After completing a comeback win on the road against ECU, App State heads back home for their first conference game of the season, a Thursday night showdown against the South Alabama Jaguars.
Head coach Shawn Clark had high praise for his football team and the Mountaineer fanbase on Saturday.
“You saw we have a very resilient football program. The players never gave up and made plays to earn that victory in Greenville,” Clark said. “Thank you to our fans who traveled to Greenville this past week, you were heard and you were a major difference in that win on Saturday.”
Despite it being a conference game, the Mountaineers haven’t played the Jaguars since the 2021 season, which resulted in a 31-7 Black and Gold victory in Boone. South Alabama has only beaten App State once in their five meetings, which was the first time the two teams played back in 2014.
Senior quarterback Joey Aguilar had a career game on Saturday. Although he threw multiple interceptions during the first half, the quarterback rebounded to throw for a career-high 424 yards and two touchdown passes.
“Well, that’s Joey,” Clark said about his quarterback’s night on Saturday. “I love Joey, I want him to play that way. He plays loose, doesn’t matter if he throws an interception or a touchdown. He is the same guy.”
App State will be starting without redshirt junior safety Jordan Favors, who committed a targeting penalty in the second half of the ECU game that will sideline him for the first half of the South Alabama game.
South Alabama goes into this game as another explosive offense that the Mountaineers will try and contain. The Jaguars are 1-2 going into this game, but are coming off an 87-10 win over FCS-member Northwestern State.
The Jaguars currently rank as the number-one offensive team in the Sun Belt at 514.7 yards per game in the Sun Belt. They also rank second in passing yards per game at 305.7 behind App State at 321.3.
Even though the Mountaineers lead the conference in passing yards, Clark wants to balance out the attack and get the running game more involved. When talking about the current App State attack, Clark said it was “not good.”
“That’s not where we want to be, we’re not happy about that and we have to get that improved to have a chance to win on Thursday.” Clark said.
The game will kick off in App State’s Kidd Brewer Stadium in Boone on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. and will be live on ESPN.
