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Year two of the Vincent Brown era begins tonight in Winston-Salem, but as the A&T football program looks to establish a new identity on both sides of the ball they’ll have do so against one of the toughest teams on their schedule.
For the second year in a row, the Aggies will start the regular season with a primetime road trip against an FBS opponent – this time making the half hour drive down I-40 to battle Wake Forest.
Kickoff is set for 7PM at Wake’s Allegacy Federal Credit Union Stadium and the game will air live on the ACC Network Extra.
“I’m so proud of the work that our kids have put in throughout the winter conditioning, spring ball and training camp,” said Brown on Monday during his weekly press conference. “We’ve been very fortunate that injuries have not really been a major factor for us through training camp and our guys have matured. There’s great leadership on our team right now and they know the standard it takes to compete at an extremely high level.”
This offseason saw the Aggies welcomed plenty of new faces to both their roster and coaching staff as Brown worked hard to retool a program that finished just 1-10 in 2023. A&T brought in 34 new players, including 10 transfers and hired several new position coaches and members of the support staff.
A year ago, Brown was humbled in his head coaching debut. suffering a 35-6 loss to UAB on a Thursday night.
The Aggies only had a grand total of 16 passing yards that evening, which would be a harbinger of the major offensive struggles that would plague them the remainder of season. A&T finished 115th out of 122 FCS teams in offense and was ranked dead last in the nation in passing offense.
That led to abrupt firing on first year offensive coordinator Chris Young right after the season and the arrival of new offensive coordinator and Quarterbacks coach David Marsh, who spent the past four seasons at Texas Southern.
Marsh, who also had coaching stops at Campbell, UCLA and Texas A&M, is a former marine and known for his ability to adapt his scheme around his personnel.
“If you’ve look at Coach Marsh’s background, he comes from the air raid system of throwing the football around, but he’s really been able to evolve and implement offenses that can run the football very effectively,” said Brown. “We he was at Campbell they were in the top 15 in the country in rushing offense. He’s had some of the top 20 rushers in FC S football when he was at Texas Southern. And I think what Coach Marsh has brought is creativity to our offense to feature the skill sets of our players.”
The Demon Deacons themselves will be looking to make an early statement in their season opener after coming off a dismal 4-8 campaign in 2023, in which they finished 1-7 in the ACC.
Head coach Dave Clawson is now in his 11th season at Wake Forest where he has amassed an 63-61 overall record. He was named ACC coach of the year in 2021.
The Deacons ended last year on a five-game losing streak but they return four players who were named All-ACC in 2023, including defensive end Jasheen Davis, defensive tackle Kevin pointer, offensive tackle DeVonte Gordan and running back Desmond Claiborne.
“Any time you go on the road against an ACC opponent in that environment there are going to be challenges,” said Brown. “But as we shared with our kids a multitude of times, we’re not going to back down from anyone.”
During their pregame press conferences this week, both coaches attempted to play coy with just who would be their starting quarterback for this game. Brown said there was a close battle in fall camp between graduate transfer Justin Fomby, sophomore Kevin White Jr. and true freshman Braxton Thomas, but he was not ready to announce who emerged as the winner.
“We have three really talented quarterbacks now,” said Brown, who said he expects at least two the quarterbacks to see action Thursday night. “Kevin White obviously played as a true freshman. He showed some dynamic ability to run the football and he’s really matured as a passer. We brought in Justin Fomby, a transfer student who’s played a lot of football and has a great knowledge of the game. We brought tremendous leadership to our team, and not just our offense. And we also signed Braxton Thomas a freshman quarterback out of Florida who kind up combines the best of both Kevin and Justin. He’s a really talented runner, an extremely smart young man and an accurate passer.”
Whoever lines up under center for the Aggies will have the benefit a veteran offensive line and what should be a solid running game, featuring the three-head monster of Wesley Graves, Kenji Christian and Shimique Blizzard.
Wake’s quarterback battle will likely come down to redshirt senior Michael Kern, who threw for 647 yards, four touchdowns and two interceptions a season ago, and Louisiana Tech senior transfer Hank Bachmeier.
Defensively, this game will likely be determined by A&T’s ability to control the line of scrimmage and slow down the Deacon’s ground attack.
Last season, the Aggies has an undersized defensive front seven that was often overmatched by bigger offensive lines. This offseason the focus has been to improve their size in the interior, highlighted by the additions of Boston College transfer Joshua Hardy at defensive end and graduate transfer defensive tackle DeAndre Dingle-Prince who was a 3-year starter at Appalachian State.
Still, even with the added reinforcements in the trenches the Aggies will have their hands full dealing with Wake’s superior size and overall depth. Some betting services have Wake as a 35-point favorite in this matchup.
Regardless of the final outcome, Brown expressed optimism about the current trajectory of his program.
“We’ve added some different pieces to our football program that I think you’ll be excited to see and we’ve maintained our same focus,” said Brown. “Our focus first and foremost for our players is to become educated men. That has not changed one bit. Our mantra going into this season has been and will continue to be that we’re chasing excellence. We’re chasing excellence in everything we do. In the classroom, in the community and on the playing field.”
