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End of the Road
 By Craig R. Turner
Bluedeathvalley.com
Date: Nov. 18, 2006
A long, difficult and exasperating football season will soon come to a merciful end in a few more hours when A&T caps what most likely will be its first winless season in school history.
This has been about as disappointing of a football season that Aggies fans have had to endure in a long, long time.
Going 0-10 is no fun for anyone - not coaches, players, and fans alike- and the looming prospect of another, almost certain dismemberment by a solid South Carolina State team is not about to get too many people on the road this morning to make the 90 minute trek down to Charlotte’s Memorial Stadium.
A&T entered this season under first-year head coach Lee Fobbs and with a new coaching staff that, right out of the box, suffered a major loss when defensive coordinator Tom Lavigne quit before the bus left town to deal with family concerns resulting from Hurricane Katrina.
Add to that a totally new squad of mostly true and redshirt freshmen, no discernable returning starters to speak of, only five seniors, two freshman quarterbacks and attrition at the running back position, and what the Aggies ended up with was a recipe for disaster in a league that is unforgiving to those short on talent or experience.
Now Lee Fobbs will tell his players to only concentrate on being ready to tangle with the Bulldogs and most likely they will try to respond as best they can with what they have to work with. He’ll tell the media that this will be his only thought tomorrow and it’ll be printed as such when you read your Saturday morning paper.
But let’s forgo all of the usual platitudes that coaches use in press conferences and interviews after enduring such a mentally-depleting season. The real test will come in the off season. Fobbs will begin to search for answers has to how he will attack five major challenges staring him straight in the face:
No. 1: Recruiting
A&T needs help at nearly every position especially in the offensive and defensive lines. The Aggies have pretty much been pushed around all over the place and many times just buried by much bigger and far more physical fronts on both sides of the ball. The Aggies will also need immediate help at the receiver spots, at linebacker and it they need to bring in a couple of fast defensive backs, which are always a premium. Another quarterback prospect and couple of true power running backs wouldn’t hurt much either. Fobbs has indicated that he is on the recruiting trail as soon as the final gun goes off today and from what has transpired, no one should expect to see him or his staff anytime soon between now the end of January. The bottom line? The Aggies need better athletes and a good many of those at the key spots up front. Whether they come from in-state or out-of-state really is not the issue at this juncture. They just need to be found and signed.
No. 2: Retention
I can’t recall any team ever having 47 true freshmen on a football squad, except start-up programs. There are 75 members of this year’s team that are slated to return in 2007 and it will be incumbent upon Fobbs to keep the vast majority of these youngsters together. Playing nearly 50 freshmen has been a nightmare all season long but having those 50 back as experienced lettermen would put A&T in a much stronger position going into spring practice. That’s because all of the surprises they encountered this season are now out of the way and over with. That also means nearly all of your starters at season’s end will be coming back, which means no matter how bad you may have performed the year before, you can only get better.
No. 3: Classroom
While I do not expect any type of mass exodus of players due to going winless, I do fear what may transpire in the classroom with the number of freshmen in this program. Three conference schools have lost scholarships this past year because of poor academic performance and the NCAA isn’t going to give any reprieves when it comes to penalizing institutions for poor academic performance. This has been the biggest bug-a-boo for the A&T football program for six years running now: academic ineligibility. The classroom is too often the biggest pitfall that has befallen the Aggies and the loss of 11 potential contributors before this season didn’t help matters in what was going to be an uphill battle. The coaching staff and the entire athletic department has got to make sure that these youngsters get the guidance and assistance they need to maintain their grades and make progression toward a degree even if it means kicking some rear ends to get the attention of some less-than-motivated individuals.
No. 4: Take a hard look at finding a top-notch defensive coordinator.
No disrespect to Demetruis Adams, who got more out of an undersized defensive line late in the year than anyone had expected and is a good position coach, but the Aggies are in need of a seasoned veteran who has an established track record on the 1-AA or better level. The totals in points and yardage given up were off the charts; meaning near the bottom in nation. You cannot win football games without playing solid defense first and that’s the bottom line.
No. 5: Stay on message.
After watching nearly every game this season, with just one or two exceptions, there’s not much complaining one can do about Fobbs and the X’s and O’s on the field. The mixture of plays and wrinkles were on target but the blocking execution was just not there for any sustained period of time. You could see the right defense for the right situation, but the lines simply weren’t strong enough to compete. Installing a true mandatory weight training program is a first step but getting inside the minds of next year’s team this winter and getting the commitment from the returning masses is paramount.
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On a personal note, football is not a life or death struggle, but a game. It’s simply a game.
What it does do is teach young men teamwork, sacrifice, determination, and the drive to excel that hopefully spills over into their everyday lives, making them better students, better citizens, and even better fathers and husbands.
We are all hoping that our new chancellor, Dr. Stanley Battle, who professes to be a fan of athletics will begin tp take the necessary steps in both fund raising and marketing to improve the coffers of the football budget. It must be much more competitive with our counterparts in the upper echelon of the MEAC.
We may get some indications early on as meetings with athletic staff take place both formally and informally over the next few months before he comes onboard full-time June 1. But that is another story for another day and we’ll get to that later this winter as our immediate attention now turns to recruiting.
Well, I’ve had my say and some will either agree with all of my observations or just some of them and others will dismiss them all as pro-Fobbs rhetoric or such, and honestly, that’s fine. If we were all in lock step with each other and didn’t disagree on what we feel or see, what fun would that be?
Otherwise, we might as well all be Republicans and drink the neo-con kool-aid.
Prediction:
S.C. State 48
N.C. A&T 20
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