Saturday, December 16, 2017
The Blue And Gold 'Marching Machine' Prepares For Celebration Bowl
GREENSBORO, North Carolina -- North Carolina A&T boasts a no-loss season, and will take on Grambling State on Saturday at noon. It's the second time A&T has played in the bowl game; the first time was 2015 - the very first year for the championship.
Arguably as important as the football game - the performances by the Blue and Gold Marching Machine. The band will hit the road tomorrow morning to play in the first bowl game at the Mercedes-Benz stadium.
It's been a months-long journey of long practice days and hard work, but directors and band members say it will all pay off when they step onto the national stage.
For months - the Aggie's Blue and Gold Marching Machine has fine-tuned every step, and every note. Every win has paved their road to Atlanta to face off against Grambling State this weekend.
“It’s very exciting. Knowing that we are one going to be the first ball game in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the second time we're going to be in the celebration bowl so it's an undefeated season for the Aggies and we're very excited,” said Assistant Director Lamon Lawhorn.
“All week we have been preparing, we've had rehearsal from 9 AM to 10 PM every single day,” said drum major Solomon Reynolds.
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Grambling's past, present on display when Tigers meet North Carolina A&T in Celebration Bowl
ATLANTA, Georgia -- The road to Saturday’s Celebration Bowl between Grambling and North Carolina A&T started April 11, 2007.
It was at legendary Grambling coach Eddie Robinson’s funeral where Broderick Fobbs and Rod Broadway met for the first time.
Broadway had just been announced as Grambling’s head coach. Fobbs, a former running back at Grambling under Robinson, was then the offensive coordinator at McNeese State.
The two men shared a somber moment, remembering a legend. Afterward, they exchanged phone numbers, and bond began to form.
"I loved how Broadway ran the program," said Fobbs, who's now in charge at Grambling.
Fobbs and the Tigers (11-1) square off against North Carolina A&T, the team Broadway now coaches.
Broadway spent four seasons at Grambling, winning two Southwestern Athletic Conference championships before he took the job at A&CT, returning to his home state. The Aggies are 11-0 heading into Saturday's game.
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It was at legendary Grambling coach Eddie Robinson’s funeral where Broderick Fobbs and Rod Broadway met for the first time.
Broadway had just been announced as Grambling’s head coach. Fobbs, a former running back at Grambling under Robinson, was then the offensive coordinator at McNeese State.
The two men shared a somber moment, remembering a legend. Afterward, they exchanged phone numbers, and bond began to form.
"I loved how Broadway ran the program," said Fobbs, who's now in charge at Grambling.
Fobbs and the Tigers (11-1) square off against North Carolina A&T, the team Broadway now coaches.
Broadway spent four seasons at Grambling, winning two Southwestern Athletic Conference championships before he took the job at A&CT, returning to his home state. The Aggies are 11-0 heading into Saturday's game.
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Friday, December 15, 2017
Diaz: Celebration Bowl closes successful Kincade, Carter era at Grambling State
GRAMBLING, Louisiana – Take it all in, GramFam. Once the clock strikes all zeroes at Saturday’s Celebration Bowl, you will have watched the closing of one of the most successful chapters in Grambling State football history.
An end of a short era, but also the dawn of a lasting legacy.
For the final time, redshirt senior quarterback DeVante Kincade and senior running back Martez Carter will take the field in the Black and Gold with their fellow G-Men to square off with undefeated North Carolina A&T (11-0) for the HBCU National Championship at the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
t’s fitting the that last time Carter and Kincade don the “G” helmet that the stakes are high. Because arguably, there have been few that have recently made a bigger impact on the historic Grambling football program than the backfield duo.
Don’t mistake it, what head coach Broderick Fobbs has been able to do and how he’s elevated his alma mater back to where many believe GSU belongs has been nothing short of remarkable. Any conversation of most impactful people certainly begins with the former Tiger running back that played under the legendary coach Eddie Robinson.
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An end of a short era, but also the dawn of a lasting legacy.
For the final time, redshirt senior quarterback DeVante Kincade and senior running back Martez Carter will take the field in the Black and Gold with their fellow G-Men to square off with undefeated North Carolina A&T (11-0) for the HBCU National Championship at the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
t’s fitting the that last time Carter and Kincade don the “G” helmet that the stakes are high. Because arguably, there have been few that have recently made a bigger impact on the historic Grambling football program than the backfield duo.
Don’t mistake it, what head coach Broderick Fobbs has been able to do and how he’s elevated his alma mater back to where many believe GSU belongs has been nothing short of remarkable. Any conversation of most impactful people certainly begins with the former Tiger running back that played under the legendary coach Eddie Robinson.
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Celebration Bowl: 5 things to know about NC A&T vs. Grambling
ATLANTA, Georgia — The third annual Celebration Bowl showcases its first two winners.
No. 7 N.C. A&T (11-0) won the first Celebration Bowl in 2015, and No. 12 Grambling (11-1) is the defending champ.
The MEAC champion Aggies and SWAC champ Tigers, who are both on 11-game winning streaks, will play at Atlanta's new Mercedes-Benz Stadium at noon Saturday.
It's the start of college football's bowl season, and the national broadcast on ABC has drawn more than five million viewers so far.
And the matchup of champs from the two NCAA Division I leagues made up exclusively of HBCUs means a black college national championship is at stake.
"I told our staff before the season started, 'We have chance to have our best football team.' And we still have a chance," A&T coach Rod Broadway said. "All we need to do is win one more, and this will be the best team I've had in 15 years as a head coach. I can't say enough about these guys."
Five things to know headed into this game:
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No. 7 N.C. A&T (11-0) won the first Celebration Bowl in 2015, and No. 12 Grambling (11-1) is the defending champ.
The MEAC champion Aggies and SWAC champ Tigers, who are both on 11-game winning streaks, will play at Atlanta's new Mercedes-Benz Stadium at noon Saturday.
It's the start of college football's bowl season, and the national broadcast on ABC has drawn more than five million viewers so far.
And the matchup of champs from the two NCAA Division I leagues made up exclusively of HBCUs means a black college national championship is at stake.
"I told our staff before the season started, 'We have chance to have our best football team.' And we still have a chance," A&T coach Rod Broadway said. "All we need to do is win one more, and this will be the best team I've had in 15 years as a head coach. I can't say enough about these guys."
Five things to know headed into this game:
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The Celebration Bowl is more than a great matchup. It’s 125 years of HBCU football.
ATLANTA, Georgia -- Atlanta’s new Mercedes-Benz Stadium looks futuristic enough that it wouldn’t come as a 100 percent shock if it lifted off and began zipping around the Milky Way. On Saturday around midday, that look will become evocative for anyone who juxtaposes it with what happened 125 years ago.
Three weeks and two days before it stages the College Football Playoff national championship game, the four-month-old wonder with its otherworldly video board and gargantuan windows on the downtown skyline will stage the third Celebration Bowl, which christens the bowl season and throws back all at once. Per custom, it will pit the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference champion (North Carolina A&T) against the Southwestern Athletic Conference champion (Grambling), and it will sort out a national champion among historically black colleges and universities. ABC will air it at noon.
[This being almost 2018, the game will have “high-tech uniforms and cleats and more footballs than you know what to do with,” said John Grant, the bowl’s executive director. It also will come almost precisely 125 years since that game with one waterlogged football, when Biddle University of Charlotte traveled 43 miles to Livingstone College of Salisbury, N.C., when 43 miles was so much longer than today.
That game, in snowfall on Livingstone’s front lawn Dec. 27, 1892, became the first between historically black colleges, and Grant thinks of it repeatedly. He thinks of the “fans who came by wagons, who walked, who came on horseback.” He thinks of the fans who “came and stood around the field in snow to watch this game that they had never seen people like them play.” He said, “They had to be cold and wet.”
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Three weeks and two days before it stages the College Football Playoff national championship game, the four-month-old wonder with its otherworldly video board and gargantuan windows on the downtown skyline will stage the third Celebration Bowl, which christens the bowl season and throws back all at once. Per custom, it will pit the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference champion (North Carolina A&T) against the Southwestern Athletic Conference champion (Grambling), and it will sort out a national champion among historically black colleges and universities. ABC will air it at noon.
[This being almost 2018, the game will have “high-tech uniforms and cleats and more footballs than you know what to do with,” said John Grant, the bowl’s executive director. It also will come almost precisely 125 years since that game with one waterlogged football, when Biddle University of Charlotte traveled 43 miles to Livingstone College of Salisbury, N.C., when 43 miles was so much longer than today.
That game, in snowfall on Livingstone’s front lawn Dec. 27, 1892, became the first between historically black colleges, and Grant thinks of it repeatedly. He thinks of the “fans who came by wagons, who walked, who came on horseback.” He thinks of the fans who “came and stood around the field in snow to watch this game that they had never seen people like them play.” He said, “They had to be cold and wet.”
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Grambling vs. N.C. A&T is Celebration Bowl many wanted
ATLANTA, Georgia -- North Carolina A&T coach Rod Broadway points out to his players how the windshield in a car dwarfs the size of the rear-view mirror.
"Why is that?" Broadway said. "Because they don't want you looking back too much because you might run into something."
The Aggies, the 11-0 champs of the MEAC, will have had four weeks to bask in the best regular season in program history when they take on SWAC champ Grambling State (11-1) in the third annual Air Force Reserve Celebration Bowl on Saturday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta (noon ET, ABC).
Yet, Broadway says the Aggies can only look forward. They have a shot at history - a perfect season that would be capped with winning the black college national championship.
The matchup so many wanted all season - N.C. A&T ended the regular season ranked seventh in the FCS and Grambling was 13th, losing only to Tulane - will bring the curtain down on the 125th year of football between the nation's historically black colleges and universities.
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Grambling's Broderick Fobbs in the mix at UL Lafayette
LAFAYETTE, Louisiana -- Grambling State head football coach Broderick Fobbs has been rumored as a candidate for the open head coaching position at UL Lafayette.
Footballscoop.com reported last week that Fobbs' name was on the initial list of potential successors of former Ragin' Cajuns coach Mark Hudspeth, who was fired on Dec. 3 after seven seasons, along with other FCS coaches Tim Rebowe at Nicholls State and Lance Guidry at McNeese State. Penn State defensive coordinator Brent Pry is on the list, too.
Sports Illustrated’s Bruce Feldman has reported that Pry looks to be at the top of UL Lafayette’s list and after 11 days into the school’s search, sources have told Footballscoop.com that Pry and Arizona State offensive coordinator Bill Napier had interviews, while Rebowe and Fobbs have both “had discussions and should not be ruled out of consideration” at this point.
Grambling State (11-1) faces off with North Carolina A&T (11-0) Saturday for an HBCU national championship at the Celebration Bowl in Atlanta at the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Fobbs guided the G-Men to a national title last year, defeating North Carolina Central, 10-9, and back-to-back SWAC championships in three straight conference title game appearances. Since the head coach took over his alma mater in 2014, Grambling has gone 38-9 and have won 25 straight regular season SWAC contests.
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Footballscoop.com reported last week that Fobbs' name was on the initial list of potential successors of former Ragin' Cajuns coach Mark Hudspeth, who was fired on Dec. 3 after seven seasons, along with other FCS coaches Tim Rebowe at Nicholls State and Lance Guidry at McNeese State. Penn State defensive coordinator Brent Pry is on the list, too.
Sports Illustrated’s Bruce Feldman has reported that Pry looks to be at the top of UL Lafayette’s list and after 11 days into the school’s search, sources have told Footballscoop.com that Pry and Arizona State offensive coordinator Bill Napier had interviews, while Rebowe and Fobbs have both “had discussions and should not be ruled out of consideration” at this point.
Grambling State (11-1) faces off with North Carolina A&T (11-0) Saturday for an HBCU national championship at the Celebration Bowl in Atlanta at the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Fobbs guided the G-Men to a national title last year, defeating North Carolina Central, 10-9, and back-to-back SWAC championships in three straight conference title game appearances. Since the head coach took over his alma mater in 2014, Grambling has gone 38-9 and have won 25 straight regular season SWAC contests.
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