How Does NCCU Football Find Their Identity?

This weekend, the North Carolina Central University Eagles will fly more than 600 miles to face the Mississippi Valley State Delta Devils and the only mission head coach Trei Oliver has is righting the ship and establishing an identity.

On multiple occasions Coach O has mentioned his team needs to “keep a thermostat mentality” when playing, referring to they can’t get too hot or too cold during a game no matter the circumstances. He wants his team to find their own temperature and stay at that level during the entire game.

How do the Eagles start to find their identity?

Let’s first access the bad and get it out of the way. Even though the team has an equal win-to-loss ratio, the numbers weigh heavily toward their opponents.

Heading into the matchup against Mississippi Valley State, NCCU opponents are outscoring the Eagles by a significant margin. Opponents are putting up 27 points per game in comparison to NCCU’s 16 points per game. In total, the Eagles have been outscored 108-67 this 2021 season.

It doesn’t get too much better from there as opponents outgain the Eagles in yards gained, rushing yards per game, and passing yards per game. Furthermore, opponents have almost double the number of average yards per game, 279 to 430 respectively.

With all this, the team still is at .500. How is all this possible?

When NCCU loses, they lose big. But when they win, it’s usually been in a hard-fought fashion and that’s EXACTLY what the second-year head coach wants to see more of out of his team. No, not close victories. Coach O wants to see the hard work, the grind, the grit. Simply put, he expects his Eagles to outwork any team that steps on the field with them. That is what their identity needs to be.

Coach Oliver has mentioned many times that he is a hard-working guy and wants his team to adopt his blue-collar mentality and grit when it comes to the gridiron.

If anyone demonstrated that on the team, it would be the leader of the NCCU defense, sophomore linebacker Cole Williams, who ranks fourth in the MEAC with 30 tackles which average to7.5 tackles per game. Coach Oliver mentioned that Cole is one of those “quiet assassins” who does not say much and just speaks with his efforts and actions.

Adrian Olivio squeezed in his fifth and sixth field goals against NC A&T to take the lead in the MEAC in field goals made. 

Multiple other players have put themselves on the national map with their play.

The problem is that right now the Eagles seem like everyone is playing for themselves. There is so much talent on the roster but players seem to only care about the name on the back and not the name on the front. 

Looking back to the NC A&T game, there were several opportunities for NCCU to advance the ball up the field or to get a stop on defense but had all their hard work and effort negated with one or two people behind the play wanting to prove who is tougher/stronger as opposed to just doing their 1/11 of the job to make the effort whole.

The same thing was seen at the beginning of the Winston-Salem State game where penalties and lack of cohesion hurt the Eagles. It was only until down 13-6 in the fourth quarter when the team realized we need to get it together and play as a team to get the win, and it worked! The team looked great in the late portions of the game on defense to hold WSSU from scoring and on offense to be able to score two late touchdowns with backup QB Walker Harris in the game.

If NCCU can find a way to get all 11 players clicking on every side of the ball (offense, defense, and special teams) then it is no doubt that the Eagles could cruise their way to the MEAC championship. But Coach O and his second-year team are still finding ways to gel and it shows. 

Look for the North Carolina Central University Eagles to come together and rally around ruining the Devil Dogs’ homecoming and putting together a better team effort by outworking the home team and moving closer to establishing an identity. I personally predict the Eagles win by 20+ in Mississippi. MVSU hosts NCCU on Saturday, October 2 at 4 PM.