DeacWatcher
Ricky Peral
Good article in The Athletic about App St. I wonder if the ACC would ever consider adding them to conference. I know they are plenty of teams in the conference right now thta probably want no part of them as an OOC opponent.
App State recruits reveling in program’s notoriety: ‘There’s something special’
By Grace Raynor
4h ago
5
Chris Lawson Jr. noticed that he was a bit more popular than usual while walking the halls of Ridge View High School in Columbia, S.C., this week.
“Hey, aren’t you committed to App State?” classmates asked the three-star linebacker. “Y’all just beat the No. 6 team in the country.”
Lawson committed to the Mountaineers in June despite fielding several Power 5 offers. He was just three years old when Appalachian State beat Michigan in 2007 in one of the most stunning upsets in college football history. He doesn’t know much about that game, aside from the obvious.
“All I know is (App) walked away with the dub,” he said, laughing.
But after coach Shawn Clark and the Mountaineers stunned Texas A&M 17-14 in front of 90,000-plus fans at Kyle Field on Saturday, Lawson and his fellow Class of 2023 App State commits are getting to experience first-hand what it’s like for the program to be at the center of the college football world.
For the first time in program history, App State will host ESPN’s College GameDay when Troy visits Boone, N.C., on Saturday. It’s a great time for the school — and for the program’s 15 2023 commits, who are proud to say they jumped on board before the Mountaineers’ stock exploded this week.
“Everybody is starting to see what we all saw before this happened,” three-star quarterback commit Mason McHugh said. “We already saw how special it was.”
McHugh, who graduated from IMG (Fla.) Academy in the spring and is training in Boise, Idaho, said he called his father about every five minutes during the Texas A&M game as both started to realize that App might actually pull off the upset. He wasn’t surprised, but it still felt surreal.
Three-star linebacker Cahari Haynes of Burns (N.C.) High School, who chatted with The Athletic during his lunch period Wednesday, said everyone at school has asked if he watched the game.
“Everybody’s starting to wake up and realize that App is the place to be,” he said.
Zyeir Gamble, a three-star safety who committed in June, was told by skeptical classmates at Sumpter (S.C.) High School that App State had no chance at Kyle Field. He has since been quick to show off the App bracelets he started to wear over the summer and has made a mental note to order more merchandise.
“I told them all week that App State was gonna win. They didn’t believe me,” said Gamble, who still gets giddy when his local newspaper identifies him as an App State commit. “So when I got to school, I was going crazy. … I was talking about it all day saying, ‘I told (you), I told you.'”
App State’s 2023 class is ranked No. 68 nationally in the 247Sports Composite and first in the Sun Belt. The Mountaineers, who have signed just six top-1,000 players in the past four classes, have been able to develop talent as well as any program in the country. Since its 2014 FBS debut, the program has the sixth-most wins (81) in the nation behind only Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, Georgia and Oklahoma. And the Mountaineers have won or shared four Sun Belt titles in the past six seasons.
So there has been plenty for Clark and his staff to sell. But nothing can compare to the exposure the program will be receiving this weekend.
“We’re talking about a team,” a Power 5 recruiting staffer said, “that can go to any recruit and say, ‘Offensively, last week, we put up 60 points on an ACC team (North Carolina) and this week went on the road and beat a top-10 SEC team with our defense holding them to 14 (points). (And) oh, by the way, we have College GameDay coming to town Saturday and we are coming off of a 10-win season and 32 wins in the last three years.’ There’s not a lot of Power 5 programs that can introduce themselves to a recruit that way, so why not take your chance and go for it and see who you can get on campus?”
Another Power 5 recruiting staffer indicated this weekend will be an opportunity for the staff to make an impression on the type of prospects who might not normally pay attention to a Sun Belt school.
“I think the App State win was the biggest across all of college football so far,” the staffer said. “App State has always been a good program, and between their close game Week 1 with UNC and this past weekend, all eyes are on them.”
Three-star linebacker commit Jayden Bethea is the ideal App State recruit. His ranking (No. 1,438 nationally) might not wow you, but he has offers from Ole Miss, Maryland and several other Power 5 schools.
Bethea, who plays at Dacula (Ga.) High School, admits he didn’t know much about App State initially but started to do his research once the Mountaineers extended an offer. A few of his friends had warned him about chasing Power 5 hype, and he was sold once he visited Boone.
“I’m honestly a country boy at heart,” he said. “I like going outside, fishing. I’m not exactly a city type of person. And I went to visit there and it was everything that I wanted and loved. You’ve got space. You’ve got stuff you can do outdoors. You’ve got great football. You’ve got a good education. They’ve got exactly what I need.”
Bethea is hopeful this is just the beginning for an App program that has no plans to slow down anytime soon. Clark, in his third full season as the head coach at his alma mater, FaceTimed Bethea from Texas A&M about 30 minutes before kickoff last week just to say hello and make sure he was tuned in. He was. And now he’s hoping the rest of the country does, too.
“Everybody can see what the so-called small-town team did to Texas A&M and what they’re gonna do to Troy and then to the next games following that,” Bethea said.
“Kids, when they start seeing Boone more on TV and more on social media and whatnot, they’ll buy in more in understanding that Boone has it all. There’s something special about the mountains.”
