Author : Aryan Virani
We were in Greensboro North Carolina on September 24th to see the North Carolina A&T Aggies host the defending HBCU National Champions, the South Carolina State Bulldogs. The Aggies would come away with a 41-27 victory. Let's break it down.
The Aggies, who were 0-3 coming into this game, knew that a win could turn the season around. Same goes for the Bulldogs, who were also 0-3. The Bulldogs scored early, on a 21 yard pass to Rakim White from Senior Corey Fields. They like to throw the ball a lot and that first possession showed it, along with the rest of the game as Fields would finish with 49 pass attempts. After slow offensive possessions from both teams for a huge chunk of the first quarter, the Aggies finally drove down field and capped off the drive by a 20 yard from Bhayshul Tuten. He would finish this game with 140 yards and 3 touchdowns.
In the 2nd quarter, South Carolina State would score again to make it 13-7 on a 1o yard touchdown pass from Fields to Richard Bailey. Both teams would then play good defense to limit the scoring until Bhayshul Tuten would score another touchdown, this time on a shovel pass from Quarterbck Jalen Fowler to make it 14-13 Aggies. To follow the touchdown, the Aggies would make a 3 and out stop and would set up a 49 yard field goal for there kicker which was drilled to go up 17-13 at the half.
The Aggies would score fast, on another Tuten touchdown, this time a 38 yard run to give the Aggies a great start to the half and also an 11 point lead. They would get the ball back fast and score again on a 11 yard run from Wesley Graves. All of a sudden the Aggies were up 31-13. The bulldogs knew if they wanted to stay in this game they would need to answer, and they did that on a 33 yard pass touchdown from Fields to Shaquan Davis. He would finish with over 100 yards in the game. The Aggies responded to that touchdown with there 3rd consecutive touchdown, on a 9 yard touchdown pass to Ger-Cari Caldwell. The bulldogs now down 38-20, had to play better offensively and defensively to get back in this game. They would score another touchdown to end the 3rd quarter, this time on Fields 4th touchdown pass.
The bulldogs were down 18 to start the 4th quarter, but the Aggie defense played outstanding to make the bulldogs unable to score again. The final score of this game was 41-27.