Box Score
Ragsdale wins in his debut    

GREENSBORO, October 25, 2008 – Apparently, Saturday was just a formality.

Newly installed interim head football coach George Ragsdale said his team had already won Saturday’s game against Howard on the Tuesday and Wednesday leading up to the game. Whether that is true or not, it’s pretty hard to disprove after the Aggies 21-20 win over the Bison at Aggie Stadium.

Freshman cornerback Quay Long led the Aggies defensively with eight tackles, a forced fumble and three pass breakups. Senior running back Michael Ferguson scored two touchdowns and sophomore running back Nigel Tomlin had 69 yards on 14 carries.

The win snapped the Aggies 25-game losing streak against MEAC competition. The Aggies last win against a conference foe came on Oct. 8, 2005 against Morgan State. Their last home conference win came against Norfolk State on Sept. 10, 2005.

“We worked harder in practice on Tuesay and Wednesday, so I told them the game was already won,’’ said Ragsdale. “We picked up the pace and made it game speed. It’s kind of hard if you don’t practice game speed except for Saturday to Saturday. Our biggest thing this season has been starting out slow. If you’re not going to practice game speed, you can’t help but to wait until the second quarter to pick up the pace of the game.”

The Bison refused to make Ragsdale’s first career win an easy one, however. The Bison took advantage of an Aggies turnover that gave it the ball on the Aggies 7. One play later, Haigler ran in from seven yards out as the Bison went into the locker rook down 14-6 thanks to a missed extra point.

The Bison would go on to score 20 unanswered points to open the fourth quarter with a 20-14 lead. “We rolled on a lot of emotion early,’’ said Ragsdale. “They really wanted to see coach Ragsdale succeed. But emotion wears off. This game is not easy. It’s like construction work. Those boys had to put in work to get this done.”

The Aggies started building their way back into lead thanks to a 13-yard punt return in the fourth quarter by Quintin Cosby that gave the Aggies the ball on their own 47 with 12:42 remaining. A 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty inched the Aggies even closer as the penalty gave the Aggies a 1^st-and-10 on the Bison 27. First-and-10 quickly turned into a 4^th-and-6, giving Ragsdale his first pressure decision as the Aggies head man.

“We called timeout and those looked at me and said, ‘What do you want to do coach?’”, Ragsdale explained. “I said, ‘We’re going to go for it. It’s in your lap.’

“We came off that thing and went and got it,’’ Ragsdale concluded. “That’s the one thing we pounded into them this week. You start a lot of things, but it means nothing if you don’t finish.”

Miller completed a 10-yard pass to freshman Derek Gould on a curl pattern that gave the Aggies a 1^st-and-10 on the Bison 13. Two plays later Ferguson scored on a 4-yard touchdown to give the Aggies a one-point lead. The Aggies did have trouble putting the finally touches on their construction work. A Ferguson fumble gave the Bison the ball at the Aggies 42 with 4:10 to play. It was the Aggies fifth turnover of the game.

But on a 4^th-and-2 from the Aggies 34, senior linebacker Brandon Long broke through the Bison protection and stopped Karlos Whittaker for a 2-yard loss. Three minutes later as the Bison attempted to make one last effort to score, Quay Long stripped the ball away from wide receiver Brandon Sherman and Jarrell Herring recovered the ball near the Aggies sideline to seal the game.

“Everybody is going to say we won because of coach Rags,’’ said Ragsdale. “But coach Rags didn’t play a down. All I did was motivate and encourage them to play every down to their fullest. We picked up the pace in practice and they came out and did a good job today.”

The Aggies not only avoided a slow start on Saturday, they took an early lead. Five minutes into the game, Aggies senior cornerback Ihsan Shaheed stepped in front of a Floyd Haigler pass for a 29-yard interception return for a touchdown to give the Aggies a 7-0 lead.

N.C. A&T kept the Bison scoreless thanks to two botched Howard field goals in the first quarter. The Aggies took advantage of the Bison’s second miscue on a field goal by going on a 8-play, 70-yard drive that was aided by a 42-yard completion from junior quarterback Herbert Miller to redshirt freshman Wallace Miles that was a result of a nicely executed flea-flicker.

Ferguson capped off the drive with a 3-yard touchdown, his first score in five weeks as the Aggies took a 14-0 lead to open the second quarter. The Aggies are back in action next Saturday when they travel to Daytona Beach, Fla., to face Bethune-Cookman at 4 p.m.