The Norfolk State Spartans fell to the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University Aggies 28-26 in a hard-fought game. This puts the Spartans at 2-3 on the season. For the 4th game this season the Spartans gave up more than 200 rushing yards to their opponent. “Tough” Head Coach Dawson Odums said, “You open up the game and you start off kind of slow and you dig yourself out and end the half with it being a 2-point game, and we knew it was gonna be a challenge, but the nature of injuries takes a toll but we just couldn’t get it down”
The Spartan defense came out on the first drive giving up a 65-yard rushing touchdown off of a read option play by the Aggies freshman quarterback Kevin White. “We knew he was gonna play but we didn’t expect him to start,” said Odums. Although Kevin White didn’t make a big impact passing, his rushing stats were very impactful, with 11 rushes 130 yards, and 2 rushing touchdowns.
After the Spartans drive was stalled at midfield, the punter Noah Tracey pinned the Aggies at their own 5-yard line, which led to a safety putting the score at 7-2. After the Spartans received the ball from the safety punt they took the ball down the field but settled for 3 in the red zone making the score 7-5. The Aggies came right back with a 34-yard touchdown run extending their lead to 14-5. After multiple drives stopped by penalties and punts the Spartans get on the board with a 16 yard passing touchdown too the Grad Student Wideout Andre Pegues. The Spartans brought the game closer ending the first half down 14-12.
The Spartans came out in the third quarter and on their first 3 drives ended with 3 and outs. “We had a lot of third down drops,” Odums said “It’s hard to execute when you drop the ball especially on third down”. The Aggies capitalized on the Spartans offensive struggles scoring a 40-yard rushing touchdown ran by Kevin White, and another rushing touchdown for 1 yard by the sophomore Kenji Christian.
At the beginning of the fourth quarter, the Aggies abused their rushing offense driving all the way down to the Spartans 10 yard line, but the Spartans tipped a pass at the line of scrimmage which was intercepted by Safety Grad Student Joesph White. The Spartans drove all the way down the field and capped their drive off with a 7-yard touchdown pass to the redshirt junior Tremayne Tolbert making the score 28-20 after a successful 2 point conversion. The Spartan defense stood tall forcing a 3 and out and getting their offense the ball back with 5:31 left in the game.
After getting the ball back the Spartans scored again with a 10-yard touchdown pass to the redshirt sophomore Wideout Tavian Morris, after a failed 2-point conversion try the Spartans were down 28-26 with 3:07 remaining in the fourth. The Aggies get the ball at their own 7-yard line after a great fake onside kick play from the Spartans but even after the bad field position and the Spartans having 2 timeouts remaining the Aggies ran the clock out to gain their first victory of the season. “We go into this by week ready to gain back injured players and work” Odums says, “We will look at the film and evaluate to see what we can improve on” After a bye week the Spartans Will travel to Tennessee to take on Tennessee State University on Saturday October 14, 2023 at 6pm.
Spartan Echo 