FCS

Kashon Baker: "It took me longer than expected, but I'm appreciative."

North Carolina A&T head coach Sam Washington opening statement… "It's much easier being here after a win. First, let me tip my hat to coach Oliver and his staff. I thought he brought in a worthy opponent. The growth that they have made from last year to this year is quite remarkable. As far as we go, I thought we were able to go back and play our brand of football which is making chicken. We were able to stop the run, we held them to, I think, 52 yards rushing. On the flip side of that coin, we rushed for 250-plus yards. Another thing – protect the football. I thought Jalen did a wonderful job managing the game. He controlled the football and we had zero turnovers. Winning the kicking game – I thought we did well with that. The coverage was good, we made a couple plays. Jacob (Roberts) blocked a punt and scored a touchdown for us. Along with that, the onside kick. He was able to recover that so we made some plays on special teams as well. That was the highlight of it, per se, but another thing I was very pleased with the offensive line play. I thought we knocked them off the ball. We got creases and running lanes and that was very good. Defensively, it was good to have those guys back up front. It was a noticeable difference in everything because of their vertical play and attacking the quarterback during the pass. I thought we did a very good job chasing him. We didn't do a very good job of corralling him, but we knocked him off his spot many times and that makes it a lot easier to defend when the quarterback is running for his life. So those things stood out for me. Another one was penalties, we're still not doing well there. I think we had nine – five offense and four defense. We have to do a better job there. We cannot beat ourselves and right now we're not doing a very good job of it."