Norfolk State quarterback Juwan Carter drops back to pass in the season opener against ODU.
NORFOLK, Va. – Norfolk State football came close to stealing a win from Old Dominion in last Saturday’s season opener, but fell in the final few minutes by a score of 24-21.
Now, the Spartans look to pick up their first win of the season in their home opener against Virginia State.
“We do have to make sure we don’t have an Old Dominion hangover versus Virginia State,” head coach Latrell Scott said. “We can’t be so worried about the fact that we didn’t win that it effects us this week. There are a lot of people walking around campus and a lot of people in the community that are gonna say, hey, they’re gonna blow Virginia State out, and that’s not our goal.
“Our goal is to win a football game, so we need to make sure that we’re even keeled and stay level-headed, and just do everything that we can possibly do to put forth the same effort that we did a week ago. We were physical and we got after people on both sides of the ball. I think if we can do that this week, it’ll give us a definite opportunity to win.”
This marks the 53rd all-time meeting between the two teams, and Virginia State holds a 27-21-1 series lead.
Norfolk State Spartans
Last year running back Aaron Savage had a career high 112 rushing yards and scored two touchdowns. The Spartans look to replicate the offensive success they had against the Trojans in 2018 by fixing the mistakes that were made last Saturday.
“Against ODU, from the receiver room, we just made little mistakes,” wide receiver Da’Kendall James said. “Little route running things we could have done differently to get open or just not executing the play how we ran it all week, little things we coulda just easily cleaned up, so we looking to be sharp this Saturday, be clean, just execute as much as possible.”
The Spartans and Trojans kick off their “Battle of the States” in William “Dick” Price Stadium at 6:00 p.m.
