Delaware State is the 2012 version of the 2011 North Carolina A&T football team. Picked near or at the bottom of the MEAC in the preseason, former Winston Salem State head coach Kermit Blount has done a solid job of retooling the Hornets into a capable football team after a 3-8 mark a year ago.
The 3-3 Hornets are coming off consecutive wins over last year’s conference champion Norfolk State 20-17 and the once formidable South Carolina State Bulldogs 31-17 just a week ago in Dover.
Blount has his team beginning to find itself behind a large group of young talented red shirt linemen on both sides of the ball, a strong freshman class of skill players, and the best quarterback in the league in senior Nick Elkco.
Meanwhile, A&T bounced back big time against previously undefeated league leader Howard in a dominating 38-10 thrashing of a senior laden Bison squad in Greensboro after two agonizing losses to Bethune Cookman and Morgan State.
The Aggies played virtually error free football last week and finally showed exactly how talented this team can be when the concentration and the proper preparation meet on the same page. The running game came out of the doldrums big time behind senior tailback Mike Mayhew’s 138 yards.
Quarterback Lewis Kindle managed the offense extremely well and for the first time this season really stayed away from forcing passes and trying to win the game the on his own and let the game come to him, picking his spots, and making the good high percentage throws.
By going through his proper progressions and showing patience with a new talent of running the option that befuddled the Howard linebackers and defensive backs in the second half, he may have had his best leadership game to date.
The A&T defense continued its stellar play that shut down one of the most prolific big strike offenses with two long interception returns taken back to the house.
Add in solid special teams’ play that kept the Bison bottled up most of the afternoon, giving them a lot a yards between their own 20 and mid-field but not much else and nothing on the scoreboard after the first half.
Even the often times subdued Rod Broadway was pleased with how his team came out and took control over a good Howard team and put them away in convincing fashion in his post-game press conference.
What the Aggies have to do Saturday is keep the momentum of playing hard, playing smart, and playing as team first to earn its first road win of the year.
A win at DSU would propel the Aggies right back into the thick of the conference equation and set up a potential late season run that could get the Aggies their first winning season in almost a decade.
The same holds true for Del State and so this game is a literally a tossup and turnovers will play a huge role. It will come down to two different philosophies of offensive football.
The pass happy run and shoot offense of DSU behind Rick Elkco which keeps coming at you with all kinds of patterns and schemes or the conservative bone crunching run first and play stifling defense style of A&T.
Either way fans who like chess matches and contrasting styles should get their money’s worth at the Hornet’s homecoming at Alumni Field in Dover.
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A&T had some early game injuries in the offensive line, the young backups had to come in, and they did a masterful job in spelling those starters and finally got the A&T ground game rolling huge in the second half.
The Aggies do get the services back from a safety Isaiah Martin that could not come at a better time against a quarterback like Elkco. A&T will have to devise a game plan to contain Elkco and not allow him to hit big passes off the vertical passing game but instead find a way to make him go horizontal.
DSU loves to run the quick slants, screens, and draws to set their passing game and will often try to sucker the defense into blitzing by showing as many as five wide outs and plenty of trip receivers to one side.
If A&T stops the run and keeps out of short yardage situations on second and third downs defensively, then ball control will be their biggest ally as a suspect DSU’s defense allows nearly 400 yards per game with almost half of that on the ground.
It’s DSU’s homecoming and they will be plenty fired up with a revenge factor in mind. However, A&T may have figured out what they have to do now offensively from last week and Elkco certainly can’t win the game for them if he is on the sidelines watching the Aggie running game churning up both yardage and the clock.
PREDICTION
N.C. A&T – 34
Del State – 21
