It’s tons of fun, festive, loud, crowded plenty of music, dances, and shows. It has rightfully called the “GHOE” or for average laymen, the Greatest Homecoming on Earth.
Yes, some 30,000 alumni, friends, and fans of N.C. A&T State University are invading Greensboro as we speak for a weeklong celebration of the largest HBCU in North Carolina and one of the most well known in the nation next to Howard.
What is making this homecoming a little more special than most over the last decade or so is that the A&T football team is coming in on a high note, a winning record, and tied for first place as one of two unbeaten conference teams still left at the mid-season point.
The Aggies are rolling along pretty well at the moment having dispatched its last two opponents by a combined score of 46-6 while not giving up a touchdown in eight quarters of football and is currently leading the FCS in total team defense. Almost like a fairy tale of sorts isn’t it.
Well is for the most part for a team with only 33 scholarship players and thirty plus walk-ons. What A&T needs to do this week is not let the dream come crashing down on them by diverting itself away its successful recipe of success by not focusing on Delaware State but on all the hoopla surrounding the activities going on around them.
This is the “trap game” as coaches call it. The means it is game that the favored team should win, most of the time easily, but it ends up being a ugly struggle with the home team letting a win slip away by not concentrating on the proper things – the game plan, sound execution, and being mentally prepared to play their best or give their best effort.
Coach Rod Broadway made special note that these games are extremely difficult to keep your team focused and on course because it’s all about the after parties and not about the 60 minutes on Saturday afternoon as it should.
A&T is prime candidate of letting this happen to them especially after dismantling a very strong Bethune Cookman team in what turned out to be a not so close contest.
Heads in the clouds, thinking the battle has already been won, that you’ve turned the corner, that the news clippings are all right to call you the surprise of the year – all the familiar clichés but all of the things that pertain to A&T this week and that this team must guard against.
There is a huge mountain still to climb before A&T can have delusions of grandeur and that is already the case then it is exactly that – a grand delusion.
The Aggies are good and in fact they very good if they do what their coaches ask them to do which is concentrate, play as unit, limit mistakes, and be aggressive.
When they don’t do these things, they will quickly revert to being just another average ball club making it from one venue to next hoping things work out in their favor instead of doing what they’ve been doing in recent weeks which controlling the action, seizing total command and make things go their own way. That is the lesson A&T can least afford to forget this Saturday.
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Delaware State is a team that started the season with a lot of promise with a big out of conference win over VMI but has floundered badly in recent weeks giving up massive amounts of points on defense and sputtering scoring points in small patches but nowhere near enough to force the issue.
DSU is led by former head coach Kermit Blount, who was a long time veteran behind Winston Salem State before his ouster in 2009.
He now has a second chance as DSU picked him last winter to take over their program hoping that Blount’s experience and previous success would help the Hornets regain their one time prominence into the MEAC upper echelon.
Blount’s teams have always been fairly good defensively but have never been big point producers despite his two CIAA crowns.
A&T fans can expect the Hornets to be somewhat of a reflection of past Blount teams with a pro style set, some option mixed in, a lot of draws and screens in third down situations, a trick play or two early own in the game and one or two if the offense seems entangled in a defensive struggle late.
Now Blount may be more apt to throw more this year than in the past because of the recent performance of quarterback Nick Elko who dropped 339 yards and three scores on MEAC leader Norfolk State. He often will look for Darius Jackson who had eight grabs a week ago.
The big problem for the Hornets is that their rushing game to date has been non-existent with only 28 yards to show for 25 carries against NSU and being that one dimensional against an aggressive A&T defense is not the way to pull a homecoming upset on the road.
A&T will be looking to impress its homecoming crowd and DSU will be looking for some weaknesses they can exploit early.
If Rod Broadway follows script, the Hornets may never get that chance and I expect the Aggie nation to leave Aggie Stadium this Saturday afternoon very happy about homecoming and its team for the first time since 2003.
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PREDICTION –
N.C. A&T – 42
Del State – 9
