Senior Day was one to remember for Marcus Cox. The senior tailback broke the career rushing record for Appalachian State with 153 yards and three touchdowns in his final home game against UL Monroe as the Mountaineers cruised to a 42-17 victory.While 2016 hasn’t exactly been Cox’s best season in Boone, he has still been one of the most productive backs in the Sun Belt. His 82.7 yards per game rank fourth in the conference while his nine touchdowns are just two off his total from last year.
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Cox recalled the moment he knew he eclipsed Kevin Richardson’s mark and celebrated with his teammates in the end zone.”Coach called a run and the line looked back at me and said we gotta get it,” Cox said. “It was a read option, it opened up and they went to Taylor. So he handed it off and I saw green grass and after that I knew what I had to get the record and I just have to score to make it even sweeter. It’s probably one of my favorite plays. I’ll always remember it. “Once I got in the end zone, I really didn’t know what to do or how to feel. And then all of my guys came over there, jumped on me, tackled me, and it was probably the best feeling ever.”A run for the record books.Here's the score that made Marcus Cox App's all-time leading rusher. #SCtop10 #DefineTheMoment pic.twitter.com/leHgYpZygG App State Athletics (@appstatesports) November 19, 2016
Rushing for a new App State record didn’t always seem like a given after he went down for four games with a left leg injury. When he finally got the glory, he shared it with his teammates on Senior Day.”We talked about it before the game. I told him Marcus if you break the record on a touchdown play,
find me and toss me the ball and I’m going to spike it,” senior offensive lineman Parker Collins said. “Well, I forgot about it when I was out there and
I was tired, and when I was about to run off Marcus tossed me the ball and I spiked it. I had fun. It
probably wasn’t the best spike in the world.”The story may have been Cox, but the rest of the offense was no less impressive. App finished with a season-high 637 yards behind Jalin Moore’s 135 rushing yards on 13 carries and Taylor Lamb’s 92 yards on five carries with a 35-yard rushing score.Lamb also passed for 208 yards and two touchdowns, one coming on a 60-yard bomb to Ike Lewis. But it was Lamb’s legs that garnered the most attention on Saturday, crossing the 90-yard threshold for just the fourth time in his career. Most of that success came from the zone read, which bolstered Cox’s afternoon as well.”I thought that Taylor (Lamb) did a really good job out of
the set, too,” coach Scott Satterfield said. “He did a really good job recognizing when to hold on to it or when to hand it off. He had
a few really nice runs out of it, too. We got a lot of mileage out of that set.”The Mountaineers now head to New Mexico State for the season finale in the Sun Belt. With the bowl picture still fluid after Troy took its first conference loss against Arkansas State, only a win over NM State would solidify the Apps for one of the top three bowls in December.
