GREENSBORO – North Carolina A&T totaled a season-high 501 yards of offense. Sophomore Kenji Christian had career highs in rushing yards (140) and touchdowns (3). Redshirt freshman quarterback Eli Brickhandler entered the game in relief and had his best career showing, throwing for 161 yards, an interception and a touchdown on 9-for-15 passing.
The Aggies even had a season-high 29 first downs and had a better time of possession than their opponent for the first time all season. But because of a missed assignment here or a costly penalty there, those things were awesome and made A&T competitive Saturday afternoon against Towson, but they were not good enough.
Towson held off a determined A&T team playing in front of the Greatest Homecoming On Earth sellout crowd of 21,500 at Truist Stadium with a 42-32 win. The Aggies dropped to 1-8 overall and 0-6 in Coastal Athletic Association Football Conference play. Towson improved to 4-5 overall and 3-3 in conference play.
A&T head football coach Vincent Brown likes the never-quit attitude of his team. He likes the fight they play with each week. But he also wants those things to translate into wins.
"We're not going to quit. We're going to fight to the very end, to the last play of the game, to the last play of the season," said Brown. "That's going to be our DNA. This team will not quit. They're going to keep coming back. We just made too many mistakes, especially defensively, to give up explosive plays.
"I thought our offense did a much better job today creating explosive plays, both in the run and pass game. But it's always about the entire team – offense, defense and special teams. The coaching staff and I will continue to evaluate every aspect of our program to get to where we need to be to win these games not just be competitive."
In the first quarter, Towson played like a team that wanted Saturday's contest to end in a blowout. Tigers running back Devin Matthews scored two early rushing touchdowns for a 14-0 lead. Christian interrupted the Tigers' momentum with an 11-yard TD run before the Tigers grabbed a two-touchdown lead again on a 34-yard rushing touchdown by Chris Watkins.
A promising 12-play drive that included a 22-yard run from starting quarterback Kevin White, a 15-yard run from Christian and a 15-yard roughing the passer penalty resulted in a 26-yard Owen Daffer field goal, cutting the Tigers lead to 21-10. After a Towson three-and-out, the Aggies offense went back to work.
A&T converted a 3rd-and-12 from its 25-yard line with a 20-yard completion from White to Christian. White also completed a 10-yard pass to Amonte Jones to the far side of the field, giving the Aggies a 1st-and-10 at the Towson 45. The pass proved noteworthy because White appeared to lose his footing on the completion, causing him to limp off the field.
White never returned to the game as Brickhandler stepped in and moved the Aggies to the Tiger 31, but a holding penalty late in the half put the Aggies into desperation mode as a last-second Brickhandler pass was intercepted by Robert Javier to end the half.
"Kevin gets the lion's share of reps in practice, and we did some things schematically today that we had not done before this season, different formations, different personnel groupings," said Brown. "Although Eli got reps in those things, he didn't get as many reps to manage the offense as well as Kevin, so we had to go back to a lot of the things that have been some of our core plays throughout the season, and I think Eli did a nice job of distributing the ball and pulling the ball down and taking off when the opportunity to run the ball presented itself."
On A&T's first drive of the second half, Brickandler led the Aggies on a 7-play, 80-yard drive that included a 54-yard completion to Jones, the longest pass completion of Brickhandler's career. The long pass play led to a 2-yard TD run by Christian, cutting the Tigers lead to 21-17.
But the Tigers kept responding to every A&T push toward taking the lead. Towson immediately answered the Aggies touchdown with a 15-yard touchdown pass from Towson starter Nathan Kent to Zay Perkins.
Brickhandler went back on the attack, however, converting a 3rd-and-3 with a 20-yard completion to Nicholas Dobson. An unsportsmanlike penalty helped the Aggies move the ball to the Towson 11, leading to a 10-yard touchdown pass to Darren Bennett on a 3rd-and-9. A failed two-point conversion kept Towson ahead 28-23 with 14:55 remaining in the game.
Again, Towson had a quick answer with another touchdown pass from Kent. Daffer added another field goal for the Aggies before one of the biggest plays of the game occurred. On a 1st-and-10 from the Towson 25, Kent found a wide-open Lukkas Londono for a 69-yard completion to the Aggies 6. Three plays later, Matthews scored from two yards out to put the game away with four minutes remaining.
"There are no moral victories, but you want to see improvement. I want to see improvement. I've seen that the last couple of weeks despite having a myriad of injuries. But in order for us to win, it's got to be all three phases operating at an extremely high level. We're just going to keep fighting and keep trying to build each week."
