Appalachian State Head coach: Eliah Drinkwitz (first year) 2018 record and S&P+ ranking: 11-2 (29th) Projected 2019 record and S&P+ ranking: 9-3 (31st) Five key points: In Scott Satterfield’s last four years in charge, App State produced four of the six best Sun Belt teams of the last 14 years. The bar is awfully high. Drinkwitz inherits both a healthy football culture and an experienced two-deep: the Mountaineers are 22nd in returning production. QB Zac Thomas was excellent in his first season as starter, and he returns a dynamic junior class that includes WR Corey Sutton and RB Darrynton Evans. The defense has played at a top-50 level for four straight years; we’ll see if Ted Roof can make it five straight. There could be depth issues at NT and CB, but there’s talent here. The Mountaineers are projected far ahead of the rest of the Sun Belt. They are only underdogs at South Carolina. Drinkwitz has got what he needs for a great debut season.

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Mid-major program succeeds, loses its coach, and starts over. It’s been the way college sports work since “mid-majors” became a term. Nebraska hired program savior Bob Devaney from Wyoming. Ohio State’s Woody Hayes and Michigan’s Bo Schembechler both came from Miami (Ohio). Insert any of hundreds of other examples here. For every exception — Ohio hiring an aging Frank Solich and coaxing 15 seasons (and counting!) out of him, Troy getting 24 years out of Larry Blakeney, etc. — there are tens of, well, non-exceptions.

It’s very easy, then, to lump programs together when this happens. Just look at Troy, the last team I wrote about in this preview series. The Trojans may have been exceptions for a while, but they aren’t anymore: after getting three exceptional years from Neal Brown, they lost him to West Virginia.

Troy and Appalachian State are exactly the same, right? After all, the Mountaineers also just lost a head coach after his third season of double-digit wins.

Yes, sure, these two programs have plenty of similarities right about now. But while Troy’s Chip Lindsey is facing a high bar, the one Eliah Drinkwitz is facing is astronomical. Behold:

Top 10 Sun Belt teams, 2005-18 (per S&P+):

2018 Appalachian State (plus-11.9 adjusted points per game, 29th overall) 2016 Appalachian State (plus-9.2, 43rd) 2015 Appalachian State (plus-7.9, 49th) 2015 Georgia Southern (plus-7.3, 52nd) 2008 Troy (plus-5.0, 49th) 2017 Appalachian State (plus-3.8, 58th) 2018 Troy (plus-2.6, 62nd) 2014 UL-Lafayette (plus-2.2, 64th) 2017 Troy (plus-1.6, 65th) 2017 Arkansas State (plus-1.5, 66th)

A couple of Neal Brown teams make appearances on this list; he was very good for Troy. But ... damn. Satterfield’s last four teams were among the six best of the last 14 years. How the hell do you top that? I recently made updates to S&P+ recently that made it more stable and accurate but had the unintended effect of making it really hard for teams from Group of Five conferences to rank too highly. But App State still cracked the top 30 last season, and in only its fifth year at the FBS level!

Last year’s Mountaineers had to replace a long-time starting QB, lost the new starter for a couple of key games to injury, lost star running back Jalin Moore just five games into the season, and still matched the previous season’s Off. S&P+ ratings (55th in 2017, 56th in 2018). The defense cracked the top 25 for the second time in three years.

If Satterfield can eventually engineer the same level of resources-to-quality success at Louisville as he did in Boone, he’ll have the Cardinals in the top 10 in a few years.

But I should save that for the Louisville preview. Drinkwitz is now the coach.

The 35-year old Arkansas Tech grad has plenty of Sun Belt on his résumé.

He began his coaching career in the Arkansas high school coaching ranks and ended up as offensive coordinator at Springdale High in 2006, the year after Gus Malzahn left.

The misplaced timing was only temporary — he joined Malzahn as a quality control assistant at Auburn in 2010, then followed Malzahn to Arkansas State in 2012.

His offensive bona fides strong, he moved on to Boise State in 2014 and became co-coordinator in 2015.

Then Dave Doeren pulled him to NC State in 2016 to succeed Matt Canada as OC there. After briefly slipping in his first year, the Wolfpack rebounded to 15th in Off. S&P+ in 2017 and 29th in 2018.

In all, 12 of Drinkwitz’s 14 seasons as a coach took place in Sun Belt states. He’s shared a state with App for the last three. The draw makes a lot of sense. But damn, is the bar high.

Related The 2018 advanced college football stats glossary

Offense

Like a lot of offensive coordinators-turned-head coaches (including, at times, his mentor Malzahn), Drinkwitz is going to try to take two bites of the apple: he is retaining offensive coordinator and play-calling duties. That always makes me nervous, especially when you’re a first-time head coach, but it isn’t surprising.

I’m curious about what a shift in identity might do here. Drinkwitz’s NC State offenses were efficiency-first, ball-control units, just like the best App State offenses have been, but he tended to want to control the ball through the air. The Wolfpack were 95th in run rate on standard downs (55 percent) and 108th on passing downs (27 percent). App State last year: 24th (67 percent) and 10th (44 percent), respectively.

If Drinkwitz wants his passers passing more, he might have the personnel for it. Seven of last year’s top eight receivers return, including a quartet of juniors — Corey Sutton, Thomas Hennigan, Malik Williams, and Jalen Virgil — that combined to catch 113 of 181 passes last year (62 percent) for 1,595 yards and 14 touchdowns, numbers that are good even before you account for the run-first attack.

Sutton was an immense big-play weapon. He averaged 17.6 yards per catch, and after a midseason funk he caught 19 balls for 274 yards and five touchdowns over the final four games of the season. He can go deep at times because opponents have to account for the efficiency weapons; Hennigan and Williams both produced marginal efficiencies over plus-10 percent, top-notch averages.

By the way, as solid as App State’s offensive ratings were, they were even better before Zac Thomas got hurt. They were as high as 20th in Off. S&P+ before his injury, and after a midseason funk, they rebounded from the mid-70s to the mid-50s with his return. His full-season 152.6 passer rating was better than predecessor Taylor Lamb could manage as either a junior or senior, and he averaged 7.5 yards per non-sack carry to boot. He’s good.

Jalin Moore’s midseason injury was cruel; had he played a full senior season, he would have almost certainly crossed 4,000 rushing yards for his career. In his absence, though, the Mountaineers got an extended look at Darrynton Evans. That could pay off.

The junior-to-be from Oak Hill, Fla., averaged just 4.8 carries per game over the first month of the season but rushed for 1,060 yards over the final nine games, producing at least 100 yards in seven. He is also a dynamite kickoff return man. As a high school prospect, he was given the ATH designation, meaning no one was sure if he was better suited as a running back or receiver. His receiving ability could be tested with Drinkwitz calling the plays.

Between Marcus Williams Jr., Daetrich Harrington, D’Andre Hicks, and redshirt freshman Camerun Peoples (who gained 164 yards in just 17 carries last year), at least one interesting backup to Evans should emerge. Evans was a bit all-or-nothing, and that might open the door for a steadier rusher to carve out a niche, but the upside is obvious.

There’s upside up front, too. Left tackle Victor Johnson was first-team all-conference, center Noah Hannon was second-team, left guard Ryan Neuzil was honorable mention, and two other returnees have starting experience. In all, these five have combined for 96 career starts.

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Defense

Sometimes you find symmetry where you don’t expect to. In 2018, Georgia Tech head coach Paul Johnson attempted to turn around a flailing defense by replacing defensive coordinator Ted Roof with former Appalachian State coordinator Nate Woody. It backfired — Tech went from 49th to 100th in Def. S&P+, and App State improved from 46th to 20th. And ... now Roof, who is somehow only 55 years old despite having lived many football lives, takes over as App State DC. This is his 11th coordinator or co-coordinator gig. (He also spent four years as Duke’s head coach, but we won’t talk about that.)

The bar is high. A Def. S&P+ ranking of 93rd wouldn’t be terrible for a Sun Belt team. In five years at the FBS level, though, 93rd has been by far App State’s worst ranking. The Mountaineers hit that mark in their 2014 debut and have been in the top 50 ever since.

Some pretty significant star power has left town. Corner Clifton Duck was a star from his true freshman season, and he and Tae Hayes, also gone, combined for six tackles for loss, five interceptions, and 12 pass breakups. Departed end Okon Godwin (7 TFLs, 4.5 sacks) and linebacker Anthony Flory (6 TFLs, 1 sack) are also gone.

Roof is maintaining the 3-4 defensive structure, though, and that the personnel is certainly suited for that. Outside linebackers Akeem Davis-Gaither and Noel Cook combined for 21.5 TFLs and five sacks last year, ILB Jordan Fehr is a difference-maker, and junior ends Chris Willis, Caleb Spurlin, and Demetrius Taylor are all back, too.

There’s a gap at nose tackle, where only one of last year’s top four return (senior E.J. Scott), and App State’s ability to get by with 270-pound noses might not translate from one coaching staff to another. But the Mountaineers are deep at end and LB, at least.

App State was strong against the run, but the Mountaineers were dynamic against the pass, giving you absolutely nothing downfield (third in passing marginal explosiveness).

Duck and Hayes were important there, sure, but so were safeties Desmond Franklin and Josh Thomas (combined: 4.5 TFLs, 8 INTs, 7 breakups), and corner Shemar Jean-Charles was one of the most productive reserves in the country: he was only on the field long enough to make four tackles, but in that time he also broke up four passes. That type of productivity usually translates well to a larger role.

Special Teams

One of the biggest factors in App State’s improvement from nine to 11 wins in 2018 was a special teams unit that jumped from 99th to 34th in Special Teams S&P+. Darrynton Evans and Thomas Hennigan were a dynamic kick return duo, and while Duck was the primary punt returner (and a good one), Hennigan gained 81 yards in just four return attempts.

Evans and Hennigan are both back, as are the legs: punter Clayton Howell (43.6 average, 38th in punt efficiency) and place-kicker Chandler Staton (80 percent on field goals inside and outside of 40 yards). This should again be a sturdy unit.

2019 outlook

The only thing that can trip this team up is a coaching change. I don’t love the Roof hire, and Drinkwitz hiring himself as offensive coordinator gives me a twinge of worry, but Drinkwitz has proven himself in just about every role he’s been given, and the culture of this football program seems as healthy as imaginable.

App State returns enough of last year’s production to be projected an extremely healthy 31st in S&P+, far ahead of perfectly healthy programs like Troy and Arkansas State. The Mountaineers are a projected underdog in just one game (by 6.9 points at South Carolina) and are a double-digit favorite in nine. This program has got everything you would look for in a runaway Sun Belt favorite; having a new head coach is the only thing that could derail the Mountaineers, and even with that, there is quite the cushion here.

It will be almost impossible for Drinkwitz to clear the bar set by Satterfield, but even if App State slips a little, there’s a lot of room to fall before the Mountaineers fail to play like annual conference title contenders. This program has won big at multiple levels, and it was one of the classes of the mid-major universe last year. You never know with a new coach, but even without Satterfield, I’m guessing App State gets the benefit of the doubt here.

Team preview stats

All 2019 preview data to date.