Mountaineers looking for payback

Last year's loss to Richmond and elimination in the quarterfinal round of the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision playoffs was difficult for Appalachian State players to take.

Quarterback Armanti Edwards said he constantly thinks about that loss -- a 33-13 rout in which he was intercepted a career-high five times.

"They put us out of the playoffs, embarrassed us on our home field," Edwards said. "We've had a bad taste in our mouth for so long. We finally get a chance to redeem ourselves."

The Mountaineers have a rematch with the Richmond Spiders, again in the quarterfinals, at 7 p.m. Saturday in Richmond, Va.

Back in August, before the Mountaineers started their standard "one game at a time" approach to the season, there was a different theme bantered about. The Mountaineers, for the first time since the 2005 season began, weren't defending national champions.

"Sometimes I think a little adversity and having to overcome it and finding out what everybody is really made of isn't a bad thing," Coach Jerry Moore said then. "That's kind of where we are. Now it's where we can go from here."

Appalachian State experienced big-time adversity in last season's loss to Richmond. It was a sullen and shocking moment for the Mountaineers, most of whom had never experienced a playoff loss.

"We'll never forget that moment," linebacker Jacque Roman said.

Offensive tackle Mario Acitelli said: "I remember looking at the seniors after that game. It was terrible."

"It was painful," cornerback Cortez Gilbert said.

"It was total disappointment," receiver Blake Elder said. "We didn't reach what we wanted to reach. We didn't end up where we wanted to end up. You come up through the program and you see how hard the seniors work and to have to see them not go out on top really hurt.

"To work as hard as we did, put everything you've got into it, and to come up two games short … it's a feeling none of us want to ever experience again."

So that will be part of the motivation for the Mountaineers on Saturday night.

"We've just been taking games one at time, and waiting for this opportunity to come true, and it has come true," defensive tackle Anthony Williams said. "There's really nothing anybody can say or needs to say. The guys already know. The guys are focused. We're ready to play."

Elder said: "We felt like we had the right stuff to go all the way again, but they came in, beat us on our home field, knocked us out of the playoffs, and we definitely remember that.

"I don't want to say revenge, because I don't think that's ultimately what it's about. We just want to accomplish our goal of keeping this season going. We have to go out there and beat those guys for that reason.

"We owe it to each other on this team. We see Richmond one time a year. But all of us on this team see each other every day. I know my teammates are counting on me, and I'm counting on my teammates. I think we owe it to each other to win this game."

Gilbert didn't mind using the "R" word, revenge. "It's payback," he said. "They came here and beat us. We'll try to go there and beat them."

Acitelli said: "We've got to win. They had our number last year, for whatever reason. This year we have another opportunity. That's all you can ask for. It's up to us to go get it done this time."

"We still feel the sting from last year," defensive tackle Bobby Bozzo said. "It hurt so much I think we'll just bring even more heart into it this time."

Williams said: "We still have a bad taste from last year. Richmond is a great football team, there's no doubt about that, but we don't feel like we played up to our potential last year. We need to redeem ourselves."

Although the Mountaineers seek redemption, Coach Mike London of Richmond said that his team is focused on the "one at a time" approach. "I think our guys are more focused on, as (cornerback) Seth Williams said, ‘Each one, get one,'" London said. "The opponent happens to be App State, a very good team which we played last year. So that may be their motivation. You know, payback.

"But of all the teams we've played, if they beat us, it never was, ‘this is a payback or rematch.' This is about focusing on the things we need to do to take care of ourselves to move on. The human nature part of it is that we beat them and I'm quite sure their players are thinking rematch or whatever but, for us: ‘each one, get one.'"

tbowman@wsjournal.com
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