The Aggies are headed into their first week of their football season, and they are ready for Jacksonville State.

ESPN invited the N.C. A&T football team to play against JSU on Saturday, August 25th, for the first game of the season. JSU is, currently, ranked 6th in the nation, while N.C. A&T is ranked 16th.

This past Monday, August 20th, the first press conference of the 2018 football season was held. The key individuals in attendance were, first time, head coach Sam Washington, Marquell Cartwright (RB), and Jamaal Darden (Rover).

Coach Washington touched on some key points about this year’s roster, and leading into this week’s game against Jacksonville State University.

He went into detail about key players returning on, both, offense and defense.

“We have our quarterback, running back, and wide receiver returning. We also have 8 defensive starters returning”, said Washington.

When he spoke about JSU the key thing that stuck out the most was the fact that they haven’t lost a conference game in 4 years.

Coming off of the best season, a year ago, in the program’s history, Coach Washington has that behind him and, only, focused on each opponent as the season progresses.

“We will find out, we will do what we know”, said Washington when asked about maintaining its championship stature.

Marquell Cartwright, starting running back, who is a key factor on offense, rushing for nearly 1200 yards last season, is very positive on the offense as a whole heading into week 1.

“I can grade the offense at a 90, we have some great players, and as long as we execute we will be all right”, said Cartwright.

James Darden, Rover, coming off of his best season at N.C. A&T had two interceptions and 25 tackles. He is, also, one of the most athletic players on the team.

Darden is not worried about JSU being, more, run dominate and is confident that the defense will stop the run.

“We’re going to stop the run, that’s what we do”’ said Darden.