Appalachian State Coach Dowell Loggains Wants Big Crowd for Oregon State Game
In this story:
"Our fans need to show up", Appalachian State head coach Dowell Loggains pleaded on Monday afternoon, "This is going to be a big one".
Oregon State may be winless, but Loggains is asking his fans, staff, and players to show up for a difficult challenge. On Saturday, his Appalachian State Mountaineers host Trent Bray's Oregon State Beavers at 12:30 PM (PST) on ESPN+. In preparation for that game, here are highlights from the Appalachian State weekly media availability with Boone-area sports media members.
HC Dowell Loggains on last week’s opponent, future Pac-12 members Boise State
“All right. Appreciate you guys being here. I'm obviously disappointed with how last week's game went. What an awesome atmosphere, great venue, ton of respect for how they've [Boise State] built their program. The kind of a model I think every G5 wants to copy, and it was a good litmus test for where we're at and where we need to go.”
HC Dowell Loggains on Oregon State’s record, and his team’s mindset before playing them
“Yeah, you guard against the that [overlooking Oregon State's record], but you made the great point is look at who they've lost to. They've lost to really good football teams, to P4 teams with big NIL budgets. And you go back and you look at how they lost to Houston. I mean that they had a lead and they lost a lead because of special teams mishaps and the line between winning and losing is so fine. It's so fine, and sometimes the game gets away from you, and you look at the end of the season. It's really the difference in having a really good season, a bad season. Do you win those close games? What do you eliminate? Do you continue to get better as the season goes on?
I look at us last year at South Carolina. We're sitting there 3 and 3, and our fan base is freaking out. They don't think we have a quarterback and then, next thing you know, we went six in a row and we're sitting there at the end of the like end of the season saying 'Are we in the college football playoffs or we're not?' . Like, let's see how this last weekend goes to see if we get in. So you got to understand what it takes to win. You're building a culture. You're building a football team with a bunch of new people and you just keep coaching and educating because on social media they're going to look and they're going to see, their fans, the people are going to tell our players sitting here of oh they're 0-and-this and 0-and-that. Well, I've also been the 0-and-10 team with the New York Jets that beat the LA Rams and Cleveland Browns, they were also playoff contenders that year and went to the playoffs that year. So record...like you're trying to go 1-and-0 this week, and we are going to have a opponent that's really good that has lost some really close games to really good teams. So we have a big challenge ahead of us this week.”
MORE: State of the Beavs: Why Is This Happening? - What Fits, What Doesn't For OSU Football
HC Dowell Loggains on the challenges Oregon State presents to his team
“Yeah, I mean, they're a pro style offense and they do a good job. They're going to create problems. They're going to lean, I'm sure, formationally on the Boise State stuff because Boise did a good job with some formation stuff, creating some bunches, stacks, making sure they're blocking safeties. They were able to to move the pocket to create explosives. So you know that it's such a copycat league and or profession, and when you're looking at it formationally like - we better own what we did defensively against Boise - because they did their pro style offense, and they're [Oregon State] going to look at the themes and the schemes that they [Boise State] were trying to attack us on. And then offensively they're going to do a good job of mixing fronts. They're going to play base out of a four down, but they mix in enough odd [odd man fronts] that it creates problems. And the teams that create problems are the guys that can go in and out of fronts and and just junk up looks and move and do these things. It's a bigger,heavier defensive line than we we've probably played all year.”
HC Dowell Loggains on the significance of this game in Boone, North Carolina
“We need our fans to show up for this one. This is going to be a big one. It's a big one because it's the next game, but it's also Oregon State coming to town and we've got a bunch of our premier recruits going to be here. And I want our recruits to feel what it's going to be like if they come to school here. And that's how you build as you win is we got to keep recruiting. And this atmosphere is going to be the biggest selling point we have to what's different about this place. Well, it's our fans. It's the support you're going to have. It's a a tradition of winning like no other. So, we we have to have our fans here. We have to have our students here.”
More Reading Material From Oregon State Beavers On SI
Matt fell in love with radio during his college days at Oregon Tech, and pursued a nine year career in sports broadcasting with Klamath Falls' and Medford's highest-rated sports radio stations. He currently lives in McMinnville wine country and is excited to talk about the Beavers again.