Wildcats block Rattlers’ shot at MEAC title
The Florida Classic was destined to be a wild game.
Florida A&M came to Orlando hoping to reclaim the magic of yesteryear. BethuneCookman was looking to continue its recent run of dominance over its arch-rival.
Two of the most well-known Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the nation put on a show.
A back-and-fourth contest ended with Bethune-Cookman (7-5, 5-2 MEAC) reasserting its dominance over the Rattlers (6-5, 5-2 MEAC). FAMU’s season, which began with a so much promise and a five-game conference winning streak, ended with a 33-19 loss to the Wildcats in Camping World
Stadium.
Saturday's game was Bethune-Cookman's eighth consecutive Florida Classic win — a record in the series between the Wildcats and the Rattlers.
“They're all sweet,” said Bethune-Cookman coach Terry Sims. “Any time you can get a win, you've got a to take, regardless of what's at stake. I said that [Friday] at the luncheon. I'm not really getting in to taking the MEAC title from them and all that. It was a game. I was a game that we needed to win. It was a game that we wanted to win. We went out and took the football game in the end.”
B-CU's victory came in front of an announced crowd of 52,412. It was the largest announced crowd for a Florida Classic game since 2011, which was the last time both FAMU and Bethune-Cookman entered the Classic with winning records.
“This Classic should be like this every year,” Sims said. “This should be the standard. It was 52,000 here today. It should be like that every year, regardless of the team's record.”
The loss was FAMU's third consecutive this season. The Rattlers have fallen in conference games against B-CU and Howard; if FAMU had won either one of them, the Rattlers would be co-MEAC champions and bound for the Celebration Bowl in Atlanta.
“It's hard to pinpoint one thing,” FAMU coach Willie Simmons said. “I think going into the Howard game, we kind of overlooked them, thinking we'd just kind of walk in there and they'd lay down for us and we'd punch our ticket to the Celebration Bowl.
“I think one of the biggest things is we kind of got away from our one-gameat-a-time mentality. I think we kind started to look ahead, and people started talking about booking hotels in Atlanta and what it would look like to be in Atlanta for a whole week and those things and that's not who we were. That's not who we say we want to be.”
The Rattlers had a chance to at least tie the game with the clock winding down in the fourth quarter. Redshirt junior quarterback Ryan Stanley drove the Rattlers to Bethune-Cookman's 11-yard line but threw a backbreaking pick-six to B-CU safety Tydarius Peters. The score gave the Wildcats a 33-19 lead with 17 seconds left in the fourth.
The Rattlers finished the game with 465 yards of total offense, but Stanley (27-of-45 passing for 305 yards and two touchdowns) threw three interceptions, two of which came in the red zone in the fourth quarter. Bethune-Cookman ended the game with 417 yards of offense and committed 14 penalties for 131 yards but didn't turn the ball over.
Florida A&M struck first. Bethune-Cookman managed a goal-line stand and the Rattlers had to settle for a 20-yard field goal from Yahia Aly to open the scoring with 7:22 left in the first quarter.
Bethune-Cookman responded in the second. The Wildcats marched 80 yards in nine plays and scored the first touchdown of the game thanks to a quarterback sneak from point-blank range on fourth down from redshirt sophomore quarterback David Israel.
The score put B-CU ahead 7-3 with 8:40 left in the second quarter. The Rattlers added another field goal from Aly but FAMU's offense didn't really come alive again until the end of the first half.
Stanley threw a 19-yard touchdown pass to wideout Marcus Williams to give the Rattlers a 13-7 lead just before halftime.
Bethune-Cookman continued its trend of picking up yards in bunches in the second half. Running back Tupac Isme took the Wildcats' first play from scrimmage 99 yards for a touchdown to give B-CU a 14-13 lead in the third quarter.
Things got truly strange after it looked like Florida A&M was set to retake the lead in the third quarter.
Stanley threw a nineyard touchdown pass to true freshman wideout George Webb to put the Rattlers ahead 19-17, but Bethune-Cookman blocked the ensuing extra point. It was returned by B-CU safety Vernon Walker III for two points to tie the game at 19 with 37 seconds left in the third quarter.
“That play really gave us a lot of momentum because it was actually … the guy that converted the twopoint play, he was the guy that got beat on the touchdown,” Sims said.
The Wildcats regained the lead on the next drive. B-CU went 75 yards in five plays — Israel threw a 44-yard pass to receiver Malique Jackson — and scored a touchdown on a four-yard run by redshirt senior quarterback Jabari Dunham.
Since North Carolina A&T crushed North Carolina Central 45-0 on Saturday, the Aggies are the MEAC champions and will go to the Celebration Bowl for the second year in a row. The Aggies' victory dashed any hopes FAMU had of sharing the conference title.