N.C. A&T is about 24 hours away from kicking off the 2025 football season under new leadership and with a renewed sense of optimism that has been running through the Aggie camp since last November when the university officially announced that Shawn Gibbs had been selected to be the new head coach.
The selection of Gibbs, who was an integral part of a staff that garnered four HBCU national championships was really a no brainer, after his very 3-year successful stint (2022-24) at Fort Valley State, a program which had only one winning season over the previous decade, where he immediately turned them from a cellar dweller into a force going 23-9, three second place finishes in the SIAC including a postseason win in the Florida Bowl over CIAA rep Johnson C. Smith.
A big reason for the high enthusiasm is that Gibbs understands and embraced the A&T culture and mindset immediately. By the same token, the Aggie fanbase welcomed a guy that they knew and knew well. His 11 years here under Rod Broadway and Sam Washington was an undeniable factor in the A&T hierarchy zeroing in on him as their top choice to replace Vincent Brown and to restore that A&T swagger that made the Aggies one of the most dominant modern-day dynasties in HBCU football.
Now to be realistic, the playing field for A&T has changed a great deals since Gibbs last took the field along the A&T sideline. A&T is now a member of the Coastal Athletic Association (CAA), one of the largest and toughest FCS conferences in the country. It is one of the current four true power conferences in the FCS along with the likes of the Big Sky, The Missouri Valley, and the SoCon.
There won’t be any walkovers on A&T’s conference slate as they may have been in the two leagues that A&T had graced before like the old Big South or the MEAC. Most every team in the CAA is a quality opponent. The Aggies have yet to win a conference game through its two years of membership.
But Gibbs isn’t intimidated by that history as he has pointed out on in various interviews that A&T has played and beaten bigger and tougher opponents both on the FSC and FBS level in the recent past and his main job is to return A&T to that level of competitiveness and high level of play. It won’t be overnight and most the fan base recognizes that fact.
The fans are excited for the first time in long time about A&T football and a great many Aggie fans will be in attendance making trek across the mountains to see their team. Season Ticket sales hit an all-time high this year and Homecoming tickets were gone in literally a couple of hours.
So, the first steps on the road to redemption will take place on Saturday in Nashville, TN as Tennessee State welcomes A&T to Nissan Stadium, the home of the Tennessee Titans, in the John Merritt Kickoff Classic.
Improvement won’t necessarily be measured in wins and losses in year one but in how A&T performs each week – with fire with discipline, physicality, determination, no quit with a focus on a team first attitude. This is a transformational season. The goal is to regain and once again embrace who we are as Aggies, something that was too often stymied and left abandoned over these last two years. Do that and it will be a truly successful season.
We will have two blue blood programs, N. C. A&T and Tennesse State, both with a lot of tradition and a history of winning entering a transitional year with brand new coaches, new staffs, and new rosters that have been turned over in some dramatic ways but was done for very different reasons from what they were a year ago.
N.C. A&T retained most of its core contributors from a year ago despite its 1-11 record. A great many of those contributors were predominately freshmen and sophomores who were either starters or first line reserves that received considerable playing time throughout much of the season.
What Gibbs did upon accepting the job was to identify immediate needs in terms of increased physicality and seasoned experienced personnel that would add immediate depth to his existing roster. His use of the transfer portal was very calculated and deliberate focusing on increasing depth along the offensive line and improving the defensive pass defense while retaining most of his best veteran playmakers at the skill and line positions who had already been in the program on both sides of ball for a couple of years.
For TSU, the story was very different. Unlike Gibbs, who had a entire recruiting cycle, a complete winter and spring practice to evaluate and interact with his personnel to get them indoctrinated to his system, new head coach Reggie Barlow had to spend much of his time replenishing his roster due to massive player defections with the unexpected late departure of Eddie George to Bowling Green in the spring. He was forced to forgo spring practice and build not only assembling a staff but to recruit exclusively through the portal to build numbers.
Barlow brought in some 25 plus transfers in hopes of replacing most of the primary starter positions at quarterback, receivers, linebacker, and the defensive backfield. Although he was successful in doing that it remains to be seen how cohesive this TSU team will be with only 20 some practices going into is opener.
First games of the season are usually evenly matched. Both teams have big offensive lines with A&T having an advantage here with veteran All-CAA Korian Sharpe, two-time All-SIAC transfer Andrew Dorsey, and fifth year senior Jonathan Cannon in the middle. Defensively, A&T will have a completely different defensive system and will have some battle tested vets up front led by Chris Allen and Tim Alderman and a vastly more experienced defensive backfield with seniors All-CAA Aaron Harris, Ty Williams, Trey Mittman and All-SIAC transfer Kamari Blankumsee.
Are there plenty questions surrounding these teams? Certainly, but A&T probably has fewer questions amongst its starting group and special teams. This game is going to be determined by how well these teams have adapted to their new coaches and systems during the offseason and how well these new staffs can make in game adjustments and then get their guys to execute them.
Reggie Barlow is an excellent coach and has brought in a group of assistants that have either deep USL football exposure and/or extensive TSU ties. But A&T has essentially brought back almost all the staff that helped elevate it to one of the winningest programs in all of FCS over the last decade. That along with having a full year to work with its team versus a couple of months should prove a major factor as this game wears on deeper into the second half.
N.C. A&T – 23
Tenn St. – 14
