BOONE — Appalachian State overcame deficits of 7-0, 21-10 and 28-22 before a record tying crowd of 40,168 at Kidd Brewer Stadium for a 43-28 win over East Carolina on Saturday.
The Pirates slipped to 0-3 for the first time since 2017 with losses from teams whose combined record is 7-1, including No. 2 Michigan (3-0).
The Mountaineers (2-1) went ahead to stay at 29-28 with 8:18 left in the third quarter on a 35-yard scoring pass from Joey Aguilar to Milan Tucker.
Alex Flinn made his first start at quarterback for ECU, completing 17 of 30 passes for 158 yards with no touchdowns and three interceptions. He was picked off by Omari Philyaw at the Pirates’ 45-yard line and made the tackle on a 26-yard return.
Appalachian capitalized on the turnover to go ahead, 36-28 on a 1-yard keeper by Aguilar with nine seconds left in the third quarter.
The hosts pushed the advantage to its final proportions after sacking Flinn on a 3rd-and-7 from the ECU 44 and fair catching a Luke Larsen punt at the ASU 30 with 11:28 left to play.
Aguilar hit David Larkins for a 6-yard touchdown with 5:44 to go to complete a 10-play drive.
“We weren’t able to keep up with them when they made a run and got the momentum,” said ECU coach Mike Houston on the Pirates radio network. “We were trying really hard to get back to a one-score game.”
ECU’s final possession ended with Flinn throwing deep and incomplete for Jaylen Johnson on 4th-and-25 from the Pirate 41.
The Mountaineers had a 465-240 lead in total yards.
“Tough loss,” Houston said. “Very good football team we faced. I thought the kids came out and played really, really hard. The way we started the game, our mindset, we were ready to play. I thought we came out playing very physical. Appalachian did, too. This is a big ball game for them, too.
“Obviously we didn’t make enough plays to get the win. We’ve got to look at the things we did well, and build on that, and we’ve got to continue to correct the things we did that kept us from winning the ball game.”
ECU took a 7-0 lead on the game’s first possession as Flinn had a series of completions that included 24 yards to Johnson and 15 yards to Jhari Patterson. Rahjai Harris ran the last seven yards for the score with 10:14 left in the first quarter.
Harris gained 56 yards on 12 carries with two scores. His second TD covered four yards for a 21-10 lead with 2:14 remaining in the half.
Freshman Antoine Jackson put the Pirates ahead, 14-10, on an 8-yard interception return with 9:25 to go in the first half.
The defense had another takeaway for a touchdown as Shavon Revel took a fumble 57 yards for a 28-22 ECU advantage with 10:03 left in the third quarter.
“Certainly those are two nice plays,” Houston said. “Real nice play by Antoine there on a disguised coverage and rolled up trap coverage. Made a nice play there, and able to convert it. Then Shavon was able to take a forced fumble (by Kanye Roberts) and run that back for a score. Those are huge. You don’t get those very often. Our inability to stop the run game in the second half, and play-action pass, we have to be better than that.”
Nate Noel had 26 rushes for 178 yards for the Mountaineers with one score. Aguilar was 17 for 26 for 241 yards with three TDs and one pick.
Flinn played the majority of the nonconference contest with Mason Garcia coming in for the last series of the first half.
“He did some really good things,” Houston said of Flinn. “He was the most prepared to handle what I knew this was going to be like. I thought he came out and did a great job in the first half. He had the one mistake.
“I thought he did a good job with where the ball went. He did a good job with managing everybody. He made some really nice throws, had some good runs. Was not able to be as consistent in the second half, and that’s what got us.”
ECU had 11 penalties for 80 yards, compared to three flags for the hosts for 25 yards.
“I knew we had a challenging nonconference schedule,” Houston said. “We’ve hurt ourselves, but we have seen improvement.”
The Pirates will be back home to take on Gardner-Webb (1-2) on Saturday at 6 p.m. (ESPN+).
Once again, the defense is serviceable, the offense not so much; ECU has virtually no run attack. Unless and until that changes, the final result won’t change, no matter who’s under center.
Agree on the run game. The overall inexperience of the team is most telling on the O-line. This includes a lack of discipline – too many penalties – regardless of experience. By the third game, you shouldn’t be making all of the unforced errors we are seeing.
Also agree on the defense, for the most part. The Pirates have some decent players sprinkled throughout the D. There is a flaw in our scheming, as App St used the same run play over and over, without much of an adjustment by the Pirates. When someone doesn’t make a tackle, that’s easy to see. More often than not, there wasn’t a Pirate near enough to contest the edge.
I don’t know what nimrod decided to use the short kick at the 2 min mark in the 1st half. Your kicker has been doing a good job up to that point, so why get cute. We paid for it. Bad coverage, combined with poor defense after, gave momentum back to App.
I was hoping for a 5 or 6 win season, even with all of the the new personnel… not now.
Penalties are a discipline problem. That’s coaching. line play on both sides of the ball will dictate how many wins the team will have. I love the spunk in our D-line butt 5 of them are 6’1” . No way they can pass rush against 6’5” guy. Good o line is like being married, it takes time to figure out, o line is a dance, there’s a rhythm to it. I doubt Nick saban could do much better with same budget and NIL we have. I love my Pirates, I’m going to support them no matter how bad it gets. The team with better players win 90% of the time. We’ve got to go after the best, it’s hard work , especially in Greenville. That is when the Coach is worth $2,000,000.00