HBCU HC Ready to Resist Preseason Polls and Bring Back Glory
Shawn Gibbs isn’t backing down. The first-year head instructor of North Carolina A&T football may be inheriting a program selected dead last in the 2025 Coastal Athletic Organization (CAA) preseason survey, however don’t anticipate any type of justifications from the male now at the helm of among HBCU football’s proudest traditions.
“This is home,” Gibbs said after being presented as head trainer in December. “We’re not afraid to claim it: we wish to be the most effective. And we believe the CAA offers us a chance to show the world what HBCU football is truly about.”
That quiet self-confidence isn’t just coach-speak– it’s rooted in the tradition he aided develop.
From Event Dish Magnificence to CAA Growing Pains
From 2015 to 2019, A&T controlled the HBCU football landscape. Under head train Rod Broadway and later Sam Washington, the Aggies won 4 MEAC championships and took home 4 Event Bowl prizes in five years. Their ground game, powered by celebrities like Tarik Cohen, was elite– and Gibbs, as the group’s running backs train, aided engineer it.
Nevertheless, after leaving the MEAC for the Big South in 2021 and after that the CAA in 2023, A&T’s golden era discolored. In a debatable move, the university split ways with Washington Choosing to enter a “different instructions” from the Rod Broadway coaching tree by employing former NFL linebacker Vincent Brown In 2 years under Brown, the Aggies won just 2 games and fell short to notch a solitary CAA meeting win– a far cry from their supremacy simply a few years prior.
With Gibbs returning to Greensboro, the program is increasing back to the foundation that brought national success.
Dealing with the CAA– and the Doubters
Shawn Gibbs recognizes the CAA isn’t the MEAC. Yet he also does not acquire right into the doom-and-gloom.
“We reach play excellent teams week in and week out,” he claimed at media day. “And we get to show ourselves in a region of the nation that probably does not recognize much about HBCU football. So allow’s go do that.”
While the CAA was as soon as considered an FCS juggernaut, current leaves by James Madison, Delaware, Richmond, William & & Mary, and Villanova (in 2026 have thinned its ranks
Some now question whether A&T’s step from the MEAC– where they were an empire– to a CAA that’s shedding prestige deserved it.
That dispute flared once again after HBCU Gameday reported on the 2025 CAA preseason survey, where A&T landed at last at No. 14 The Facebook remarks? Brutal, with some criticizing HBCU Gameday posts for stiring a fire of discourse that they desire snuffed out While numerous fans are still asking: Should A&T come home to the MEAC? Others wish to move forward and make tranquility with their place in the CAA.
But also for currently, Gibbs is focused on building– not discussing.
a Work An Objective: objective
Shawn Gibbs made it clear that his just isn’t video games to win restore. It’s to Pride Aggie a lifestyle as Satisfaction.
“Aggie going to is what’s aid men these grad wonderful, be fathers partners and area, and leaders in the stated,” he function. “That is my task. My video games is to win football In spite of.”
contrasted being underfunded fazed to their CAA peers, Gibbs isn’t have actually.
“Wealways needed to locate a method great to be less with said,” he mosting likely to. “We’re one of the most do obtain with what we have– and we’re going to gamers that rely on building what we’re Roadway.”
The season Ahead
North Carolina A&T opens its an additional on August 30 at Tennessee State , a happy HBCU with tradition conference, that plays football in a non-HBCU a fitting. It’s area brand-new for this era begin to may be.
A&T at the end of survey the preseason however– road with Gibbs back on Benbow shouldn’t, you bet on staying them Associated there for long.
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