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For much of last season, moral victories were the standard consolation prize for the A&T football program, as the Aggies grasped for any sliver of hope they could find during a frustrating 1-10 campaign.
But even after suffering a 45-13 loss to Wake Forest last Thursday night in the 2024 season opener, head coach Vincent Brown believes there was enough real evidence in his team’s performance to prove they’re indeed headed in the right direction.
Although the final score might not suggest it, he’s confident the Aggies will be much improved in all three phases of the game this season.
“Those who have watched us from this game to how we were last year can see it,” said Brown afterwards.
Redshirt junior running back Kenji Christian seemed to especially thrive in the primetime setting last Thursday, rushing for a team-high 121 yards – including a 21-yard touchdown in the opening quarter that tied the game at 7.
A&T would later take their only lead of the night at 10-3 when Andrew Brown connected on a 38-yard field goal, capping a 15-play, 71-yard scoring drive.
Brown, who missed all of last season recovering from knee surgery, would later hit a 51-yard field goal in the fourth quarter. Brown also handled all the punting and kickoff duties in this game and was solid in both areas.
“We knew that Andrew would be a multi-purpose player for us,” said Coach Brown. “He’s very talented. We call him Money because he’s spot-on making field goals during the course of the week in practice. And he also has the ability to get us out any situation when we are having issues punting.”
Entering the Wake matchup, Brown declined to announce who would be his starter at quarterback. That mystery was solved on the opening series when sophomore Kevin White Jr. took the field first and went on to complete 10 passes for 116 yards and no turnovers.
Graduate senior Justin Fomby saw action in the second half and finished with 36 yards passing on 10 attempts.
Afterwards, Brown said White did enough to keep the starting job moving forward.
“Kevin is the starter right now, but as I said earlier in the CAA conference call, we want continual competition,” said Brown. “We want our guys to not get comfortable, to not get complacent. So we’re always going keep pushing the envelope and trying to get the best out of all our guys.”
Defensively, A&T had some success early on against the Demon Deacons’ vaunted “slow mesh” offense, forcing punts on three of Wake’s first four possessions.
Senior safety Ty Williams Jr. led the way with seven tackles and redshirt senior corner Aaron Harris was stellar in coverage with two pass breakups.
But as the night wore on, Wake’s superior size, depth and scholarship numbers eventually proved too much for the Aggies to withstand. Wake retook the lead for good with a 24-yard touchdown pass and a 31 yard field goal right before halftime, and then scored 21 unanswered points in the third quarter to blow the game wide open.
“You can’t give up explosive plays like we did in the kicking game,” said Brown, alluding to Taylor Morin’s 73-yard punt return in the third. quarter. “I felt like the punt return for a touchdown really changed the momentum of the game and really kind of re-energized them.
“We did a solid job, but we didn’t do enough to get them off the field and to create takeaways. You have to not turn the ball over and then you have to create takeaways yourself to usually give yourself a chance to win these kind of games at the end.”
This Saturday, the Aggies will experience a role reversal of sorts when they host Winston-Salem State for the first time in 14 years.
Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. at Truist Stadium. The game will be streamed live on FloFootball and air live on local TV channel My48.
This time around, A&T will be the huge betting favorites as they face a Division II program that can only field 36 scholarships compared to the 63 the Aggies are able to offer as an FCS school.
The Rams are coming off a 34-3 rout of Bluefield State last week, in which they held their opponent to just 152 yards of total offense, including 45 yards on the ground.
Led by head coach Robery Massey, the Rams finished 4-6 a year ago and were picked in the preseason polls to finish sixth in the CIAA.
In their win last week, quarterback Daylin Lee threw for 152 yards and two touchdowns on 12-of-22 passing. Defensively, cornerback Terrel Chance led the Rams with seven tackles against Bluefield State and defensive end Carnar Kyle, defensive back Justin Fleming and defensive lineman Jaylan Norris were each named to the All-CIAA team last year.
“It’s a non-conference game but it’s a rivalry game,” said Brown, who is still looking for his first home win as A&T head coach. “If I’m not mistaken the last time we’ve played (WSSU), we lost to those guys. So we understand the intensity of this rivalry. They’ll come in really pumped and excited about an opportunity.
