Greensboro's African American Community Newspaper since 1967
As A&T becomes the center of the HBCU universe this week, its surging football team has quietly emerged as one of the hottest teams in the Coastal Athletic Conference.
Winners of three out of their last four games - and just one recovered onside kick away from being undefeated in the month of October- the Aggies (3-5 overall, 2-2 in the CAA) will take center stage on Saturday to showcase their improved play during the cultural phenomenon known as the Greatest Homecoming on Earth.
Nearly a quarter of a million visitors are expected to descend on Greensboro this weekend to celebrate the 100th edition of A&T’s annual homecoming event with a seemingly endless array of parties, concerts, parades, vendors and cookouts.
However, the marquee event will be Aggies’ gridiron showdown against backyard rival Elon University on Saturday at 1 p.m. and the battle cry from the A&T coaching staff has been to “defend the house.”
“That’s about pride,” said A&T head coach Shawn Gibbs, who will be looking to capture the university’s first homecoming win since 2022 and extend his team’s current home winning streak to four games. “Especially for homecoming. If you can’t defend your house, you’re not a really good football team; you don’t have a lot of pride. So, we take pride in playing in front of our fans, representing our university, representing our community, our families, and representing each other. Anytime somebody comes into your house, you’ve got to defend it.”
Tickets for the homecoming game sold out in less than 10 minutes when they went on sale to the public back in August and are now rumored to command the price of a Beyoncé concert ticket on the secondary market.
Elon currently leads the all-time series, 8-7, and has won the last three meetings between the two schools.
A year ago, Elon closed the chapter on Gibbs’ first season back in Aggieland with an embarrassing 55-17 beatdown in the season finale.
In that contest the Phoenix amassed 468 yards of total offense and forced four A&T turnovers.
Gibbs said finding a way to eliminate penalties and untimely mental errors would be a major focus this week.
“We can’t beat ourselves, especially when you’re playing a team like Elon who’s going play hard, going to be physical and going to be disciplined.”
This season, Elon’s offense is powered by running back Kamerin McDowell-Moore who ranks No. 1 in the CAA with 1,080 rushing yards through eight games with 7 touchdowns on 158 carries. He is also the conference leader in yards per game (135.0) and yards per carry (6.8).
“We’ve got to do a good job of tackling,” said Gibbs during his weekly press conference on Monday. “This guy is slippery. He’s explosive. He does a good job of finding the crease and getting north and south, and then he’s hard to tackle.”
A&T will look to keep pace offensively with a balanced attack led by redshirt junior quarterback Kevin White, whose stellar play behind center has been a major reason for A&T’s resurgence over the past month.
Two weeks ago, in the Aggies’ 27-12 win over Chicago State, White threw for 199 yards, three touchdowns and just one interception – while gaining another 37 yards on the ground with his legs.
White has now thrown touchdown passes in each of his last three games and averaged 203.3 yards passing during that span.
Another strong outing by White on Saturday could extend A&T’s winning streak and propel the Aggies to the top half of the conference standings – something not many people thought was possible several weeks ago.
“Obviously, we’re coming off a bye week,” said Gibbs during his weekly press conference on Monday. “It was much needed. We used it to get some guys healthy. We used the week to primarily focus on ourselves and correcting some of the mistakes we made earlier in the season.”
