It was a familiar foe at North Carolina A&T’s homecoming Saturday. 

A capacity crowd at Aggie Stadium during kickoff almost completely vanished in the remaining seconds of the game.

And while the festivities continued outside the stadium, the Aggies were stuck on the field in disbelief trying to force a pointless touchdown in their 31-13 loss to Bethune-Cookman.

It was their sixth consecutive homecoming they’ve let slip away since the 2003 season and sixth straight loss to the Wildcats.

“Offensively we just didn’t play very well,” Aggies head coach Alonzo Lee said.

“You’ve got to get points. We would like to say we’re going to shut everyone down and win championships on defense. But we’ve got to get to the point where if they score, then we have to back down field and answer their score with a score of our own.”

The Wildcats came into Aggie Stadium with an added incentive due to some of the Aggie players guaranteeing a victory.  Head coach Alvin Wyatt thought it gave his team more motivation.

“The victory here is so sweet,” Wyatt said. “We’ve been fighting and scratching all year to survive this season.”

The Wildcats rushed for 227 yards and held A&T rushing attack to a mere 34 yards on 19 attempts.

In fact, the only positive yards the Aggies gained with the game still in reach was on special teams.

Their punt return specialist, Quay Long, recorded the longest return for a touchdown in the school’s history with a 96-yard punt return for a touchdown tying the score just before intermission at 7-7.

Penalties and misreads would keep the Aggie offense off the field for the majority of the contest with Bethune-Cookman controlling the momentum maintaining possession for 37 minutes.

“We had a couple of really, really big penalties that hurt us,” Lee said. Against any team, when you have those kinds of blunders, it’s hard to come out with a victory.”

The Wildcats took a commanding 17-7 lead early in the fourth quarter after a 27-yard touchdown run by Fred McCaskill and never turned back.

They eventually scored on another 28-yard touchdown run by sophomore Quarterback Maurice Francois and the next possession returned a Carlton Fears pass for a touchdown increasing the margin to 31-7.

By this time the Aggies could only play for pride with little time and the game out of reach.

“We had more bad then good today,” said Lee. “Maybe we’re still growing. I don’t know if we were ready for a game of this magnitude.”

The Aggies will travel to Tallahassee Fl, to take on Florida A&M this Saturday at 3 p.m.

• Carlton Brown & Daniel Henderson