The North Carolina A&T Aggies football team will host the North Carolina Central Eagles in Greensboro on Saturday for the rivals’ 92nd meeting.
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The game (6 p.m. ET start time) isn’t on TV anywhere, but anyone in the US can watch NC Central vs North Carolina A&T live on ESPN+:
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NC Central vs North Carolina A&T Preview
These sides first met in 1924, kicking their rivalry off with a 13-13 draw in Durham.
The Aggies have claimed the last three tilts in dominant fashion — outscoring Central by a cumulative score of 123-10 — to push their all-time series advantage to 52-34-5.
Unlike those three meetings, and the six before that, this year’s Aggie-Eagle Classic is a nonconference affair; A&T left the MEAC for the Big South this year.
“I haven’t even given it any thought that they’re not in our conference anymore,” Central head coach Trei Oliver said, according to The North State Journal. “When we go down there, we’re going to try and beat the brakes off A&T and they’re going to try to do the same to us. It’s a true rivalry. Neither school really cares for each other.”
The Eagles are 2-1 this season, having sandwiched single-digit victories over the Alcorn State Braves and Winston-Salem State Rams around a blowout defeat at the hooves of the Marshall Thundering Herd.
Central’s racked up rushing 491 yards thus far, at a clip of 4.1 yards per tote. Jamal Currie-Elliott’s been the most productive back in the Eagles’ balanced ground attack, carrying 24 times for 105 yards.
Despite the Aggies’ dominance of Central from 2017 to 2019 — the squads didn’t meet last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic — A&T head coach Sam Washington noted containing the Eagles’ ground game will be a challenge.
“They’re a physical football team. They don’t mind mixing it up,” he said Wednesday, according to A&T’s athletics website. “And the running game, I think their running game is very solid. They have four capable running backs and they do a very good job up front, getting a hat on a hat to get a lot of movement with double-team blocks so we have to be at our very best to be affective.”
The Aggies, winless in a pair of tries in 2021, are coming off a bye week. Two weeks ago, they visited the Duke Blue Devils, who triumphed 45-17.
After Duke’s game-opening possession resulted in a punt, A&T assembled a 20-play, 86-yard drive that resulted in a 1-yard touchdown run from quarterback Kingsley Ifedi.
“Talking a little bit about the Duke game, I thought we went into the ball game prepared and came out and played well initially, but the intensity for some reason, we lost,” Washington said, per the school’s athletics site.
Ifedi, who got the start at QB in place of the injured Jalen Fowler, rushed 15 times for a game-high 83 yards and a pair of scores. Washington said Wednesday that Fowler will be back under center against Central.
“He will return,” the coach said, per the school’s athletics site. “We’re expecting him to be at the top of his game. He had a great week of practice this week, so he will be back.”