"I don’t think we're talking a repeat, a three peat, or even a four peat.

...That’s right, were talking a minimum eight peat, Bob" ~SNL Superfans

In case you haven't already heard, App won another national championship. Really a great end to a great year. The Apps went 14-1 on the season, losing only their first game at NC State. To think that this years' seniors have not seen a loss at Kidd-Brewer Stadium in their academic career is something special.
If you had any doubts about the abilities of a semi-injured Kevin Richardson, those were put to rest by the end of the game, if not by the half. The Appalachian workhorse ran for 179 yards and all four of App's touchdowns, including one 45-yarder and the others from the redzone.
The good news: App repeated to their 2nd national title in as many years, and standout seniors such as Buck Buchanan award candidates Marques Murrell and Jeremy Wiggins got the storybook ending to their college careers.
The better news: Kevin Richardson, true freshman sensation quarterback Armanti Edwards, Corey Lynch, Jerome Touchstone, Kerry Brown and 10 other starters (including special teams) return for the Mountaineers next year--so there are already people thinking "three-peat" and the media are starting to use the word "dynasty" in reference to the Appalachian football program.
Though a national championship is always something special, the game couldn't compare with last year's win over Northern Iowa. Let's be honest; there's no competing with Richie Williams limping onto the field to spur the most memorable comeback in ASU history for the first-ever ASU national title.
But if something could, it would be a running back carrying the team on his injured shoulder, rushing for every touchdown of the game, after being handed the ball by a true freshman quarterback who wasn't even on the preseason media guide depth-chart (there were 3-Trey Elder the predicted starter), who ran for 81 yards himself. All of this in front of a Carter-Finley Stadium record crowd of 22 thousand-some fans, most of them wearing black and gold.

As for basketball, I made it to the Dante Minter debut at the convocation center thursday evening. Minter transferred in last year to App from UVA, and had to redshirt the year as per NCAA regulation. The show was less than entertaining as Appalachian handed Brevard College their asses in a 93-53 beat-down.
Though Minter looked good on paper after the game (10 pts. 7 rebounds). He looked less than ACC-caliber on the court, as he struggled to keep up with the run-and-gun style of offense that the Mountaineers like to play (but I guess I'd struggle too if I were twice as big as anybody else on the court), and was ripped a couple of times by the malnourished-looking weaklings of Brevard (one of their guards looked like he was pushing 14, maybe 15-years-old).

Today they took on Georgia Southern, and won a close game. I wasn't fortunate enough to make it to the Convo, and had to settle for listening to "the voice of the mountaineers" David Jackson on the radio. I swear, this guy has to think up fancy names for every line of the court. I don't think I've ever heard him refer to the free-throw line as "the free-throw line." Instead, it's the "charity stripe." The half-court line is always referred to as "the time stripe." It annoys the crap out of me.
I mean, if we're going to use nicknames for points of reference on the court that no-one else uses, let's do the players the same justice.

For instance Dante Minter: From now on, call him D. Mint. Perhaps The After Dinner Mint? Coach Houston Fancher will henceforth be known as "Dubya"...because everyone knows you don't mess with Texas (especially Houston...Houston Fancher, that is).
No, I'm not done yet. Dave, you may want to get a pen and paper to write this down.
Go ahead, I'll wait.

Now, as I was saying, Eduardo Bermudez becomes "El Puertoriqueno," though both he and Ryann Abraham are from Puerto Rico, Bermudez gets that title, because he came to the continental USA more recently. Abraham is only to be called "Little DJ," (however DJ may refer to him as "mini-me"). Collectively, Bermudez and Abraham are "los boricuas." Doug McLaughlin-Williams is "The 20 Spot," "20 Dollar-Billiams," because he got charged with a felony a few years back for counterfeiting $20 bills (google it--that's something you won't find in the ASU media-guide, despite the fact that that's the reason he plays here--because Boston University revoked his scholarship).
Referees will only be called "zebras" or "foot locker employees," but those are interchangeable. And the ball will no longer be called a ball, but rather, "the sphere." Also, you will refer to yourself as Davy Crocket.

Now.
Back to the game.
Davy Crocket and his co-host whats hisface would not stop whining about how terrible the refs were for this game, because they were apparently calling fouls every 2 seconds. The thing is, if the fouls were going both ways, which the official stats indicate they were (Ga So. had 28 fouls, app finished with 26), that actually favors App, so long as Thompson doesn't get into foul trouble (he only had 3...and 27 points). Up to this point, Dubya has given nearly everyone dressed out a good amount of playing time, and the people coming off of the bench have been every bit as good as the starters, better in some cases.
So, if all of the starters from each team were to foul out, hypothetically (like Davy Crocket suggested could happen at one point during the game), Dubya's gotta feel confident in the abilities of his bench as compared to every other team's in the SoCon.

Little DJ does a nice job on the court when giving his older counterpart a break. Though he doesn't show as much of an ability to drive the lane and force fouls, he does a nice job of seeing the floor and has a pretty good jumper. El Puertoriqueno has had two 20-point-plus games, one of which was coming off of the bench. He has a good jumper like Cranford (who he often subs in for), but isn't content to settle for a three, like Cranford. When he drives the lane, he forces fouls, and he's not a bad free-throw shooter, most of the time (he's 86% from the "charity stripe" this season).

More of an assessment of the bench later. This is what you get for now.

Bring your running game.

The Appalachian box office sold out of tickets to the Championship game at 1:45 yesterday. I would have been devastated if I wasn't able to get tickets after waiting in that line that occupied over two hours of many students' day this morning. Though I've heard of many left ticket-less for the athletic event of the year (at least for those living around here). Chattanooga's box office has been sold out for days.

But I am not one of them. I'll be watching the men's basketball game on Thursday evening before packing up and heading to Chattanooga in the morning with some friends.

If you weren't wearing your heavy liquor coat this past Saturday at the game, you might remember the fact that Kevin Richardson basically carried the team on his back the first half of the game, rushing for 145 yards and two touchdowns. You might also remember him lying on the field in the third quarter, to remain absent for the rest of the game with what ASU Sports Information director Mike Flynn referred to as an "injured trapezoid,"

Perhaps I was in the wrong biology class in high school, but I always thought "trapezoid" was a type of parallelogram. My search of the term in webmd.com found no results as well. My guess is that the sports information director was actually told "trapezius" (a shoulder muscle).

In any case, all of the geometric components of the running back seem to be back in working order, as Sports Information reported that today he practiced "without limitations."
Yes, wipe your brow. It does appear that the integral Kevin Richardson will be good to go on Friday against the UMass Minutemen.
Without him, the Mountaineer offense would suffer.

Kevin Richardson is the Steve Smith of Appalachian; the go-to guy of the offense. He opens up the option of a passing game, just like extra defensive coverage of Smith makes it that much easier for the Panthers' running game.

Given, freshman QB Armanti Edwards cannot be overlooked in terms of App's running game (he rushed for 110 yards Saturday). And it's not often that a true freshman, like Edwards, can lead a team through such a successful season. He works well outside of the pocket, scrambling after the offensive line can't hold anymore while continuing to eye receivers down the field. When he can't find any, he dodges oncoming sacks, often running for the first down himself.

Though without Richardson on the field, you can bet that Edwards wouldn't be racking up as many rushing yards either, with one less threat for the defense to worry about, they'd be expecting Edwards to charge down the field, waiting on it like a fat guy waits on a new bin of macaroni and cheese at the Golden Corral.

So, Richardson, be sure to pack your running game along with your cleats for the game on Friday. Maybe an extra trapezoid or two, too.