It’s only been two days since North Carolina A&T took a 66-24 beating from NC Central in the Aggie-Eagle Classic, and while linebacker Terrell Dudley certainly hasn’t forgotten it, he remains fired up for the next game.
“We are not pushing it past us,” Dudley said at the weekly football news conference on Monday. “The Aggie-Eagle Classic, that is a game we want to win, that is one of the ones where it’s like, ‘Man.’ Especially how it went, you wish you could have that back, you wish you could have a different outcome and at least at the bare minimum, have a great fight in the game, but it went the way it did.”
North Carolina A&T wide receiver Laquan Veney runs for yardage after a catch against Delaware.
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The way it went involved a 6-0 lead early after Aaron Harris returned the opening kickoff 100 yards for a 6-0 lead. A&T had a 9-7 lead after a 27-yard field goal by Andrew Brown with 7:16 in the first quarter. It went downhill for A&T (1-3) after that, thanks in part to four turnovers, a blocked punt and a series of explosive plays.
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“To start, I know there were a tremendous amount of people that we let down with that performance on Saturday,” A&T coach Vincent Brown said. “I 100% own it. I’m the head football coach; everything that is on display ultimately falls back to me. The team that we took into Durham wasn’t prepared as best as they should’ve been to play and we have a lot of things that we need to fix.”
Dudley said he and his teammates are still hearing encouraging words from the Aggie faithful, even if they are still downcast about last Saturday in Durham.
“First and foremost, I want to send an apology for the way that game went,” he said. “Moving forward, I’m fired up. I’m fired up because we still have the next game, we still have film to watch, we still have practice tomorrow and we still have guys out here that are willing to go out here to play the next game.”
That next game is against South Carolina State (1-2) in Orangeburg, South Carolina, less than an hour south of the state capital of Columbia. It’s A&T’s third non-conference HBCU opponent of the season.
The A&T ground game could play an important role on Saturday, as starting quarterback Kevin White left the N.C. Central game with an upper-body injury.
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The Bulldogs are playing their first season under head coach Chennis Berry, who led Benedict College to the SIAC championship, back-to-back 11-1 seasons and successive appearances in the NCAA Division II playoffs. Berry succeeds the legendary Buddy Pough.
Berry inherited a Bulldogs team with seven preseason first-team All-MEAC selections. Dual-threat quarterback Eric Phoenix has completed 62.8% of his passes for 532 yards, two touchdowns and one interception.
“Any time — this is college football today and even in the NFL — it is very much quarterback driven,” Brown said. “When your quarterback has a great day, usually your team has a great day, so our job is to make sure that their quarterback doesn’t have a great day. I think in their game against The Citadel a few weeks ago, he was almost at an 80% completion percentage. We can’t allow that to happen and we can’t allow their run game to get going.”
Brown will have his own concerns at quarterback. Starter Kevin White got injured during a run late in the first quarter and didn’t return. Backup quarterback Justin Fomby completed 12 of 26 passes for 153 yards with two interceptions. True freshman Braxton Thomas completed 4 of 9 passes and threw an interception in limited action.
Brown expressed doubt that White would play this week. There’s also concern about running back Kenji Christian, who re-injured his leg against the Eagles after missing part of the Winston-Salem State game and the entire game against Delaware. The coach said if they’re allowed to practice this week, they can play on Saturday.
When Brown stepped up to the podium on Monday, he greeted the reporters and the audience with the traditional “Aggie Pride,” instead of his usual “It’s a great day in Aggieland.” The departure was in part, he said, an acknowledgment of what happened against NC Central.
“It really is because I want our kids to understand and want the people in our program and the fans and the alums to know that we are deeply committed to what ‘Aggie Pride’ means,” Brown said. “When I say, ‘It’s a great day in Aggieland,’ it is truly because I feel that, regardless of the outcome of the game. Today’s conference feels a little different and so it would’ve been a little disingenuous for me to come up and say it today, knowing the way that game unfolded.”
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Publish date : 2024-09-23 23:30:00
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