reese Smith.
After spending the first three years of his collegiate career at Wake Forest and scoring 16 rushing touchdowns during a 1,401-yard season at Liberty in 2023, Cooley has three 100-yard rushing games this season. When he had 45 yards against UTEP, teammate Billy Lucas rushed 104 yards, so the Flames have had a 100-yard back in every game.
Missed tackles plagued the Mountaineers during their short-week loss to a fully rested South Alabama team — the Jaguars didn't even play a full fourth quarter in an 87-10 win against Northwestern State the previous Thursday — prompting a focus on defensive physicality this week in Boone. That included high-intensity drills involving one-on-one tackling, best evidenced when fired-up linebacker
Kyle Arnholt was unfazed losing his helmet while making a pad-crunching stop during a Monday rep.
Slow starts offensively have contributed to App State's early deficits in the last three games, with the Mountaineers seeking more production on the ground to keep defenses honest and take pressure off the passing game. Seven offensive linemen and four running backs are in the mix to see significant playing time in support of a passing attack led by
Joey Aguilar, who ranks eighth nationally at 307.5 passing yards per game.
The Mountaineers hold a 7-3 lead in the series, including a 5-3 mark in Boone. Their last meeting occurred a decade ago, when an FCS-level Liberty team won 55-48 in overtime at The Rock against an App State team making its FBS debut.
