The seventh-ranked Appalachian State Mountaineers can't seem to figure out their offense.
    They managed three weeks ago to defeat Chattanooga in Southern Conference play, 14-12, without scoring an offensive touchdown, but the No. 5 Wofford Terriers won easily, 28-14, the following week.
    The Mountaineers (3-2, 1-1 SoCon) may have been overly confident before the season opening, 66-13 loss at Virginia Tech.
    "One thing that I probably can't completely erase from my mind is that we played so poorly against Virgina Tech," said ASU coach Jerry Moore. "This is going to sound awful, but we went up there thinking that we could beat them, and we really thought we'd be in the ballgame regardless. We've played LSU a couple of times and we got beat obviously, but we played well. We went up to [Virginia Tech] and didn't play well.
    "I blame a lot of it on myself, and we haven't played well since."
    To add injury to insult, quarterback DeAndre Presley, a 2010 Walter Payton Award finalist, is "very, very questionable" according to Moore for Saturday's 2 p.m. matchup with The Citadel (2-3, 1-3) in Charleston, S.C.
    Presley sat out the bye week last week with injury, and has had a roller-coaster career since 2010.
    "DeAndre just exploded onto the scene a year ago against Chattanooga,' said Moore. "We played awful in the first half and made a lot of mistakes. He had an unbelievable second half and we won the game. It was kind of a Cinderella story. This year, not only has he not played well, we haven't played well."
    Presley could be replaced by sophomore Jamal Jackson Saturday.
    "We'll just have to wait and see how he preforms if he's the guy on the field," said Moore.

Can't catch a break
    After Chattanooga (2-4, 0-3) fell 28-27 Saturday to No. 1 Georgia Southern (5-0, 4-0), it marked the third-straight SoCon loss. The Mocs lost the three games by a combined four points.
    "That's a great football team," said GSU coach Jeff Monken. "They're not getting the credit they deserve because of their record, but that was by far the best football team we've faced this year."
    Chattanooga coach Russ Huesman hopes to turn things around Saturday when the Mocs host Western Carolina (1-4, 0-3) Saturday at 6 p.m.
    "You credit the teams that have beaten us," said Huesman. "They found ways to win. We didn't find ways to win. All three of our losses in the league — those teams deserved to beat us. Really good football teams find ways to win those games, and we haven't done that yet. we have a good football team, but we haven't found ways to win those football games at the
end."

A similar approach
    The Furman Paladins (3-2, 2-1) will hope to bounce back from a 26-21 loss to Samford Saturday when they travel to Paulson Stadium to face Georgia Southern.
    First-year head coach Bruce Fowler has plenty of experience with the triple offense, and doesn't expect to change up the Furman defense, too much.
    "There are subtle differences, but it's the same as any offense," Fowler said about the option. "Obviously, there's stress it puts on you when they run the football consistently more than they pass it. But you've got to do a great job on any offense when you're playing any defensive scheme."
NOTES: Samford (3-2, 1-2), which has lost only to the SoCon's two unbeaten teams, No. 1 Georgia Southern and No. 5 Wofford, hosts Elon (4-2, 2-1) Saturday at 3 p.m. ... Wofford (4-1, 3-0) is the only team playing outside of the SoCon on Saturday, hosting Virginia-Wise Saturday in Spartanburg, S.C.

    Matt Yogus can be reached at (912) 489-9408.