The college football season got off to a not-so-great start for a lot of the CAA last week with most of the members playing those proverbial guarantee money games that every FCS school plays during the early weeks of every football season.
Because of the abundance of all the teams in the nation’s largest of the FCS conference, BDV.com will cover just those teams that are either on A&T’s schedule or those who could have some impact on the Aggies’ season.
NC. A&T played a very solid first half before falling to Wake Forest (ACC) 45-13. Despite the loss the Aggies put up very decent numbers offensively and appear to vastly improved after going 1-10 a year ago.
Towson gave Cincinnati all it could handle for three quarters but the Bearcats pulled away for a 30-20 win. Liberty overcome an early 3 –point deficit and turned on the afterburners running away in the second half from Campbell 41-24.
Virginia had little problem with Richmond jumping up early by 20 before coasting to a 34-13 win over the Spiders. Duke managed to subdue a pesky Elon team with an early fourth quarter burst and the 26-3 victory.
In other FCS matchups, the CAA had far better results with #5Villanova besting #23Youngstown State 24-17 in a Top 25 game. Delaware routed newest CAA member Bryant 48-17 while William & Mary trounced VMI 41-14. Morgan State (MEAC) prevented a CAA clean sweep of FCS opponents by holding off Hampton 30-28 on the road.
The home opener for North Carolina A&T is now upon us and there’s probably not a better in-state matchup anywhere east of the Mississippi anywhere on Week 2 than the long-anticipated renewal of the rivalry between the Aggies and the Rams of Winston Salem State.
The Rams will make the short 25-mile eastward trek to Truist Stadium looking to pull off the upset against a D-1 opponent after a 14-year hiatus in the series. Last week WSSU easily dispatched an outmanned Bluefield State 34-3 last week on the road. The Rams while being very efficient really broke the game wide open off of Bluefield’s mistakes in their kicking game and back breaking offensive turnovers.
The numbers in that game weren’t anything to write home about. WSSU had just 302 yards of total offense almost divided evenly between running and passing with major chunks in each category coming off 1 or 2 plays. Still the Rams, picked to finish 6th in the CIAA, had more than enough juice to capitalize on those errors and win going away despite losing the time of possession battle.
WSSU will be led by last year’s CIAA male scholar athlete of the year in second team All-CIAA QB Daylin Lee (6-4,190, So.). As a true freshman in 2023, Lee started in all 10 games for the Rams as a true freshman, and lit up things with 1845 yards passing for 18 touchdowns with just 6 interceptions, and 5 rushing touchdowns. In last week’s opener, he completed 12-22 passes for 152 yards and 2 touchdowns. As goes Lee so goes the Ram offensive fortunes.
A&T came out on the short end of a 45-13 score at Wake Forest in a Thursday night game that saw the Aggies hold their own well into the third quarter when the Deacons converted a huge punt return for a touchdown and their superior depth finally began to flex its muscle on the 90 degree-plus evening.
Still despite the lopsided score, the Aggie offense, which was atrocious in 2023, has demonstratively improved under new offensive coordinator David Marsh. The Aggies acquitted themselves extremely well racking up a very balanced 337 yards of total offense with 227 yards rushing (before 42 yards in sacks) and 152 through the air against a Power 4 (ACC) opponent.
Junior running backs Kenji Christian pumped out an eye catching 118 yards on 14 carries and a TD along with Wesley Graves with 73 yards on 19 carries. Sophomore QB K.J. White, the returning starter, completed 10-15 for 116 yards and grad transfer Justin Fomby was 5-10 for 36 yards in relief. Even more importantly the Aggies had no turnovers and only 4 penalties for 25 yards for a first game.
Defensively the A&T secondary had a good night against the deep ball with 5 break us on deep routes. The Aggies were breaking in a relatively new and still young defensive line against a team that started five 5th or 6th year players along their offensive front and it showed against Wake’s very unusual slow mesh offense which is known for explosive plays off its running game. Still at halftime, both teams were just about even in offensive yardage which should bode well going forward against like FCS teams the rest of the way.
The game tonight will be interesting to watch not only from a personnel standpoint but a coaching standpoint as well. Expect Rams coach Robert Massey to probably pull a few tricks out of hat in this one to try to keep A&T off balance defensively and most likely sellout to stop the A&T run game.
A&T will have a decided size advantage with their offensive front so if the Rams intend to hang around in this one, they will have to find a way to stop Christian and Graves from gashing them on the ground.
Defensively, the Aggies’ pass rush must apply pressure on Lee to force him out of his comfort zone in the pocket and force him to make decisions while on the run. The front seven should have more success this week against the run without the slow mesh to worry about. A strong start by the Aggies would go a long way in helping secure Coach Vincent Brown’s very first win on his home field in front of some 20,000 plus. I like his odds.
This should be an extremely entertaining game with a fantastic atmosphere for those in attendance. Not to mention an actual battle of the bands at halftime. It’s almost like a tailor-made movie screenplay.
Let’s just hope that the script has a happy ending.
N. C. A&T – 38
WSSU – 10
