Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Portal pays at QB for App State
A veteran quarterback from the Atlantic Coast Conference coming off a losing season in which he threw more interceptions than touchdowns and failed to complete 60 percent of his passes decides to transfer to one of the better Sun Belt Conference programs of the past decade.
That could describe Arkansas State’s James Blackman. It would also apply to Appalachian State’s Chase Brice.
It’s where the similarities, though.
While Blackman has struggled to get off the ground in Jonesboro, f irst being benched in Week 2 before returning and injuring his shoulder, Brice has quickly returned the Mountaineers to the top of the Sun Belt’s East Division. With wins in five of its past six games, including an upset of then-No. 21 Coastal Carolina two weeks ago, Appalachian State visits the Red Wolves this afternoon with the conference title game once again in its sights.
While the Mountaineers boast a balanced, efficient offense — one that ranks second in the Sun Belt behind only the Chanticleers.
“He’s a game manager,” Arkansas State Coach Butch Jones said of Brice. “He gets them in the right run checks and the right plays in the run game, and he’s got a talented group of people around him.
“He doesn’t have to win the game. He has to manage the game. There’s a big difference when you have that luxury.”
Brice was a 3-star prospect out of Georgia who signed with Clemson in 2018. He backed up Trevor Lawrence for two seasons, attempting only 136 passes before transferring to Duke. Last fall with the Blue Devils, he averaged less than 200 passing yards per game with 1 interception every 23.5 pass attempts.
Appalachian State (6-2, 3-1) had to replace former Sun Belt Offensive Player of the Year Zac Thomas, who’d graduated after three years with the Mountaineers, so it turned to the transfer portal.
Out popped Brice, someone who Appalachian State Coach Shawn Clark said he believed could compete for the starting spot.
“I’m not exactly sure what his turnover margin was [at Duke], but when I turned the tape on, he was what I felt was best for this program,” Clark told The Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal in January. “Just the way he commanded the huddle, the way he ran the offense and talking to him, I believe in Chase.”
Brice is illustrative of when the transfer portal can be effective in filling out a roster.
The Mountaineers brought back six of their starters from a year ago, most notably lead back Camerun Peoples and their top two receivers, Malik Williams and Thomas Hennigan, plus Corey Sutton, who opted out last fall.
The Red Wolves have had some luck on the transfer market. Arkansas State (1-7, 0-4) dropped former TCU wideout Te’Vailance Hunt into an already impressive crop of pass-catchers, and the Red Wolves’ two best defenders this fall have been Kivon Bennett and Joe Ozougwu, formerly of Tennessee and North Texas, respectively.
But Jones said he doesn’t want the portal to be ASU’s primary recruiting source.
“You build a program and sustain it by [recruiting] high schoolers,” Jones said. “We constantly look at our roster. … We evaluate every player in our program every single day. We recruit every single day. That’s just the mindset we have to have to get this program where we want it to be.”
The Red Wolves were the class of the Sun Belt in the early part of the past decade, winning at least a share of the conference title in five of six seasons from 2011-16.
Appalachian State’s now seized that spot, winning the conference’s first two championship games in 2018 and 2019.
Thanks to Brice and Co., the Mountaineers are poised to claim another.
“If you look at their program, it’s really stood the test of time,” Jones said. “All those things that you raise from a mentality, a mindset, a culture in your football program, I think App State really exemplifies that.”