Chase Brice’s third act, Holton Ahlers’ dazzle and why App State-ECU is worth watching
A crowd. An actual crowd, watching an actual game where the outcome actually matters.
That’s what’s happening Thursday night at Bank of America Stadium when Appalachian State and East Carolina play at 7:30 (ESPNU).
With all due respect to the 70,000 or so people who made their way to the Panthers’ preseason contests the past two weeks, Thursday’s game is Charlotte’s second major sporting event without capacity limits (and first that isn’t NASCAR way back in May) since the pandemic began.
Bank of America Stadium isn’t expecting a sellout crowd like it is Saturday night for Clemson-Georgia, but App State-ECU is an important game worth watching. Here are a few reasons why.
Just watch Holton Ahlers
Remember playing NCAA Football on PlayStation or Xbox and trying to pad your quarterback’s stats with the most ill-advised throws and scrambles, knowing you can just reset if you don’t win the Heisman?
Imagine that, but see it in a real game. That’s what watching ECU quarterback Holton Ahlers is like, and that’s why he’s so fun to watch. The difference is, it’s not his stats he cares about.
Ahlers is a kid from Greenville who loves ECU and will do whatever it takes to put the Pirates on his back and in a position to win. Sometimes, that results in taking a bad sack or throwing an interception into heavy traffic, but more often than not he’ll throw a pass that will have you shouting at the TV, “No, no, no, no, YES!”
Prepare to be entertained by one of college football’s best-kept secrets.
Thrice as Brice
Chase Brice’s career at Clemson didn’t pan out as he’d hoped. It’s hard to blame him for that. He spent two seasons sitting behind Trevor Lawrence on the depth chart, prompting his transfer to Duke.
At Duke, he struggled, as almost all of the Blue Devils did in what would be coach David Cutcliffe’s worst record there since 2011. Brice completed 54.8% of his passes for 2,170 yards, 10 touchdowns and 15 interceptions in 11 games. There were four games in which he didn’t throw a touchdown and only three games when he threw more than one.
Brice transferred again this offseason and earned the starting job in Boone ahead of Jacob Huesman. Following the successful career of Zac Thomas in Boone is no easy feat, but Brice has a chance to prove himself on a team that has legitimate Sun Belt title aspirations.
NFL potential
App State has a handful of players who have the potential to hear their names called in next year’s NFL draft.
▪ Running back Camerun Peoples, a junior, has averaged 7 yards per carry in 15 career games. In December, he set an NCAA bowl record with 317 yards rushing yards against North Texas.
▪ D’Marco Jackson showed his potential last season with a pair of interceptions, 2 1/2 sacks and 91 tackles in 12 games from his inside linebacker position.
▪ Trey Cobb is the Mountaineers’ other inside linebacker and is a little bigger (6-foot-2, 220 pounds). He also had 91 tackles last season with three sacks.
▪ Keep an eye out for John Luther Hunter III, or as everyone else calls him, “Baer.” He is a 6-2, 300-pound center on the Rimington Trophy watch list who should be able to earn his spot on an NFL roster next fall.
Mike Houston’s chance to make a statement
Short of winning the Sun Belt, Shawn Clark’s first season at App State went about as well as he could have hoped.
The same can’t be said for Mike Houston’s first two seasons at ECU.
Houston has won everywhere he’s previously been a head coach: Lenoir-Rhyne, The Citadel and James Madison. But the Pirates went 4-8 in his first year (2019) and 3-6 last season. It’s no secret that the ECU athletic department as a whole is in a bad spot, and Houston deserves time to fix the mess the previous administration created when it fired Ruffin McNeill in 2015.
That being said, Houston’s background is on defense, which is where ECU’s biggest struggles are. The Pirates ranked 108th out of 127 in total defense last season (447.3 yards per game) and 119th the year before (469.3). For comparison, their offense ranked 58th and 46th, respectively.
The Pirates have held tough against nationally ranked opponents in the last two seasons, including a controversial 34-30 defeat at Tulsa last year and 2019’s 46-43 shootout loss to Cincinnati in Greenville, but they haven’t been able to win a game that can earn them outside respect.
Beating App State would be a start.
This story was originally published September 2, 2021 at 7:30 AM.
