Appalachian State (5-7, 2-6 Sun Belt) vs Georgia Southern (6-6, 4-4 Sun Belt)
Monday, December 29th, 2025 2:00pm EST
TV/Video: ESPN
Radio: FLAGSHIP 97.3 FM (North Wilkesboro), 730 AM & 97.5 FM (Charlotte), 950 AM & 92.7 FM (Greensboro), 980 AM & 96.7 FM (Winston-Salem), 107.7 FM & 1450 AM (Hendersonville), 97.3 FM & 790 AM (Johnson City, TN) 87.7 FM (In-Stadium)
Protective Stadium
Capacity: 47,100
Surface: Shaw Sports Turf (Legion)
Jeff Sagarin Ratings
App State: 56.04
Georgia Southern: 59.19
Home: 3.15
Georgia Southern is favored by the Sagarin ratings by 3.15 points
VegasInsider Consensus: Georgia Southern -7
Series: App State leads 21-18-1
Last Meeting: App State 23 Georgia Southern 25, November 6, 2025, Boone, NC
Well, we weren’t expecting to dust off the old typewriter this late in December, but here we are. We are here to watch football, and that is what we shall do at the latest point in the calendar year that the Mountaineers have ever played. We were all a little surprised to see a number of teams choose not to play in a bowl. We won’t talk about six wins again the same. Six wins is the threshold for eligibility, but five wins and a decent APR score might get you in the backdoor when some decide to close up shop until next season. This was the right call after all. Turning down a chance to play another game, because it gets in the way of your plans to prepare for next year is a selfish decision. Not all those decisions are left up to the players. When it gets right down to it, the opportunity to play is what this is all about. It gets down to the basics of amateurs and athletics while still obtaining an education. There are many athletes on both teams who have obtained degrees, and may have jobs lined up, and might have had to ask off for work, so they can play one more college football game.
Prior to this matchup seven and a half weeks ago, the regular season game was considered a must win for both teams. The Mountaineers were playing at home and needed to hold serve, while Georgia Southern was facing an uphill battle. Southern needed wins in three of the last four games which also meant they had to steal a game on the road. They got to six wins, and beating the Mountaineers on November 6th helped them get there. They gutted out a win on the road in Huntington to cement their bowl fate. At the time, falling to Georgia Southern was painful, but it did not eliminate the Mountaineers bowl fate. The Mountaineers, who had started 4-2, dropped five of six games to end the season, including playing one-score games in five of those last six games. That sixth win could have come at any time over the course of the last several weeks of the season, but the Mountaineers just couldn’t close anything out. The final chance to reach six wins was eviscerated by a missed field goal on what we all thought was the last play of the season for the Mountaineers in 2025.
As bowl selection Sunday unfolded, it was becoming clear to Sun Belt fans that nobody wanted to play Georgia Southern in the Birmingham Bowl. The list of 5-7 teams wasn’t incredibly long, but their desires to play the Eagles were. A number of teams from power conferences declined along with schools from non power conferences. When the whispers and rumors got louder and it appeared that the Mountaineers were next on the clock, App State administration had one response when the phone rang. “What time is kickoff?” Now, it obviously was not that simple, but one school made it sound that way by releasing a statement regarding their conversations with bowl representatives. Lesson learned: Always have an answer. A year ago, I would have suggested that conference members who played in the regular season and then meeting in a bowl game is ridiculous. I might even say that for close to every member of the Sun Belt Conference, except one school. Why? Because it’s Georgia Southern. An explanation for that comment is not necessary. It speaks for itself.
App State has had plenty of these type of games before, playing a team in the regular season, and then in the postseason. With the FCS/I-AA playoffs, one would think it happened a lot more than it did. In 1987, Marshall got the best of the Mountaineers in the playoffs after a regular season loss. App State avenged a regular season loss to Troy in 2000, knocking off the Trojans on the road in the first round. The Mountaineers played Georgia Southern in the 2001 I-AA quarterfinal round of the 16-team field after losing to the Eagles at home. In 2005, the Mountaineers lost to Furman in the regular season before Ingle Martin slipped and was stripped in the playoff semifinal that propelled the Mountaineers to their first national championship. In 2018 and 2019, the Mountaineers swept Louisiana twice en route to Sun Belt championships and the Cajuns returned the favor in 2021, winning their own conference title. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of these games in the moment had a lot of buildup and hype. Over the years, as schools have reclassified subdivisions, and conferences have expanded, the luster of the games against Louisiana and Troy have worn off a bit. There is no guarantee to playing everyone in your conference in a given season. Furman and Appalachian have not played each other since 2013. App State and Marshall split for while, but are now welcome back for the holidays. But one school remains through the years. It’s Georgia Southern.
This thread has turned into less of a game preview and more of a recap of interesting events that have occurred in the last few weeks, and over the last four decades. This is a neat moment in Appalachian football history. Some of those matchups that happened twice in one season went the Mountaineers ways, some were split, and one went the other direction. But it does not happen often, and usually those second games have a pretty big impact on our memories and reflections of the past. They all have something on the line, with a trophy in near sight. The Birmingham Bowl has the same storyline, but more than just a trophy will be awarded on the afternoon of December 29th. In advance of their bowl game, Georgia Southern fired their defensive coordinator and linebackers coach on November 30th. They did it in spite of knowing they were eligible to play in a bowl game. App State has also had a couple coaches leave for other opportunities in the month of December. The coaching staffs will have less experience from the 2025 season available in the bowl game. The Georgia Southern roster has not had portal hits like the App State roster has had. The Eagles have lost a handful of players while the Mountaineers have taken significant hits at key positions. Appropriately, the Eagles are favored based on the news that escapes through player announcements on social media. The assumption is that the Mountaineers will be playing shorthanded. Some rosters have been updated in spots, and others have not. The “Who’s playing” guessing games makes it fun to speculate what kind of game we will see. However, these coaches have worked in the game a long time. They know what their rosters can and cannot do. You probably will not see scheme changes on the whole, but you will definitely see wrinkles. If anyone is prepared for a rematch between head coaches, it might be Dowell Loggains with his past NFL experience to lean on. Rematches within divisions occur three times a year and are the most important games on the schedule in the NFL. With Southern’s roster not changing much, I would expect them to do what worked for them in the regular season. App State’s offensive approach changed in the last couple games, as they leaned on Jaquari Lewis on the ground and in the passing game. Sam Mbake and David Larkins also were quite productive in the final games of the season, but were not involved in the offense as much in the regular season game against Southern. Another item to keep an eye on is rust. Neither of these teams will have played a game in a month and practice schedules were certainly altered with exams and the holiday breaks to work around. On top of that, App State considered themselves done with the season for nearly a week before being selected. You cannot imagine what a handful of those players who felt like they had played their last game feel like knowing they get to strap it up one more time. I think this game turns into what others like have become. A tight game, that is played into the fourth quarter with a memorable ending that we will think about for years to come. Clay Helton has never won a bowl game at Georgia Southern, and this will be Loggains first bowl game as a head coach. When we talk about this game in ten years, we won’t remember much about the paths to playing this game. We’ll remember who won. Why? Because it’s Georgia Southern.
The First Pick
The Stink 27
Mountaineers 28