You idiot. You blithering idiot. You ruined it.
All the N.C. State goodwill, all the “I think we got a football team” and “that was App State Football” positive comments over the last two weeks. It’s all gone done.
We knew the ball would be thrown. But when it doesn’t work in a hurricane, no need to continue doing it. This isn’t the NFL, no matter how much you want it to be.
Bad games happen. Players have letdowns, but coaches need to adjust. They didn’t.
This is Dowell’s worst loss of his App State tenure, minus last year’s JMU game. In that game, the team, Dowell included, quit. This game, the defense and special teams had effort. This game probably feels worse because it was there for the taking. App State should have won this. Many App State teams win this game.
The opponent hadn’t won against an FBS team all season. They looked terrible the week before, which was on the road. Then they came to Boone, didn’t allow a touchdown and then visited Miller Hill.
This was not App State. Being App State means you go into all sorts of weather, embrace it and ball out. The defense only allowed eight points (they didn’t allow the safety), but I would argue they didn’t even look great. Continually leaky against an anemic offense until that same offense finally broke through.
This offense is the most fair-weathered and pampered bunch. The kind that sees three drops of rain and trots into the fancy new indoor facility. Led by a pampered coach who thinks four-hour-plus bus rides are barbaric.
No one wants to hear the weather excuses. Both teams played in it. The excuse machine used up its goodwill three weeks ago for the Charlotte game. “Oh, everything was screwed up by the three-hour delay, everyone’s routine was thrown off.” You were at home. Charlotte was the road team and they adjusted, despite being a worse team. Charlotte would have beaten that Homecoming App State team in a hurricane.
NFL Man’s arrogance was on display the week before. He said, out loud and on camera, that he didn’t know it was Homecoming week until former players were texting him. The $1.1 million head coach, whose job is to be aware of all that’s going on, didn’t know why there might be more alums at the game until someone told him the week before. Then, at Mountaineer Talk, when asked about Homecoming, he goes off on a tangent about the Tennessee Titans, who play in the NFL.
Since he didn’t know about Homecoming, maybe he didn’t know about the hurricane? It’s not that big a logical jump. Maybe the balls weren’t wet in practice?
There’s reason to think the coach who says “No one adjusts better than us” isn’t being truthful.
The first adjustment would be for Singleton to take his glove off after missing the strike zone for an entire half and make sure he had a dry towel every drive. The second would be to stop throwing it so much. This is where NFL Man’s dogma comes into play. He believes in throwing the ball because that’s what they do in the NFL. While 3.3 yards per carry isn’t great, it eventually gets first downs. And if you run more, the ODU defense stops blitzing. Run da bawl and tire that defense.
Dowell will step up to the podium on Monday, hopefully wearing something visibly App State (he hasn’t in the last two weeks), talk about the mistakes they made and should give an injury update on Singleton. Oh yeah, Singleton got hurt on that fumble; it’s why Hasselbeck went in for the final drive. Others have said Singleton was carried off the field by teammates. Lovely.
Remember when Dowell said they would re-examine run blocking during the off week? A whole lot of good that did. Maybe there was a reason his predecessors had a run-game coordinator?
Now the man who did not prepare the App State Mountaineers to be tough in weather will lead his team into a hostile Friday night environment. He’s probably going to be completely unaware why there will be dozens of motorcycles on the field pre-game? Do you think he even knows that Coastal’s turf is teal? Does he know they have a mural of them celebrating in front of Miller Hill in their field house and calls App State “The School in Boone?” Does he even remember that Coastal planted a flag at midfield last season, then, despite video evidence, lied about it (per the Myrtle Beach Sun News)?
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