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With bad losses and key injuries continuing to mount, the focus for the A&T football program has now shifted to the future.
Last week the Aggies suffered another embarrassing defeat at home, this time losing to William & Mary 45-7 to drop A&T’s overall record to 1-8 and 0-5 in the Coastal Athletic Association.
The familiar script played out just as you might expect: A&T’s league-worst defense gave up 489 yards of total offense and surrendered big plays early on, while the Aggies’ sputtering offense failed to take advantage of numerous scoring opportunities.
Utilizing the play-making ability of quarterback Darius Wilson, the Tribe opened the contest with three straight touchdown drives, en route to scoring 35 unanswered points.
In comparison, A&T fail to come away with any points despite having the ball twice inside the Tribes’ 15-yard line in the opening half, and converted on just 5 of 12 third down attempts.
“We had opportunities in the scoring zones,” said A&T head coach Vincent Brown was saw his career record fall to 2-18. “We turned the ball over once on a gadget play. We took a sack in a situation where we absolutely can not take a sack, which took potential points off the board. We gave up explosive plays very early through lack of communication and found ourselves in a deep whole defensively. “
“All of those things are fixable. All of those things – to some degree – are a byproduct of lack of experience and new players in being in various roles and whatnot. But we don’t make excuses; we go out and we try our very best. We prepare the players that we have as best as we can.”
Perhaps the lone silver lining was the number of young players that saw action for A&T in the game and were able to make contributions.
Sophomore running back Shimique Blizzard - who began the year third on the dept chart - finished with a game-high 132 yards on the ground, including a four-yard touchdown in the second half. It was the first 100-yard performance by an A&T running back this season since now-inured junior Wesley Graves ran for 106 yards in the overtime win against Winston=Salem State in week two.
Also seeing action in the backfield was walk-on running back Michael Godette, a local product from Northwest Guilford High School who got on the field for his first time as an Aggie and recorded 20 yards on six carries.
Under center, true freshman quarterback Braxton Thomas returned to the field for the first time since playing at North Carolina Central and completed fives passes on 8 attempts for 28 yards.
Defensively, sophomore defensive back Steven Davis, true freshman linebacker Jayden Williams, true freshman safety Khristian Tyson and redshirt freshman linebacker Terien George all got valuable snaps.
“Ultimately we’re tasked with winning games, but there’s so much more to this,” Brown said. “It’s about the experience; the opportunity to compete each and every Saturday and we ask them – regardless of who is in the game – that they just give us their absolute best. If they do that we’ll live with the results - win, lose or draw.”
This Saturday the Aggies look to continue that youth movement when they travel up to Philadelphia to take on conference power Villanova at 1 PM.
The Wildcats are currently 7-2 overall this season and find themselves in a three-way tie for second place in the CAA standings with a record of 4-1.
Veteran quarterback Connor Watkins has been somewhat inconsistent this year, completing only 49 percent of passes (99-202) while throwing right touchdown passes and two interceptions.
Last week in a 20-14 road victory against Hampton, Watkins finished with just 149 yards passing, zero touchdown and was sacked four times. Overall, the Wildcats only amassed 241 yards of total offense.
Fortunately, Villanova was able to lean on a defense that currently ranks first in the CAA, holding Hampton to just 239 yards of offense and 6 of 16 attempts on third down.
The Wildcats boasts the No. 1 scoring defense in the CAA and the 8th best in the nation, giving up 17.1 points per game. Graduate linebacker Brendan Bell leads Villanova with 10.5 tackles for loss and has three sacks.
Last season, Villanova knocked off A&T 37-14 at Truist Stadium in the first ever meeting between the two schools.
“They have a system that they ‘ve been running for multiple years and they know how to execute it,” Brown said. “They’re finding ways to win closer games than what they were involved in last year. They’re producing points - but not to the extent they were last year. But as I said to our staff: there is still a way for us to craft a gameplan that puts our players in the best position to go on the road and win.”
