KNOXVILLE - Taylor Lamb's outstanding career at Georgia's Calhoun High School included a 29-game winning streak, two state championship games and one Class AA crown.
He has traded in neither the black-and-gold color scheme nor the success during his college career.
Tonight Lamb will make his 24th career start as Appalachian State's quarterback when the Mountaineers visit Neyland Stadium to face No. 9 Tennessee in the season opener for both teams.
"I don't know who I'd compare him to, exactly, but he's a distributor," Volunteers defensive coordinator Bob Shoop said. "He gets the ball in the hands of the right people all the time. He operates their offense well. He gets them in the right plays in certain situations. I've got a tremendous amount of respect. He just doesn't make mistakes.
"I think his quarterback rating in the red zone's off the charts. He's like a point guard in basketball. He gets the right number of touches to the right players at the right time, and when you watch him play, he plays the game the right way."
Lamb is 17-6 as the starter for the Mountaineers, winners of 17 of their past 19 games, and last season he tossed 31 touchdown passes, matching TCU's Trevone Boykin and Chad Kelly of Ole Miss for ninth-most in the nation. Lamb threw just nine interceptions as he helped the Mountaineers finish 11-2.
His touchdowns set a program record and nearly matched the Sun Belt Conference record held by former Florida Atlantic and Tennessee Titans quarterback Rusty Smith, who threw 32 touchdown passes in 2007.
Lamb's father, Bobby, is the head coach at Mercer, and Bobby's brother, Hal, remains the coach at Calhoun.
Initially committed to play for Sun Belt member South Alabama, Lamb - Georgia's Gatorade player of the year as a senior - flipped his commitment to the Mountaineers of Boone, N.C., shortly before signing day in 2013.
"Growing up, I watched them win a lot of games and championships, and I just decided that's something I want to be a part of," Lamb told the Times Free Press that January. "It's a small town, like Calhoun, and everybody loves the program, and I really liked that support and just everything about the experience. I know about the game-day atmosphere, too, so it really has everything I'm looking for."
Appalachian State's 2013 signing class has been vital to the program's successful transition from NCAA Division I football's Championship Subdivision to its Bowl Subdivision. That class includes Lamb, three starting offensive linemen, multiple defensive contributors and running back Marcus Cox, who enters his senior season with 4,088 career rushing yards.
It was also Appalachian State's first signing class under current coach Scott Satterfield after he replaced Jerry Moore, who guided the Mountaineers to 215 wins, 10 Southern Conference crowns and three FCS titles in 24 years.
"I've been here a long time up here at Appalachian State as a player and as a coach," Satterfield said. "I understand the culture that we have here, we're trying to get the right kind of players to come up here and play for us. We've been able to do that. When I took over as a head coach, we were able to redshirt a lot of our players and kind of build the program up.
"We knew going from 63 to 85 scholarships was going to be a challenge. Can you get those guys up to speed quickly? We were able to do that over the last couple of years. We started out pretty rocky there at the beginning and didn't win as many games, but we were developing our team and developing the winning formula we feel like will help us once we made it up here to the Sun Belt."
Lamb has been an ingredient in Appalachian State's winning formula.
"They have a great quarterback (who's) a great leader," Tennessee cornerback Cameron Sutton. "He does the little things with the ball as well as without the ball, finds the open targets and does a great job going through his progressions. He has guys in the run game as well to make plays, and in the pass game guys get open and find the little seams and alleys.
"We've got to do a great job eliminating the run and eliminating the explosive plays and we'll be fine."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.