GREENSBORO – North Carolina A&T football can finally stop discussing how close it came to winning a game and actually talk about how great it feels to win. Period.
Junior Elijah Kennedy first tied a program record with a 96-yard punt return for a touchdown before returning a kickoff 85 yards for a score to lead the Aggies to a 28-24 win over the Campbell Fighting Camels Saturday afternoon at Truist Stadium. He becomes the first player in program history to return a kickoff and a punt for touchdowns in a single game.
Kennedy's historic returns played a significant role in A&T's victory, along with a stingy A&T run defense that mirrored the run defenses that populated the field for the Aggies back in the mid-2010s.
The Aggies held Campbell to 63 yards rushing on 32 carries to improve to 2-6 overall. It was the fewest rushing yards a team has had against A&T since the Aggies held Charleston Southern to 48 yards on November 12, 2022. The Aggies picked up their second Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) win to improve to 2-2. Not bad for a team that did not win a CAA game over its first two years in the league in 2023 and 2024.
"We are not done. This is just part of the process," said A&T head coach Shawn Gibbs. "We were able to finally get a win, and it feels good. We are going to celebrate this and then we're going to flush it and go back to work tomorrow and try to go 1-0 next week against Towson."
The Aggies must move on as they prepare to play the Towson Tigers next week at Truist Stadium, starting at noon. But the game will certainly not leave Kennedy's memory anytime soon. His team trailed 21-7 with 13 minutes remaining in the game. The never-give-up Aggies put together a seven-play, 86-yard drive that included a 49-yard completion from redshirt sophomore Kevin White to redshirt sophomore Jayvonne Dillard that gave the Aggies first-and-goal at the Campbell 9-yard line.
Three plays later, White faked a handoff to graduate running Wesley Graves and kept the ball on a bootleg play to score from three yards out to get the Aggies to within a touchdown with 9:37 remaining in the game. The score put the Aggies in a familiar place – a close ballgame. A&T had lost its previous three games by a combined 17 points.
But Saturday was different. The Aggies forced Campbell to punt from the A&T 48. That punt landed in the hands of Kennedy, who started right but found a seam going left and ran down the Campbell sideline for a punt return touchdown, tying the game at 21-21. Kennedy tied Quay Long for the longest punt return for a touchdown in program history. Long went 96 yards against Bethune-Cookman on October 31, 2009.
Nothing has come easy for the Aggies this season, however. Campbell converted two gigantic third downs on the ensuing drive. Campbell quarterback Kamden Sixkiller scrambled 14 yards for a first down on a 3rd-and-10 from the Campbell 26. Five plays later, Sixkiller found an open Mike Chandler II and connected with the diving receiver for a first down at the A&T 19.
The Aggies defense stiffened from there, forcing the Camels to kick a 38-yard field goal that Alex Crabb connected on to give the Camels a 24-21 lead with 1:49 to play. But Crabb made the mistake of kicking off to Kennedy.
Kennedy made him pay. Kennedy returned Crabb's kick 85 yards for the game-winning touchdown, giving the Aggies a 28-24 lead. Kennedy compiled 228 all-purpose yards after a day where he had 27 yards receiving, 102 yards in kickoff return yards and 99 yards in punt return yards.
"I was just hungry all game," Kennedy said. "And I knew it was coming from the first kick, just from the way he was kicking and the way we were blocking."
Kennedy called his kickoff return more special out of the two touchdowns because it sealed the game.
Campbell still had 1:29 remaining on the clock when it took over possession at the Camels 25. Campbell reached the A&T 40 before the A&T defense showed up big. Graduate Tim Alderman sacked Sixkiller for a 2-yard loss before Travon Dye flushed Sixkiller out of the pocket and forced an incompletion to bring up third down.
Dye and junior Joshua Iseah then threw down Randall King for another 2-yard loss to bring up fourth down. Graduate cornerback Aaron Harris then came up big when he knocked the ball away from King's grip for his fourth breakup of the game. A&T took over possession with 43 seconds remaining and went into a sweet formation called victory.
"Today was very special. It was really, really, really exciting because during the bye week, we put in a lot of work focusing on the details and putting our bodies on the line so that we can have outcomes like this," said Kennedy.
