North Carolina A&T showed glimpses of promise versus the reigning MEAC Champion South Carolina State, but ultimately fell short. The game was a low-scoring affair at the start, with the Aggies jumping out to a 9-0 lead at halftime after three straight field goal makes from Andrew Brown. But, South Carolina State regained its footing in the second half, scoring three straight touchdowns across the third and fourth quarters to score 22 unanswered points. The Aggies scored a late fourth-quarter touchdown with 3:05 left in the game, but weren't able to secure the victory.
North Carolina A&T head coach Shawn Gibbs was candid in his assessment of the loss in postgame comments, but still was complimentary of his players.
“Obviously disappointed… [we] let another one get away from us a case of us not finishing the game, but nonetheless, I'm still proud of the way those kids fight; they fight their butts off, they'll never give up. Just got to stop killing ourselves. Turnovers in their territory led to 14 points. Self-inflicted wounds. So again, you know, when we get out of our own way, we'll be a much improved team.”
Gibbs still believes that there needs to be a culture reset for his team after several underwhelming seasons since leaving the MEAC.
“The issue is it's still the culture. And what I mean by that is when I say how you do anything is how you do everything, that's honestly what I believe. So how we take the field, how we get off the field, how we clean up the locker room… all of that stuff matters. And until we can get all those little things corrected, until everybody in the program starts believing and understanding that's what we got to do, then we'll continue getting this result.”
But there are still on-field issues that need to be corrected, which Gibbs acknowledges.
“It's something different every game. This game was just turnovers… But you know, another touchdown was on explosive play. So it's like a broken record keep coming in here and saying the same thing every week. Got to stop explosive play, give up an explosive play, can't turn the ball over, turn the ball over twice plus territory.”
He added, hapring on the four turnovers “”Extremely, extremely, extremely frustrating… We have periods designated to ball security… literally every single day we work on that. So for us to turn the ball over… that's it's just it's deflating.”
