Don’t look now but Stony Brook is undergoing a true Lazarus transformation moving to 3-1 after taking out Campbell 24-17 with first year coach Billy Cosh after going 0-10 a year ago.

Hampton has found that special sauce of under first year head coach Trent Boykin upending Howard 27-20 in the “Battle of the Real HU” for its third straight win and a 3-1 record.

Delaware State jumped to a 10-0 lead early but Richmond wore the Hornets down in the second half and came away with a 38-24 victory.
William & Mary ran for over 350 yards and Furman had no answer for the Tribe’s punishing ground game in the 34-24 loss.

Villanova trailed Maryland 24-0 at the half but put up a strong second half before falling 38-20 to the Big Ten Terrapins.

Towson trimmed a 21-point deficit to seven with 10 minutes to play but dropped a 41-24 decision at 2nd-ranked North Dakota State. Quarterback Carlos Davis passed for 135 yards and added a 15-yard TD run.

Elon must be scratching their heads, being one of the preseason Top 25 picks, lost its second game in the row absorbing a 34-14 beating from East Tennessee State. The Phoenix dropped to 1-3.

2024 CAA FOOTBALL SCHEDULE – WEEK 5

Saturday, September 28

Fordham at Monmouth 1:00pm FloFootball

Delaware State at Campbell 2:00pm FloFootball

Richmond at Elon 2:00pm FloFootball

Morgan State at Stony Brook 3:30pm FloFootball

Maine at UAlbany 3:30pm FloFootball

Sacred Heart at Delaware 3:30pm FloFootball

Hampton at William & Mary 6:00pm FloFootball

LIU at Villanova 6:00pm FloFootball

North Carolina A&T at SC State 6:00pm ESPN+

This week I will not belabor A&T’s performance last week at NCCU. If you are a follower of BluedeathValley.com or a subscriber to our You Tube weekly podcast “Inside the Valley” on Wednesdays at 8pm then you undoubtedly caught the special Sunday night edition of “Blue Death After Dark.” If you did then you pretty much know exactly where I stand after watching the Eagles drop 66 points on the Aggies. There is a way to regain some redemption and establish some real pride going forward in these last 8 games. It’s very simple – compete.

Most Aggies understand A&T went through a massive house cleaning of its roster in 2023 that wins on would probably be as scarce as hen’s teeth but what most Aggies didn’t expect was a capitulation in one of the greatest HBCU rivalry games in the season. What I need to see of this coaching staff and team against SCSU are 3 things.

1. Max effort, no backing down when you get punched in face and by the same token let SCSU know this will not be the cupcake walkover that most everyone is expecting and get a few licks in against a good team. In other words, start playing with fire and urgency.
2. Execution has got to be better. Yeah, sure it’s still relatively early in the season with conference play the rest of the way. But we are now into game 5 and we are making the same fundamental mistakes, missing the same assignments over and over and in certain instances regressing from year one.
3. Schematics must be adjusted to fit the personnel available. With injuries piling up in the backfield, taking away some of its most reliable offensive threats, this coaching staff needs to put their heads together, revise some things and come up with an attack plan that will utilize the talent of the QBs and running backs that will have to play this week. By the same token the defensive staff has got to find an inventive way to generate pass rush pressure and maintain gap control on a consistent basis.

That’s it. That’s all for this week. SCSU is going to be a huge obstacle this week. The Bulldogs are huge everywhere but especially along their 0-line, explosive in the running game, with a dominating, turnover creating style of defense to match. Be under no illusions it will be less about who wins or loses from this point forward.

The very realistic weekly objective for a young team like A&T this year should always be about being competitive in each game to the point that if you can hang around just long enough you might have a shot near the end. The staff has got to get these kids into a position to never have a repeat of what happened to them last week.

Do that and you will start to see some real growth.

But that’s just me.

PREDICTION

SCSU – 42

NCAT – 16