Appalachian State and Boise State have created some memorable moments in college football, and they’ll meet each other on Saturday with the hope of adding to the collection.
The Mountaineers and Broncos, both 2-1, are meeting for the first time since the 1994 FCS playoffs, when Boise State claimed a 17-14 victory in the quarterfinals. In 2027, the teams will meet again in Boone.
Also, the matchup, which airs at 7:30 p.m. on FS1, pairs the two winningest Group of 6 programs over the last decade. Since App State became an FBS program eligible for the postseason in 2015, Boise State leads G6 schools with 96 wins, followed by App State’s 95. They rank ninth and T-10th among all FBS teams in that span.
App State and Boise State created two of the most monumental wins in college football history.
The Mountaineers, who were in the FCS in 2007, opened that season with a 34-32 victory over No. 5 Michigan at Ann Arbor. That was eight months after No. 9 Boise State claimed a 43-42 win over No. 7 Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl. Corey Lynch clinched the game for App State with a block of Michigan’s attempt to kick a field goal to win the game.
Boise State used the hook-and-ladder play to score a touchdown, then went to the Statue of Liberty play for a two-point conversion to beat the Sooners in another incredible finish.
While the Mountaineers are coming off a bye week following a road loss at Southern Miss, Boise State is going into action after a 49-37 victory over Air Force. Because of the intricacies of the Air Force offense, App State Coach Dowell Loggains doesn’t have much to go on as to how the Mountaineers will attack the Broncos.
“The Air Force game doesn’t help us as much just because it’s such a unique offense, but you get to evaluate their skill set,” Loggains said this week.
Ultimately, Loggains said, his team will need to take care of its own business, ignoring the distractions in the process.
“It’s a big one, but so were the last three. For us, the emotion of playing Boise State or getting to play on the blue turf and all those things, you better worry about you,” he said. “You better worry about correcting the things we need to get corrected, red zone on both sides of the ball, turnovers, penalties, making sure that we’re fixing those things and not who you’re playing and where you’re playing them.”
Hurricane Helene anniversary
Saturday is the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Helene’s destructive passage through western North Carolina. It was the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since Katrina in 2005. The Mountaineers pondered playing a game in Winston-Salem before deciding to return to Boone to resume the storm-interrupted season.
Former App State player, coach dies
Shawn Clark, who played for the Mountaineers as an offensive lineman from 1994-98, started at left guard as a true freshman in the 17-14 playoff loss at Boise State in 1994. Clark, the App State head coach from 2019 through 2024, died this week. He was the offensive line coach at Central Florida at the time of his death at age 50. Many of the current App State players were recruited to Boone by Clark.
“He recruited a lot of them and sat in their living rooms and spent two to three years recruiting these kids and developing great relationships,” Loggains said. “No one did it better than coach Clark with his relationships with these young guys, and they care about him deeply because they knew what this place meant to him, and they knew how he treated them.”
Skip.foreman@greensboro.com
336-373-7316
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Skip Foreman
Sports Editor
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