N.C. A&T begins final week of prep for season opener against Jacksonville State

GREENSBORO, North Carolina — It’s game week. At last.

Sam Washington presided over his first gathering of alumni and fans at N.C. A&T’s weekly head coach’s football luncheon today at the Alumni Foundation Events Center on A&T’s campus.

If the new coach was nervous, it didn’t show.

The No. 14 Aggies will open the season against No. 6 Jacksonville State at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Crampton Bowl stadium in Montgomery, Ala., in a made-for-TV game.

“We are blessed for this opportunity,” Washington said. “And this is a huge opportunity for us. … Now we’re looked upon on a national level, and I am tickled pink that ESPN thought enough of our brand to invite us to play a top-10 I-AA football team. That says a lot about where we are.”

Washington is an old-school coach, hence the old-school Division I-AA reference to what is now called the Football Championship Subdivision.

It’s the same thing.

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