December 2, 2006 - BOONE, N.C. ? Kevin Richardson became Appalachian State University’s all-time leading scorer and tied an ASU postseason record with four touchdowns to lead the top-seeded Mountaineers to a 38-17 victory over Montana State in Saturday’s NCAA Division I Championship quarterfinals at Kidd Brewer Stadium.
With its school record-tying 12th triumph of the season, No. 1 Appalachian (12-1) is set to host No. 4 Youngstown State, a 28-21 winner over Illinois State, in the national semifinals next weekend. The contest will be played either Friday at 7:30 p.m. or Saturday at 4 p.m. at Kidd Brewer Stadium.
Only a junior, Richardson set a slew of school records with his 131-yard, four-touchdown performance. The Southern Conference Offensive Player of the Year became Appalachian’s all-time leader in career points (282), touchdowns (47) and rushing touchdowns (44), as well as points (150), touchdowns (25) and rushing touchdowns (24) in a season. His four touchdowns tied ASU’s playoff record set by Jimmy Watkins in a first-round victory over William & Mary in 2001.
Richardson got going early, as his scores from two and five yards out gave the Mountaineers a 14-0 lead less than eight minutes into the contest.
However, turnovers on three-straight possessions quickly turned Appalachian’s comfortable advantage into a 14-10 ballgame midway through the second period.
The momentum turned back the Apps’ way just before halftime when they snuffed out a fake-punt attempt by Montana State and took over at midfield. The Mountaineers took advantage of MSU’s gamble by driving 42 yards and taking a 17-10 halftime lead on a 25-yard Julian Rauch field goal with 31 second remaining in the half.
After trading touchdowns in the third quarter, the final period was all ASU ? thanks in mostly to its suffocating defense.
With the Bobcats driving for the potential tying score, All-America safety Corey Lynch punctuated his return from a severe elbow injury suffered just 28 days ago with an interception on the first play of the fourth quarter. Minutes later, Richardson dove in from a yard out for his third score of the day to give Appalachian a 31-17 advantage.
On the ensuing series, senior defensive tackle Omarr Byrom capped a career day by drilling Montana State quarterback Jack Rolovich and forcing a fumble that fellow interior lineman Daniel Orlebar recovered at the MSU 3. Three plays, Richardson found paydirt for the fourth time to close the scoring.
Byrom finished the day with 3.5 sacks (an ASU playoff record), two quarterback hurries and the forced fumble to lead ASU’s seven-sack attack (also a school playoff record). Buck Buchanan Award finalist Marques Murrell chipped in with two sacks and continued to add to his own school record with the 17th forced fumble of his career.
In all, the Mountaineers limited the Bobcats to just 254 yards of total offense, 70 of which came on a completion to all-Big Sky receiver Michael Jefferson on MSU’s final possession. The Apps pressured Rolovich, who completed just 9-of-24 passes, into the miserable day with 10 hurries to go along with the seven sacks.
In addition to Richardson going over the century mark for the seventh time in nine games, freshman quarterback Armanti Edwards also enjoyed a stellar day on the ground. Edwards notched 105 yards and a touchdown on 17 carries, giving ASU two 100-yard rushers in the same game for the second-straight week. Prior to Edwards and Richardson both eclipsing the 100-yard plateau last Saturday versus Coastal Carolina, Appalachian hadn’t had two 100-yard rushers in a game since Alan Atwater and Michael Metcalf achieved the feat versus Chattanooga in 2003.
Edwards, the SoCon Freshman of the Year, broke ASU’s record for rushing yards in a season by a quarterback. His 962 rushing yards on the season tops the previous mark of 936 set by all-American Richie Williams last year. The true freshman also moved to 11-0 as a starter.
NOTES: Appalachian extended its home winning streak 26 games, the longest in the nation in the NCAA Division Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) ... ASU just missed out on taking over the longest winning streak in all of Division I ? Southern California, which holds a 32-game home winning streak, lost in Los Angeles, but it was across town at the Rose Bowl (a 13-9 setback to cross-town rival UCLA) ... senior William Mayfield became just the fourth player in school history to record 1,000 receiving yards in a season (1,022) ... Edwards holds the key to the Mountaineers achieving a pair of never-before-reached feats ? he needs just 38 more rushing yards to give the Mountaineers two 1,000-yard rushers (Richardson ? 1,352) in a season and just 59 more passing yards to give the Apps a 2,000-yard passer, 1,000-yard rusher and 1,000-yard receiver, both of which would be firsts at ASU ... in addition to the game-changing INT, Lynch tallied a game-high 13 tackles ... Appalachian’s’ defense allowed a touchdown in the first half for just the fourth time in 13 games this season.
Post Game Quotes Montana State:
ON PLAYING AT APPALACHIAN STATE:
(Kramer)
“Outstanding experience for us.” “We’ve played in some pretty hard-minded places and I thought tonight was one of the examples of those places.” “The upper couple tiers of I-AA football are at Appalachian State, Furman, Montana, and James Madison and were not quite there yet.” “It just shows how hard-minded you have to be to play at a place like Appalachian State.”
ON ARMANTI EDWARDS:
(Kramer)
“Armanti’s tough and he had the ball skeeter off of some guys hands and some guys dropped balls at times but he made a great adjustment on the quarterback sweep he ran after the interception return down inside the five yard-line he and is a physically gifted guy.” “ I think in years to come people will dialing up there TV sets to see this guy play. “He’s not a postseason honors candidate for no reason and his offensive line is quite mobile.”
ON ASU’S DEFENSIVE LINE:
(Ryan Force)
“We knew they were going to be good and we came out a little rattled on offense.” They were flying around and we weren’t really in sync on offense coming out in the first quarter.”
ON FEELINGS GOING INTO THE FOURTH QUARTER:
(Kramer)
They haven’t loss here since 2002, so going into the fourth quarter down by seven point we thought we’re right where we want to be” Whether it’s 56-49 we felt like we were in a pretty good position.” But then we turned the ball over on the first play of the fourth quarter and we were like gah, great job by the Mountaineeers.”
ON ASU’s FAST START:
(Ryan Force) “
“They came out on fire and got that first score had some unfortunate things happen, we got pinned back in our end, but when we got that first turnover we started to settle down a little bit.” “Then they got a little momentum in the second half and its tough to stop that and we did the best we could to get the ball back to the offense, we just came up short.”
Post Game Quotes Appalachian State:
ON GOING INTO THE FOURTH QUARTER IN A SEVEN-POINT GAME
(Kevin Richardson)
“We just had to keep our focus and and keep doing what we were doing in the first half and we did it and we came out successful.”
ON COREY LYNCH’S INTERCEPTION:
(Corey Lynch)
“They got a reverse earlier in the game and got some yards on us and I could tell he was going to throw the ball the whole time and the receiver was acting like he wasn’t running so it was obvious and I think it was actually Pierre that got a hit on him and forced the ball to be thrown about 20 yards so I just broke down on it.”
ON BIG PLAYERS MAKING STEPPING UP:
(Jerry Moore)
“Well when you get to this level in the playoffs those kind of people are doing what they’re supposed to do and I think they just step up and make plays like that.” “When you win those are the players that step up and make those types of plays.” “In the national championship a year ago it was Richie Williams that stepped up and made.” We’ve got good leaders and those are the key players that you’re talking about.”
ON WHAT WAS WORKING ON DEFENSE:
(Marques Murrell)
The guy I was going against was about 6’6”, 320 so I just I could just you my speed and I used an up-and-under move with my hands and feet just to get around him.”
ON GOING INTO A TIGHT FOURTH QUARTER:
(Jerry Moore)
“That’s a good observation because that’s one thing as a coach I worry about because for the lack of a better word cushiony games in the third and fourth quarters and you wonder how your team will react and reacted a lot like we did when we played Georgia Southern.” “We had some turnovers against Georgia Southern and we ended up going double overtime with them and it’s amazing that a lot of the same people stepped up for us tonight that did in that game against Georgia Southern.”