It has been ten days since A&T’s incredible secondary and an uncommon coaching brain fart at a crucial point late in the fourth quarter that allowed Morgan State to escape with a highly improbable 21-18 win in the last minute and half of last week’s conference opener.

The Aggies appeared to have victory in hand with just over a minute and half to play until missed assignments and a to huge mental errors gave up big plays after big plays in in third and fourth down long yardage situations to a Bear offense that was held in check for over 58 minutes.

There is no need to rehash the last two minutes since I watched it about a half of dozen times since September 27th. The results are still the same. It was a classic case of missed opportunities, just too many mental errors and a little bit of plain dumb luck.

Put them all together and it is a loss. A tough one for fans to get over, a tough one for players to deal with , a tough one for coaches who probably second guessed themselves all last weekend before looking at Bethune Cookman tapes.

What it really comes down to in football is two things in close games. First, players have got to be sure of what they are supposed to do and what their assignments are which means you stay with man and to ignore the urge to always make the big play, intentional or not. It is called discipline.

Coaching at critical junctures means to give your team the best chance possible to win.

It never ceases to amaze me how coaches will make adjustments that befuddle the opposition and gives their team lead and momentum in a close game and for some inexplicable reason go completely away from what is working once they gain an advantage and suddenly go completely conservative.

When someone can ever decipher what goes on in the minds of football coaches in close games that creates this phenomenon , please spread that knowledge on not only A&T, but to N.C. State, and Virginia Tech. All of them could have used that bit of info last week.

But tomorrow is another day and the Aggies have a big date with conference favorite Bethune Cookman who everyone and their mother has picked as the team to beat this year and yes it’s the Wildcat’s homecoming.

Last year A&T ambushed BCU in Greensboro with a 22-3 win with a dominating defensive and rushing performance that Coach Bryan Jennings never got over and marked it down as the one game that kept his team out of the NCAA playoffs in 2011.

Can lightning actually strike twice? Well anything is possible in football. A&T has many of the weapons it had a year ago and has added a few more in the offseason.

Meanwhile, BCU is breaking in a couple of young quarterbacks and one true freshman has seemingly emerged as one of the best option quarterbacks that the Wildcats have had since the days of Patell Troutman.

They have some outstanding skill people on offense and they have lived off converting their opponent’s turnovers into easy points.

In order to A&T to pull a second straight upset they must do exactly what they did last year, commit no turnovers, be extremely efficient with the short passing game, feed a BCU a steady diet of Mike Mayhew all afternoon, punch BCU directly in the mouth defensively by being extremely physical.

That part may be very difficult given the injury situation in the A&T secondary this week with two of the top safeties out of action. This week may require that defensive Coordinator Sam Washington to insert senior Terrance Webb into this week’ lineup and ask true freshman Tony McRae to step in a more substantial role than he has played to date.

Now Webb has been a two-year starter at corner but only came back last week for the first time this season since getting his NCAA clearance to play and got in a few reps on offense as a receiver and on special teams.

Will he be ready to play this week in the starting lineup in such a short turnaround time? He will have to be in order to keep the BCU ground attack from chewing up the clock and yardage.

McRae will have to have a game beyond his years to keep up with the speed of the Wildcat running backs coming out of the backfield to who they love to throw the ball to a lot out of the slot formation.

This game will not be a blowout but it is going to be a steep uphill climb for the Aggies on the road against a BCU team that has a very long memory when it comes to A&T.

The Aggies will give the Wildcats fits for a while but the depth on the road may be just be too much to overcome. But that is what everyone said last year as well. So let’s go play the game.

PREDICTION

BCU – 24

N.C. A&T – 17