BOONE - Saturday provided a glimpse of what’s to come in the Pride, Passion, and Purpose Era of App State Football as the team participated in an intra-squad scrimmage at the conclusion of the day’s spring practice session. With a large contingent of recruits on hand, the Mountaineers put on a solid performance for those in attendance at Kidd Brewer Stadium.
After going through a bevy of individual and group drills, App put on the first display of new offensive and defensive schemes put in place by the new coaching staff.
While Coach Eliah Drinkwitz didn’t put on a full demonstration of what the playbook will look like come August, the early signs were encouraging.
“I thought there was good effort,” Drinkwitz said. “We’re trying to improve in fundamentals and technique and we’ll get to the scheme. We’re laying the foundations. We’ll get into the scheme when we get to the season, but right now we’re just trying to improve individually which is the goal this spring.”
Among the highlights of the day was a tremendous jump ball catch in traffic by tight end Collin Reed.
“It was an unbelievable catch,” Drinkwitz said. “It was a great play…It was a fourth down call I made us go for it so it wasn’t really fair to the defense but it’s a great play catch by that young man. It’s always good (and) it gets exciting when you see a guy make a play.”
Starting quarterback Zac Thomas who delivered the pass, said although there is room for improvement that he was pleased with the way the offense looked.
“I thought our offense definitely bought in,” he said. “I think we looked pretty good out there. We stalled out on some drives I mean we had some costly penalties but definitely those are something that can be fixed. I was very proud of what happened today.”
On the learning curve of the new up-tempo, pro-style offense that Drinkwitz has installed.
“It’s just a lot of time-consuming stuff just because it’s a whole different playbook,” Thomas said. “Basically, I have to learn what everyone is doing on every play, protections and stuff like that. So, it’s definitely time consuming.
“I spend a lot of time in film room, a lot of time studying playbook, but it’s definitely gonna pay off in the long run. But I’m definitely pleased with a lot of people buying in and that’s what we need right now.”
Thomas’ favorite target from last season, Corey Sutton, said the best is yet to come from the Mountaineer’s offense.
“I feel really good about it,” Sutton said. “We installed it kind of slow…but everybody is picking up on it good. I like it a lot personally and I think it’s gonna be a great, great pickup for our offense.”
When asked the biggest difference between the old play book and the new one, Sutton quickly answered, “More explosiveness.”
Again, the early signs are encouraging for the 2019 Appalachian State Mountaineers, and as the players become more familiar with the new system in place things are only going to get better.
