GREENSBORO, North Carolina – It what was perhaps the best attended Blue-Gold Spring Football Game in recent memory, the assembled Aggie fans at Aggie Stadium got to see a treat for free admission.
A&T’s top cornerback Tony McRae and A&T’s top receiver Denzel Keyes did battle for much of the afternoon and it was a display of the best against the best. McRae ended the afternoon with four pass breakups while Keyes made seven catches for 84 yards and a touchdown.
“He’s pretty good isn’t he?” said head coach Rod Broadway about Keyes. Broadway will be entering his fifth season as the Aggies head man when the 2015 season starts. He is 28-17 at A&T with the 2015 MEAC co-championship added to his accolades.
“That’s what (Denzel) did for us last year,” he continued. “He is going to grow and develop. Hopefully, he’ll have a great fall for us.”
McRae, who also doubles as the Aggies kickoff return specialist, is coming off a season where he was a first-team all-conference corner and second-team return specialist. Saturday was good preparation for McRae because he will likely be matched up against the opponent’s best receiver on Saturdays in 2015.
“I have a lot of confidence in our defense,” said McRae. “We lost a lot of hitters from last year’s defense, but we have a quicker defense this year. Last year we played eight guys who were inexperience. This year we will be playing with experienced players.”
As the nature of spring games go, the Aggies were playing with a lot of inexperience on Saturday outside of Keyes and McRae. The Aggies spring game featured the Aggies offense against the Aggies defense for their entire afternoon. The Aggies offense scored five touchdowns while the Aggies defense made 10 stops including four three-and-outs.
A&T’s defense also produced two turnovers including a 30-yard fumble return for a touchdown by rising fifth-year linebacker Denzel Jones. The Aggies ‘D’ also had nine sacks with rising junior Angelo Keyes and rising sophomore Kenneth Melton getting two sacks apiece. Rising sophomore Marcus Albert led the Aggies with seven tackles while Jones finished with six.
On the offensive side, rising redshirt freshman quarterback Lamar Raynard took the majority of the 115 snaps for the Aggies. He finished 22-for-36 for 230 yards and two touchdowns. He also ran for a 10-yard touchdown. In addition to hooking up with Keyes several times, he was very good at throwing the ball to players coming out of the backfield. MEAC co-offensive player of the year and running back Tarik Cohen caught three passes for 44 yards including a 1-yard TD pass from Raynard.
Cohen’s backup on Saturday, converted cornerback Amos Williams, caught five passes for 52 yards and a touchdown. He also ran in for another score. Oluwafemi Bamiro who started his career as a quarterback before moving to tight end and back to quarterback, served as the No. 2 QB on Saturday. Bamiro was 13-for-26 for 160 yards and two touchdowns.
“We would have liked to have gone 150 plays but because of a lack of depth we weren’t able to do that,” said Broadway, who led the Aggies to a 9-3 record overall and 6-2 mark in the MEAC in 2014. “But we need as many reps as we can especially with these young guys. Of course we held some of our real good players out. Tarik only played one series, so I don’t think that was a good picture of what we’re going to be like this fall.”
But that battle between McRae and Keyes was worth the time to come to Aggie Stadium on Saturday regardless.
COURTESY NORTH CAROLINA A&T STATE UNIVERSITY SPORTS INFORMATION
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