The Appalachian State University football team scored early and often on Saturday at Kidd Brewer Stadium.
The Mountaineers (3-0) jumped out to a 24-0 lead and cruised by North Carolina Central 44-16 in front of the fifth largest crowd in school history (29,218). Travaris Cadet led a strong ground game with 149 yards on just eight carries and a touchdown.

As a team, the Mountaineers had 524 yards, including 328 on the ground with no turnovers.
"I had the mind set to get us off to a great start," Cadet said. "We've been getting off to a slow start in our first couple of games, but we needed to get it going early against these guys today."
Devon Moore, who only ran for 32 yards on the day, scored twice. And Jason Vitaris kicked three field goals of 34, 24 and 29 yards. He's now 4-5 on the year.
"It was good to see Travaris get off to a good start," said ASU coach Jerry Moore. "It was good for him, and it was good for us. But we got to play a lot of people in this game. It was good for our coaching staff because we got to see a lot of these guys in game situations.
"There's always room for improvement, but I thought as a coaching staff we did a great job getting these guys mentally ready to play. Sometimes it's so easy to take a team like this lightly. But our guys performed well today."
The Eagles (1-2) had 330 yards offensively, by most of that came during mop-up time for the Mountaineers. Jabari Fletcher fueled the defense with nine tackles, two tackles for loss and an interception. Troy Sanders and D.J. Smith each had ten stops.
"Our defense is getting better," Fletcher said. "We've made some improvements, but we still need to climb another step on the ladder. Our communication has gotten better and we're swarming to the ball."
DeAndre Presley, in limited duty, was 7-12 for 95 yards, he also ran 57 yards and a touchdown. Ben Jorden and Matt Cline each catch three passes. Jorden had 44 yards; Cline had 46.
"We have a lot of weapons on this team," Cadet said. "You can't just focus on one guy. If you do that, we have someone else that can step up. That's why our offensive is so dangerous."
Eight different players carried the ball, and six different receivers caught passes. Jamal Jackson finished up at quarterback and put up some decent numbers. He was 5-9 for 101 yards and a touchdown; he also ran for 30 yards on five carries.
"Red-shirting those freshmen last year is really paying off," Moore said. "We have at least eight or nine good receivers on our team. I'm pleased with our start, and today we got to see some guys that don't get a lot of playing time.
"The fourth quarter was a little sloppy, but for the most part, we did what we were suppose to do, and that's win the game."
The Mountaineers (1-0 in the Southern Conference) return to conference play next Saturday at Samford. Our coverage begins at 1 pm on AM 1450, WATA.

**************************************************************************************************************************

Team Statistics (Final)
2010 Appalachian Football
NC Central vs #1 Appalachian State (Sep 18, 2010 at Boone, N.C.)

Individual Statistics (Final)
2010 Appalachian Football
NC Central vs #1 Appalachian State (Sep 18, 2010 at Boone, N.C.)

FUMBLES: NC Central-None. Appalachian State-Jamal Jackson 1-0.