Post by SixtiesAggie on Aug 3, 2012 14:08:58 GMT -5
Friday, August 3, 2012 (Updated 12:21 pm) By News & Record David Morrison
Staff Writer
A&t Football Article: Aggies haven’t lost hope despite NCAA sanctions (2:59 am) GREENSBORO — All the progress, all the momentum built from N.C. A&T’s four-game improvement in Rod Broadway’s first season as head football coach last year has gone for naught.
The Aggies welcome back almost all of their core, including back-to-back 1,000-yard rusher Mike Mayhew and three preseason first-team All-MEAC performers on defense, but their 2012 season is over before it has even started because of a one-year postseason ban levied by the NCAA as a result of poor Academic Progress Rate showings.
At least, that’s one way to look at it. Broadway and his players are choosing to approach the setback from another direction.
They’re building something.
“We knew some of the situation when we accepted the job. To be honest, I didn’t know it was as bad as it is,” Broadway said. “We’re not going to complain about it. We’re just going to try to go to work and build a football team.”
The Aggies report for fall practice today in a much better position to turn some heads in the MEAC than the team that went a surprising 5-6 last season to follow up a 1-10 mark in 2010.
Broadway estimates the Aggies are entering camp with around 50 scholarship players, nearly twice as many as they carried during spring practice and about 20 more than they had on last year’s team.
The latest round of APR sanctions allowed A&T its full allotment of 63 scholarships for the first time in four years, but decreased practice time by a day and four hours a week during the season, as well as cutting out all of spring practice next year.
“That’s the double-edged sword you deal with,” Broadway said. “You get the scholarships back, but you lose practice time. They give you the opportunity to bring in a lot of freshmen, but then when do you develop them?”
That task falls to the coaches and upperclassmen.
“The rookies coming in, we’ve got someone for them to look up to,” senior defensive end Tony Mash-burn said. “I’ve just got to give a proper role model for the new guys. I can’t slack off. I want to be able to get on people that slack off, so I’ve got to keep my-self going.”
Mashburn, Mayhew and the rest of the Aggies tried to make up for an abbreviated spring session — a self-imposed four hours a week with extensive study hall thrown in as a show of good faith to the NCAA — with intensive summer workout sessions during their time away from the coaches.
By rule, they were voluntary. In practice, pretty much mandatory.
“We could be doing whatever we want to, going on vacations, chilling with our family or whatever. But we spend all our time here grinding,” Mayhew said. “That just brought a lot of team chemistry for us.”
Mayhew said the initial aim of all the sweat put in during the summer was striving for a MEAC championship.
When that went off the table in late June, the goal shifted to doing what they can with what they have.
The commitment stayed strong.
“We can know in ourselves that we can become champions as long as we beat everybody,” said May-hew, a senior. “Just because we don’t have the ring or anything, the record is going to speak for itself.”
How’s that for motivation?
“We have a lot to prove this year,” Mashburn said.
Contact David Morrison at 373-7008 or david.morrison@news-record.com
Staff Writer
A&t Football Article: Aggies haven’t lost hope despite NCAA sanctions (2:59 am) GREENSBORO — All the progress, all the momentum built from N.C. A&T’s four-game improvement in Rod Broadway’s first season as head football coach last year has gone for naught.
The Aggies welcome back almost all of their core, including back-to-back 1,000-yard rusher Mike Mayhew and three preseason first-team All-MEAC performers on defense, but their 2012 season is over before it has even started because of a one-year postseason ban levied by the NCAA as a result of poor Academic Progress Rate showings.
At least, that’s one way to look at it. Broadway and his players are choosing to approach the setback from another direction.
They’re building something.
“We knew some of the situation when we accepted the job. To be honest, I didn’t know it was as bad as it is,” Broadway said. “We’re not going to complain about it. We’re just going to try to go to work and build a football team.”
The Aggies report for fall practice today in a much better position to turn some heads in the MEAC than the team that went a surprising 5-6 last season to follow up a 1-10 mark in 2010.
Broadway estimates the Aggies are entering camp with around 50 scholarship players, nearly twice as many as they carried during spring practice and about 20 more than they had on last year’s team.
The latest round of APR sanctions allowed A&T its full allotment of 63 scholarships for the first time in four years, but decreased practice time by a day and four hours a week during the season, as well as cutting out all of spring practice next year.
“That’s the double-edged sword you deal with,” Broadway said. “You get the scholarships back, but you lose practice time. They give you the opportunity to bring in a lot of freshmen, but then when do you develop them?”
That task falls to the coaches and upperclassmen.
“The rookies coming in, we’ve got someone for them to look up to,” senior defensive end Tony Mash-burn said. “I’ve just got to give a proper role model for the new guys. I can’t slack off. I want to be able to get on people that slack off, so I’ve got to keep my-self going.”
Mashburn, Mayhew and the rest of the Aggies tried to make up for an abbreviated spring session — a self-imposed four hours a week with extensive study hall thrown in as a show of good faith to the NCAA — with intensive summer workout sessions during their time away from the coaches.
By rule, they were voluntary. In practice, pretty much mandatory.
“We could be doing whatever we want to, going on vacations, chilling with our family or whatever. But we spend all our time here grinding,” Mayhew said. “That just brought a lot of team chemistry for us.”
Mayhew said the initial aim of all the sweat put in during the summer was striving for a MEAC championship.
When that went off the table in late June, the goal shifted to doing what they can with what they have.
The commitment stayed strong.
“We can know in ourselves that we can become champions as long as we beat everybody,” said May-hew, a senior. “Just because we don’t have the ring or anything, the record is going to speak for itself.”
How’s that for motivation?
“We have a lot to prove this year,” Mashburn said.
Contact David Morrison at 373-7008 or david.morrison@news-record.com
