Post by JayBee on Oct 23, 2007 6:25:16 GMT -5
Senior gets a final shot at an A&T home victory
By Rob Daniels Staff Writer
Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2007 3:00 am
N.C. A&T HOMECOMING
Who: Bethune-Cookman
When: 1:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: Aggie Stadium, Greensboro
Records: Bethune-Cookman 2-5 overall, 0-4 MEAC; N.C. A&T 0-8, 0-5 Tickets: $35 general admission $35 available online at www.ncataggies.com or call 334-7749.
GREENSBORO -- Find blitzing, hard-charging defenders and hit them. Touch the football about once every 100 plays. And do it all without being part of a winning effort in 773 days.
Sounds like a delightful way to spend your college years, doesn't it? As gratifying as collecting tolls on a busy turnpike, perhaps.
N.C. A&T fullback Trey Green is one of eight Aggies seniors, a group with more tolerance for frustration than any other class in a football history that began five years before the Great Depression. But he doesn't really want credit, sympathy or praise for his tenacity; he just wants to win. At least once more.
"It's difficult, but I go out because you never know when it's going to be your time to make a play or when that win is going to come," Green said. "I play because we're going to get it. We're going to turn it around. Before the end of this season, we are going to turn this around. We are going to put together a whole game."
Green's last chance to do it in front of an Aggie Stadium crowd comes Saturday, when A&T (0-8 overall, 0-5 MEAC) faces Bethune-Cookman (2-5, 0-4). It's a rare convergence of homecoming and senior day, which will make it memorable regardless of the outcome.
To understand why A&T has lost 24 consecutive games, a tie for the fourth-longest streak in the 30-year history of the NCAA's second highest-division of football, you can start with numbers. When coach Lee Fobbs acknowledged and thanked his seniors in a team meeting Sunday, eight guys stood up. That's the smallest class in the MEAC; the rest of the league averages 16.
Coaching changes always produce attrition, but the exodus that followed George Small's dismissal in late 2005 was debilitating. Green was one of 19 players listed as freshmen by the NCAA on the Aggies' 2004 roster. Five remain; the other three seniors are walk-ons or junior college transfers.
A&T has run 2,524 offensive plays since Green joined the team.
A nominal running back, he has 16 carries and nine receptions -- three of them, curiously enough, for touchdowns -- in that time. For the other 99 percent of the snaps, he has been injured, blocking or watching in uniform from the sideline.
"I'm just an extension of the offensive line in the backfield," said Green, from Fayetteville E.E. Smith. "I do what I am called upon to do. It's all part of the game, and it's all fun."
And the blocking has been pretty good. Although slowed the past two weeks, tailback Michael Ferguson is on track to become A&T's first 1,000-yard rusher since current San Francisco 49er Maurice Hicks ran for 1,325 in 2001.
Green also has found solace in academia. He has a double major in electronics computer technology and information technology, which means he's often a Mr. Fix-It for teammates and even coaches with cranky laptops. One especially unlucky fellow lost his entire operating system and put in a desperate call to Green.
"I had to re-install Windows and try to recover what they had lost," he said. "Couldn't get it all, but I got most of it. It always feels good to help people."
What's missing from the experience is obvious. Green even missed the team's most recent victory, a 40-33 overtime triumph over Morgan State in Landover, Md., on Oct. 8, 2005.
The week before, he suffered a neck injury that knocked him out for the remainder of the season.
So he has to go back to a 16-14 victory over Norfolk State on Sept. 10 of that season to remember what winning feels like.
"This is one of the times when you start to realize it's winding down," he said. "This is one you really want to make sure you pull out."
When the eight seniors were recognized Sunday, the rest of the team noticed.
"They vowed to take them out as winners," Fobbs said.
Contact Rob Daniels at 373-7028 or rdaniels @news-record.com
By Rob Daniels Staff Writer
Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2007 3:00 am
N.C. A&T HOMECOMING
Who: Bethune-Cookman
When: 1:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: Aggie Stadium, Greensboro
Records: Bethune-Cookman 2-5 overall, 0-4 MEAC; N.C. A&T 0-8, 0-5 Tickets: $35 general admission $35 available online at www.ncataggies.com or call 334-7749.
GREENSBORO -- Find blitzing, hard-charging defenders and hit them. Touch the football about once every 100 plays. And do it all without being part of a winning effort in 773 days.
Sounds like a delightful way to spend your college years, doesn't it? As gratifying as collecting tolls on a busy turnpike, perhaps.
N.C. A&T fullback Trey Green is one of eight Aggies seniors, a group with more tolerance for frustration than any other class in a football history that began five years before the Great Depression. But he doesn't really want credit, sympathy or praise for his tenacity; he just wants to win. At least once more.
"It's difficult, but I go out because you never know when it's going to be your time to make a play or when that win is going to come," Green said. "I play because we're going to get it. We're going to turn it around. Before the end of this season, we are going to turn this around. We are going to put together a whole game."
Green's last chance to do it in front of an Aggie Stadium crowd comes Saturday, when A&T (0-8 overall, 0-5 MEAC) faces Bethune-Cookman (2-5, 0-4). It's a rare convergence of homecoming and senior day, which will make it memorable regardless of the outcome.
To understand why A&T has lost 24 consecutive games, a tie for the fourth-longest streak in the 30-year history of the NCAA's second highest-division of football, you can start with numbers. When coach Lee Fobbs acknowledged and thanked his seniors in a team meeting Sunday, eight guys stood up. That's the smallest class in the MEAC; the rest of the league averages 16.
Coaching changes always produce attrition, but the exodus that followed George Small's dismissal in late 2005 was debilitating. Green was one of 19 players listed as freshmen by the NCAA on the Aggies' 2004 roster. Five remain; the other three seniors are walk-ons or junior college transfers.
A&T has run 2,524 offensive plays since Green joined the team.
A nominal running back, he has 16 carries and nine receptions -- three of them, curiously enough, for touchdowns -- in that time. For the other 99 percent of the snaps, he has been injured, blocking or watching in uniform from the sideline.
"I'm just an extension of the offensive line in the backfield," said Green, from Fayetteville E.E. Smith. "I do what I am called upon to do. It's all part of the game, and it's all fun."
And the blocking has been pretty good. Although slowed the past two weeks, tailback Michael Ferguson is on track to become A&T's first 1,000-yard rusher since current San Francisco 49er Maurice Hicks ran for 1,325 in 2001.
Green also has found solace in academia. He has a double major in electronics computer technology and information technology, which means he's often a Mr. Fix-It for teammates and even coaches with cranky laptops. One especially unlucky fellow lost his entire operating system and put in a desperate call to Green.
"I had to re-install Windows and try to recover what they had lost," he said. "Couldn't get it all, but I got most of it. It always feels good to help people."
What's missing from the experience is obvious. Green even missed the team's most recent victory, a 40-33 overtime triumph over Morgan State in Landover, Md., on Oct. 8, 2005.
The week before, he suffered a neck injury that knocked him out for the remainder of the season.
So he has to go back to a 16-14 victory over Norfolk State on Sept. 10 of that season to remember what winning feels like.
"This is one of the times when you start to realize it's winding down," he said. "This is one you really want to make sure you pull out."
When the eight seniors were recognized Sunday, the rest of the team noticed.
"They vowed to take them out as winners," Fobbs said.
Contact Rob Daniels at 373-7028 or rdaniels @news-record.com
