We are now on the ever of the beginning of the 2024 football season and there’s an unusual feeling permeating around the triad area regarding North Carolina A&T football. There’s optimism. It’s certainly cautious in nature but still there’s a distinct undercurrent of some much better things occurring this fall.
Now you wouldn’t think that would be a case around a squad coming off a 1-10 record just a year ago. Most football fans who had teams with that kind of record would probably be walking around with paper bags over their heads and would be looking to late October for the start of basketball.
But that isn’t the case around the east Greensboro campus. Folks are really looking forward to the season. The traditional homecoming game usually becomes a hard ticket to come by into late September but this month the 21,400 capacity of Truist Stadium was sold out in less than 12 hours on the first and what turned out to be only day of sale. That has never happened before.
Hundreds tailgating spots are gone, season ticket sales are at an all-time high. The WSSU game which is on campus next weekend has followed almost the same exact pattern. That sort of thing simply does not happen with 1-10 programs. So why is A&T defying the odds associated with a losing season and are on such an upward trend that teams elsewhere with far better win-loss resumes are seemingly struggling with fan engagement?
Well, having a large and extremely dedicated fan base is part of it. Being the largest HBCU in the world with an incredible international reputation is another. A&T alums generally may grumble and cuss a bit amongst themselves sometimes when things don’t go too well. But let someone come in from outside and make comment concerning A&T’s football misfortune and Aggies will quickly circle the wagons and fight like hell. We’re a proud bunch.
I think a bigger piece of the puzzle which A&T is that the majority of A&T’s fan base understands that rebuilding a program from scratch is not an overnight process. The jump among three conferences in 3 years was going to have transitional pain. The first year in the Big South (4-7) was eye opener of sorts but adjustments were made and in year two as A&T played its way into the league championship at 7-4. Once a few changes were made in the preparation we soon learned that the MEAC and the Big South were very much on par with each other.
The CAA has proved itself to a little different animal in that it wasn’t just about preparation, but it was more so about the support resources needed to compete in this conference. Make no mistake. The CAA is a top tier FCS conference across the board especially when it comes to the week in and week out competition. The bottom of this league can play with the top of the league at any given time. There are no weak sisters in the CAA.
Football was the one exception in 2023. Football is by far the largest and most expensive venture in every college athletic program. It also takes the most time, effort, and money to affect positive change. It was understood from the start the initial move to the CAA would be rough for football at the outset until a major investment into basic support infrastructure was made.
Some of the very essential first steps have been taken behind the scenes over the last year or so to bring those resources on-line and A&T is on par in most of the sports that we compete in conference play and that investment is now being undertaken. A&T should be better equipped this football season to far more competitive than 1-10 – better coaching, better personnel, better strength, and conditioning, and better off the field. Don’t go start expecting miracle runs this season but it wouldn’t surprise anyone who truly understands how the process of program building indeed works if there isn’t significant improvement in the win-loss column this fall.
It’s time to make the pick of the week on two teams that no one is very sure of what to expect from either one. A&T went 1-10 last and immediately made an off season move to hopefully cure a woeful offense which was dead last in passing in the FCS by firing offensive coordinator Chris Young and replacing him with former Texas Southern OC David Marsh, specializing in the up-tempo Air Raid offense, brings 20 plus years of experience at both the FBS and FCS level. The Aggies were extremely young in 2023 and at one point during the season Coach Vincent Brown had 14 first year players in the starting lineup.
Wake Forest is coming off a 4-7 campaign in which they seemingly started off strong but then dropped six straight losses to end last season. The Deacons got rocked by some key injuries, stagnated at the midway point and never fully recovered missing the FBS bowl tour for just the second time in Coach Dave Clawson tenure. Wake does return 6 All-ACC players to this year’s roster but they have a host of other starters to replace and are perhaps the ACC team with the least amount of depth going into 2024. Still, they are an power-4 ACC team with 20 plus more scholarships along with a decided advantage of playing at home in a game against an FCS opponent in which they are expected to win easily being favored by 34 points on the betting line.
Both teams are picked to finish next to last in their respective conferences so one would think that both teams will be looking to establish some kind of early identity and chemistry in this non-conference match-up. For A&T the mission is to establish some offensive consistency especially in the passing. The keys for Aggies to be effective against Wake Forest is to be able to weather the early quarters and stop the run on defense, move the chains offensively, stay away from third and long as much as possible, and not turn the ball over. If A&T is able to accomplish those things then this will be a very interesting ball game entering the fourth quarter.
There’s no telling how either squad will react in this first game of the season. There are so many unknowns in both camps so expect a Vanilla approach by both teams until someone either establishes momentum by making plays or makes tanks by making killer mistakes. Let’s hope its the former.
Wake Forest – 31
N.C. A&T – 20
