Mountaineers' Armanti hammers Bulldogs

BOONE, N.C. — Armanti's ankle? It's fine.

Appalachian State's football identity? Intact.

Any other questions were answered by the scoreboard at the south end of Kidd Brewer Stadium, where the 47-21 score provided a stark reminder of just how far The Citadel still has to go to join the elite football teams in the Southern Conference.

The third-ranked Mountaineers, trying to win their fourth straight FCS national championship, blew out to a startling 41-7 halftime lead Saturday before a raucous crowd of 29,631 as quarterback Armanti Edwards continued to bedevil the Bulldogs.

Edwards, who blitzed The Citadel for 291 rushing yards and four TDs in a 45-24 win last season, did most of his damage with his arm Saturday. He hit 14 of 18 passes for 225 yards and a career-best four TDs to hand the 20th-ranked Bulldogs (3-2, 1-1) one of their most discouraging losses under fourth-year coach Kevin Higgins.

"It is disheartening," said junior defensive end Dewitt Jones, whose team next week faces 5-1 Elon, a 31-10 winner over Furman. "But we know it's not the end of our season. We've got to keep our heads up and keep working."

The Mountaineers improved to 3-2 overall and 1-0 in the SoCon after a so-so performance in the first four games left coach Jerry Moore wondering about this team's identity. Saturday's performance went a long way towards answering that question, and all it took was the arrival of a SoCon foe.

"We were ready and eager to get to conference play," Moore said. "It almost seemed like the games weren't counting or something. The intensity level was considerably higher today than it's been in a while."

Moore attributed much of that to Edwards, who last Sunday had a knot on his left ankle "half the size of a softball" after spraining his ankle against Presbyterian.

"The trainers said a week, maybe two weeks," Moore said. "No way did we expect him to play. But by Wednesday, he looked like he was ready to go. And when the other kids see that, they feed off of that."

And when the Mountaineers get rolling, it's like an avalanche coming down Howard's Knob — impossible to stop.

"The first half, we did a lot of things that we thought we could do," said Moore, whose team piled up 363 of its 520 total yards in the first 30 minutes.

The Bulldogs, meanwhile, could not do what they wanted, and compounded their problems with a series of costly first-half errors. Quarterback Bart Blanchard, pressured often while his receivers were covered, had to throw the ball away many times and was just 17 of 41 for 172 yards, with one interception and one TD.

App State paid particular attention to All-America receiver Andre Roberts, holding him to six catches for 52 yards.

"We had a couple of audibles where we wanted to hit Andre deep, but they had a safety over the top," Blanchard said. "You could just tell they were favoring him, guys pressing up hard and a linebacker buzzing to the flat, just taking everything away."

Roberts' 50-yard punt return for a TD and a 9-yard TD pass to tight end Alex Sellars in the second half brought the Bulldogs to within 41-21, but the game had long since been decided.

Citadel mistakes started early, as the Bulldogs forced a punt and drove to ASU's 42 to start the game. But a holding call negated a 15-yard run to the 27 by Asheton Jordan, and The Citadel had to punt. Edwards ran for 13, then 21 yards on a scramble to set up a 29-yard TD run by Devin Radford.

Armanti then displayed his magic on third-and-5. The Bulldogs covered a trips-right formation and hemmed in Edwards, but the QB ducked in, then out and dashed for 7 yards and a first down. Three plays later, he rolled left and threw back right to receiver Matt Cline, who for some reason was being trailed by Jones, the 6-3, 225-pound defensive end. That didn't work, and the 25-yard TD made it 14-0.

The mistakes piled up. Josh Haney dropped a pass on third down, and punter Mark Kaspar could not catch a marginally high snap, the 36-yard loss setting up a 16-yard TD run by Edwards for a 20-0 lead.

A 62-yard kickoff return by Jordan and a 3-yard TD run by Ryan Williams kept the Bulldogs in it at 20-7, but only momentarily. App State's CoCo Hillary went 47 yards with his own kickoff return, and caught a 4-yard TD pass from an unhurried Edwards for a 27-7 lead.

Haney let another pass go through his hands, this one picked off by App State linebacker Pierre Banks to set up Edwards' 3-yard TD run. The final blow of the half came on a 68-yard pass from Edwards to tackle-breaking tailback Radford to make it 41-7 with 15 seconds left in the half.