BOONE, N.C. — A sellout crowd will pack Kidd Brewer Stadium on Thursday night as App State tries to knock off one of the few undefeated teams left in major college football.
James Madison (7-0, 4-0) and the Mountaineers, 4-2 overall and 1-1 in league play, kick off at 7 p.m. in a nationally televised game that also starts the university’s Family Weekend. App State enters as a 10-point underdog.
James Madison, now led by former Florida coach Billy Napier, scores 42.9 points a game and gives up 16. Running back George Pettaway, who once played at UNC, has 767 rushing yards and seven touchdowns and has topped 100 yards in four straight games. Return man Michael Scott leads the country in combined return yards.
App State is coming off a 35-32 comeback win at Coastal Carolina, where it erased a 24-14 halftime deficit with 21 straight points. Sophomore Jaquari Lewis ran for four scores in that game and earned the league’s offensive player of the week award.
The quarterback spot bears watching. Senior Malachi Singleton, who leads the Sun Belt at 238.2 passing yards a game, has been playing hurt and sat out the second half last week. Junior Henry Hasselbeck, a UCLA transfer and the son of former NFL passer Matt Hasselbeck, ran for 125 yards in relief.
The Mountaineers’ defense leads the conference with nine interceptions, and lineman Caleb Sandstrom has five sacks. Every App State game this year except a 55-3 opening win over Maine has been within one score in the last two minutes, and the program beat a ranked James Madison team 26-23 in overtime in 2023.
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