North Carolina A&T returns home to face Delaware in its 2024 conference opener this week after getting a 27-20 overtime victory over Division II Triad rival Winston-Salem State 27-20 on Saturday.
“It feels great to come up here after a win,” said A&T coach Brown. “And I know some people might look at it, saying, ‘Well, you are supposed to win.’ In college football, there are no givens, just ask (coach) Marcus Freeman and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, who lost to Northern Illinois (on Saturday).
North Carolina A&T’s Karon Prunty (1) gives the stadium a thumbs up as he is carried on a gurney in Greensboro, N.C., on Saturday, September 7, 2024.
WOODY MARSHALL, NEWS & RECORD
“There are no givens. Each and every week, you have to come out and play your absolute best. With that being said, we did not play our best, but I am so proud of our players and the way they fought back. It would’ve been very easy to get down on themselves when Winston scored late in the fourth quarter to take the lead, but our kids maintained their composure.”
People are also reading…
The upcoming matchup for the Aggies (1-1) marks just the second time facing Delaware, who won the CAA meeting 21-6 last year in Newark and went on to finish with a 9-4 overall record and a second-round playoff appearance. It is also the last game scheduled between the two teams in the foreseeable future, as Delaware transitions to Conference USA in the FBS next season and is ineligible for the 2024 FCS playoffs per NCAA bylaws.
The Blue Hens (1-0) return starting quarterback Ryan O’Connor, NFL prospect Marcus Yarns at running back and all five of their offensive linemen from an offense that last year averaged 31.6 points per game. Their 48-17 home win over Bryant on Aug. 29 gives them the second-highest scoring offense in the nation in a performance that included 428 total yards and six-for-six red zone touchdown rate.
“They are mostly 11 personnel (one running back), some 12 (one running back, two tight ends), a spread, a lot of motion, a lot of quick screens to get the ball into the hands of their playmakers,” Brown said. “They run zone scheme, they run a little bit of pin-and-pull (down blocking and pulling linemen), finding ways to get the ball on the perimeter and in the hands of their best players.”
On defense, they returned seven of their top 10 tacklers from 23 and acquired five FBS transfers to solidify a strong unit that only allowed 24 points per game, 37th in the FCS, which also factors in allowing 63 to FBS AP No. 13 Penn State. Brown mentioned the Blue Hens’ 3-3 robber defense as a unique scheme to prepare for. Robber is a cover concept where a safety often comes up to defend passes in the middle of the field and to stop the run.
The A&T victory included a season high in passing for quarterback Kevin White (174 yards) and a career high in rushing for Wesley Graves (106 yards), who scored the go-ahead 16-yard touchdown in overtime. Despite those positives, some of the media’s most pressing questions have been about 6-foot-2, 180-pound cornerback Karon Prunty, who left the WSSU game on a stretcher with 8:00 left in the fourth quarter due to neck pain.
North Carolina A&T’s Karon Prunty celebrates an interception during the game with Bryant at Truist Stadium in Greensboro, N.C., on Saturday, October 1, 2022.
WOODY MARSHALL, NEWS & RECORD
Brown said that the preseason All-CAA selection is fine, was at Sunday’s walk-through practice and is expected to play against Delaware. The redshirt senior earned All-Big 12 Honorable Mention honors as a true freshman in 2020 at Kansas as he tied the FBS lead with 10 pass breakups.
“He is a tremendously talented player,” Brown said. “He allows us to essentially lock down the other team’s best receiver without having to play roll coverage to that side, which allows you to have another hat somewhere else on the field. He has NFL-caliber talent. There have been a ton of scouts in and out to watch him practice and play this season. We’ll have scouts at practice this week and he is maturing as a player and understands what needs to be done to make it to the next level.”
The status is day-to-day for A&T redshirt junior running back Kenji Christian, who suffered a lower leg injury and exited the WSSU game early in the third quarter. The former Virginia Tech transfer was A&T’s leading rusher in 2023 with 718 yards and leads the team this season with 201 yards on 26 carries. He had a team-high 121 rushing yards and a rushing touchdown in the opener against Wake Forest.
“Kenji’s status for the game is still to determined,” Brown said. “He is getting treatment today. We’ll see how he feels tomorrow and if he can’t go, we said yesterday ‘Next man up mentality.’ We saw Saturday that Wesley Graves really stepped up, had his first 100-yard game, we have Shimique Blizzard who did really well for us last season, played some meaningful snaps on Saturday, and we have Daniel Coles, who I think is going to be a really talented player also.”
The Aggies, who went 1-10 last year, look to win back-to-back games for the first time since it won seven in a row during a stretch in 2022. That streak’s last win came on Nov. 12 against Charleston Southern, which also happened to be the program’s most recent home win prior to Saturday.
“I think it builds confidence in our ability to weather emotional storms,” Brown said on the WSSU win.
Source link : http://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=66e0090a1e504e41a6f3e7d40025935b&url=https%3A%2F%2Fgreensboro.com%2Fsports%2Fcollege%2Fncat%2Fnorth-carolina-at-football-delaware-colonial-opener-karon-prunty%2Farticle_9330dd9a-6edc-11ef-b2e6-435a2756681a.html&c=8484881122983166924&mkt=en-us
Author :
Publish date : 2024-09-09 21:45:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
