Wofford can throw the ball, too

Wofford's longtime option attack under coach Mike Ayers is known as a keep-it-on-the-ground offense, but Appalachian State coach Jerry Moore says there's more to it than that. The Mountaineers, of course, meet the Terriers in a Southern Conference battle of league unbeatens at 8 p.m. in Boone Friday night.

As usual, Wofford does lead the conference in rushing by a huge margin, with 348.9 yards a game. And the Terriers still don't throw it much; they have less than half as many attempts (82) as any other team in the league. But look closer, and you notice that they've completed
68.3 percent of those passes, the best mark in the SC.

Moore said Wofford's air attack is "Very effective. I remember when we started playing Wofford; they'd throw it five, six, seven times a game, and you'd look up and they'd completed six or seven of them.

"They throw it more now than they used to and I think that's one of the big improvements that they've got. You've got to defend the throw; their offense is a little bit more wide open; to me it's always been that way."

Since Wofford still averages fewer than 12 throws a game, its offense gets that run-first-and-run-always label.

"The option teams are fun to watch play," Moore said. "I grew up coaching at Nebraska, and Oklahoma was the probably THE option team in the country then. We always had to defend those guys , and for some reason option teams kind of got labeled; that they were a 'three yards and a cloud of dust' kind of deal. That's the furthest thing from the truth; the biggest losses we had up there were on option plays that went 60 or 70 yards sometimes." -- Stan Olson