BUIES CREEK, NC – North Carolina A&T had a stronger showing on Saturday after a disappointing defeat last weekend, but the Aggies still couldn’t get over the hump against the Campbell Fighting Camels in a 21-7 loss at Barker-Lane Stadium on Saturday.
The Aggies threw the ball 41 times on Saturday but could not muster the offense needed to overcome the 14-point advantage the Camels established in the first quarter as the Aggies dropped to 1-7 overall and 0-4 in the CAA. Sincere Brown had 150 yards receiving and two touchdowns on five receptions to help the Camels improve to 3-5 overall and 1-3 in league play.
Head Coach Vincent Brown challenged the team to be resilient after losing five straight, and he saw that from the defensive unit especially, which tallied three sacks, forced a crucial turnover on downs, and generally played hard-nosed football aside from two blown defensive assignments in the secondary that resulted in 50-plus yard touchdown receptions. Henry Daniel had a superb game defensively with nine tackles, three for loss, and two sacks. He also forced a fumble.
“Defensively, I thought there was tremendous improvement over last week. We got off the field on third down quite a few times,” Brown said. “Outside of the two big plays – the first touchdown on the RPO (run-pass-option) glance and the blown coverage – I thought we played really well.”
Both of those big plays came from the hands of Sincere Brown, who caught a pass over the middle on the Camels’ first drive and took it 64 yards to the endzone for the game’s first points. The second one happened midway through the fourth quarter when Campbell quarterback Mike Chandler II found Brown wide open down the left sideline for a 53-yard score.
Chandler accounted for 111 yards and a touchdown from the air. He also had 57 yards on the ground and a touchdown. He even had a 19-yard reception early in the first quarter with Chad Mascoe under center.
As for the Aggies offense, graduate quarterback Justin Fomby finished with 20 completions on 40 attempts with one touchdown and two interceptions. Redshirt sophomore Cameren Dalrymple led the ground attack with 16 carries for 75 yards, and redshirt junior Ger-Cari Caldwell hauled in six catches for 47 yards and had the team’s only touchdown.
Fomby led that touchdown drive late in the third quarter and into the fourth, marching 90 yards downfield in 12 plays. After the Aggies found themselves in a 3rd-and-12 situation on Campbell’s 30-yard line, Fomby hit redshirt sophomore Laquan Veney for a catch at the right sideline that was good for the first down.
Officials called Campbell head coach Braxton Harris for an unsportsmanlike penalty after the play, which pushed the Aggies to the nine-yard line. Fomby found Caldwell in the middle of the endzone to give A&T its first and only points of the game. Before that, placekicker Andrew Brown had two uncharacteristic field goal misses in the second quarter – a 49-yarder and a 40-yarder – that left points on the board going into halftime down 14-0. The Aggies also failed to convert a 4th-and-2 from the Camels 22-yard line on the second half’s opening drive.
“We couldn’t put a sustained drive together long enough to score,” Brown said. “We said coming out of halftime that we needed to move the ball downfield and score, and we moved the ball, but we did not score.”
Immediately after the touchdown pass to Caldwell, Campbell responded with the decisive 53-yard touchdown to go up 21-7.
The Aggies had a chance to respond on the ensuing drive and crept into Campbell territory briefly, but an intentional grounding call on Fomby and a delay of game penalty pushed them back to their own 40 on 3rd-and-25. Fomby took a shot downfield with a throw intended for Jamison Warren. However, Warren couldn’t finish the route after going down with an apparent leg injury, and Da’Quan Johnson intercepted the ball.
Campbell went three-and-out on the next drive, and A&T looked like it might have one more chance at a comeback with four minutes remaining in the game. However, consecutive holding and false start penalties put the Aggies in a nearly identical 3rd-and-25 situation from their own 46. Fomby threw the ball deep to Caldwell this time, and Lakeem Rudolph intercepted it.
A&T has four games remaining in what has been a difficult season. Brown wants his team to continue building on the improvements he saw against Campbell over the season’s final four games.
“I really want, anticipate, and expect to see better overall play,” he said. “We’ve got to be able to produce points, and we’ve got to be able to keep people from putting points up through explosive plays.”
The Aggies will have another chance to do that next Saturday when they return to Greensboro to face William & Mary. The game is set to kick off at 1 p.m., and air live on FloCollege but tape-delayed on My48 starting at 6 p.m. The Game will air on Terrestrial Radio in the Triad on The Light 1400am/96.3fm and online via Tobacco Road Sports Radio website
