For many at App State, college football has defined the college experience. For nearly a century, Saturdays in the fall have seen many of the Mountaineers’ most faithful flock to Kidd Brewer Stadium to see their team play. In its 96-year history, the App State Mountaineers football team has given people a lot to celebrate.
College football in the town of Boone, as locals know it, began on Sept. 29, 1928, when the Appalachian Normals, of Appalachian State Normal School, traveled to Mountain City, Tennessee, for a game against Mountain City, according to a Watauga Democrat article. The Normals would be shut out 26-0, according to the App State football 2024 media guide. Led by head coach Graydon Eggers, the Normals finished the 1928 season with a 3-6 record.
The football team started being referred to as the Mountaineers in local papers around the 1930 season.
Starting in 1931, the Mountaineers played in the North State Conference. This year also marked the first conference championship and first postseason victory for the Mountaineers, according to the App State football media guide. Head coach C.B. Johnston led them to a 9-2-2 season and a 15-7 win in the Charlotte Charity Game against the Catawba College Indians in a game that the Charlotte Observer described as “weird but spectacular.”
Kidd Brewer took over as head of the program in 1935, according to an article in The Appalachian published Sept. 13, 1935.
“Coach Brewer excelled in athletics while a student at Duke University, starring in football, boxing and track,” the article reads. “His record as a coach at Gulfport is very commendable.”
Despite his success as a player, he is most remembered for his 1937 season, where the Mountaineers went undefeated in the regular season, won their second North State Conference championship and lost the Toy and Doll Charity Game to Mississippi State Teachers College, according to the App State football media guide.
The Mountaineers won their second bowl game in the 1938 season, defeating Moravian 20-0 in the Charlotte Charity Game. A headline in the Dec. 9, 1938, edition of The Appalachian reads “Gaffney leads Mountaineers to victory.”
“Coach Kidd Brewer, seeing his last game as Appalachian coach, used two teams to wear down the northern invaders, who lacked reserve strength,” the article reads.
Brewer left the program after 1938, ending his coaching career with a record of 30-5-3. Before a game against The Citadel on Sept. 3, 1988, Conrad Stadium was renamed to Kidd Brewer Stadium, according to an article published by The Appalachian on Aug. 31.
According to the article, Chancellor John Thomas spoke fondly of Brewer, saying “Kidd Brewer was a consummate college athlete and a gifted coach,” and that “We feel it appropriate to honor this gifted athlete and longtime friend in this manner.”
In 1939, the Mountaineers won their third conference title, according to an article published Nov. 30, 1939, in The Appalachian.
Head coach Flucie Stewart coached the team to a 7-1-2 record before leaving the program. Stewart returned as coach in 1946 and again would leave after one season, according to the App State football media guide.
App State spent most of the 1940s struggling. Football was canceled for the 1943 and 1944 seasons due to the Second World War.
“Those who were here when football was dropped from the curriculum must certainly be possessed with a hilarious feeling nowadays,” reads the Sept. 21, 1945, edition of The Appalachian.
The program saw success again beginning in the 1948 season, as head coach E.C. Duggins won the Mountaineers their first conference title in nine years, according to an article from The Appalachian published Nov. 19, 1948. The Duggins-coached team also won the 1949 Pythian Bowl and another conference title in 1950.
Duggins left before the 1951 football season. According to an article published in The Appalachian on Sept. 12, 1952, Duggins served as a Lieutenant-Commander in the United States Navy during the Korean War. He came back and finished his coaching career at App State with another North State Conference title and a Burley Bowl victory against East Tennessee State. Duggins left the program after the 1955 season.
The Mountaineers went from 1955 to 1970 without winning a conference title or playing in a bowl game. The best record the Mountaineers put up during this time was 8-2 in 1960 and 1968. App State left the North State Conference after the 1967 season and switched from NAIA to NCAA Division I competition in 1970, according to an article from ESPN.
The Mountaineers spent their first season in Division I as an independent before joining the Southern Conference for the 1972 season.
Sparky Woods was hired as head coach in 1984. In Woods’ five seasons as head coach the Mountaineers returned to their winning ways of the 1930s and 1950s. In 1986, led by star running back John Settle, the Mountaineers claimed their first Southern Conference title and their first conference championship in 32 years, according to an article published in The Appalachian on Nov. 11, 1986.
Settle ran for 1,661 yards and 20 touchdowns in 1986 and became the first Mountaineer to have his jersey retired at the end of the season, according to an article written by The Appalachian Sports Editor Jerry Snow on Nov. 25, 1986.
The Mountaineers backed up 1986 with a second Southern Conference title in 1987. The Mountaineers defeated Richmond and Georgia Southern in the first and second rounds of the playoffs before falling to Marshall in the semi-finals.
“Appalachian State established itself as the Southern Conference’s dictator by holding off Marshall 17-10 and clinching its second straight conference championship Saturday,” wrote The Appalachian Sports Editor Mike Smith in the edition from Nov. 10, 1987.
Woods left the program after 1988’s 6-4-1 season to be the head coach at South Carolina.
On March 4, 1989, Director of Athletics Jim Garner hired Jerry Moore, an assistant coach from the University of Arkansas, according to a March 16, 1989, article in The Appalachian. This hiring began what was the golden age of App State football. Moore instantly found success, as the Mountaineers made the playoffs in his first year as head coach, losing to Middle Tennessee 35-10.
Moore’s Mountaineers won the Southern Conference three times and made the playoffs seven times before the turn of the century.
His teams kept rolling into the 21st century. The Mountaineers finished second in conference play four years in a row. The Black and Gold made the playoffs for the 10th time under Moore in 2002, but in that time they could not get past the semi-final round. App State missed the playoffs two years in a row after a 7-4 season in 2003 and a 6-4 season in 2004.
App State finished the 2005 regular season with an 8-3 record and a Southern Conference title.
Entering the playoffs as a No. 2 seed, the Mountaineers cruised to their first title game appearance, facing off against the Northern Iowa Panthers. In his 17th season as head football coach, Moore coached his Mountaineers to a National Championship victory 21-16.
The Mountaineers followed up 2005 with another National Title in 2006. Joining the team for the 2006 season was a 5’11” quarterback out of Greenwood, South Carolina, by the name of Armanti Edwards.
Edwards started as a true freshman in 2006 and led the Mountaineers to a second consecutive national title. He put up a season where he threw for 2,251 yards and 15 touchdowns while rushing for 1,153 yards and 15 more touchdowns on the ground.
The Mountaineers defeated the University of Massachusetts Minutemen 28-17 in the title game.
The year 2007 is widely considered the most important year in the history of App State football. The season began on Sept. 1, 2007, when the Mountaineers traveled to “The Big House” in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to take on the No. 5 ranked Michigan Wolverines.
Many expected Michigan to make a National Championship push after an 11-2 season the year prior. The Mountaineers led commandingly at halftime 28-17, but Michigan retook the lead 32-31 late in the game.
App State kicked a 24-yard field goal to take the lead back with 26 seconds remaining. Michigan charged down the field, but their 37-yard game-winning field goal attempt was blocked by Mountaineers safety Corey Lynch.
App State stunned Michigan 34-32. The Mountaineers went on to win their third consecutive National Title, being the first to do so in Division I-AA competition.
The Mountaineers spent the next few years chasing the high of the 2005-07 seasons. They won the Southern Conference four out of the next six seasons.
After the 2013 season, the Mountaineers made the switch from FCS, which is Division I-AA to FBS, which is Division I-A. They joined the Sun Belt Conference.
Since joining the FBS in 2014, the Mountaineers have found great success. From 2016 to 2019, the Mountaineers won four Sun Belt Conference championships in a row. In that time, the Mountaineers appeared in eight bowl games with a 7-1 record.
App State hired head coach Shawn Clark on Dec. 13, 2019; the 22nd head coach in App State’s history, according to an article published by The Appalachian.
“As an offensive lineman for the Mountaineers from 1994-1998, Clark was a three time all-conference selection and two-time all-American for App State coach Jerry Moore,” wrote Reporter Silas Albright
On Sept. 10, 2022, App State accomplished the unthinkable again. The Mountaineers traveled to Kyle Field in College Station, Texas, to take on No. 6 Texas A&M. The Mountaineers won 17-14, winning their second game against a top 10 ranked opponent.
In the Mountaineers’ 95 seasons of football, they have compiled 22 conference championships, 20 playoff appearances, 10 bowl game victories and three national championships.
