Forgive Shaw University football fans if they’re puffing out their chests a little more than usual this week.
The Bears broke 11-year drought over the weekend, winning their season opener 17-13 against visiting Elizabeth City State. It’s the first time Shaw has started a season 1-0 since the 2013 campaign. So yeah, the Bears are going to celebrate that feat as they should.
Elizabeth City State made a strong push late after falling behind 17-0, but Shaw held on. The Bears forced two turnovers in the game and earned eight tackles-for-loss.
Christian Peters threw a TD pass to Jon Barnes for the Bears. Jerry Eaton rushed for a score, and Benjamin Turner hit a 25-yard field goal.
Welcome back to 1-0, Shaw!
Looking at the bigger landscape of college football across North Carolina, 24 of our 34 teams played games. It was even split, with 12 earning wins — including the Shaw Bears! — and 12 suffering losses.
Each week during the season, North Carolina Football News puts the win-loss records of each of our state’s college football teams into a spreadsheet to compile Statewide Standings. Here is the first edition of the new season:
Here are a few more breakdowns:
* Our FBS contingent went 6-1. Kudos to NC State, North Carolina, Duke, Wake Forest, East Carolina and Appalachian State for winning their openers. Charlotte, the final FBS team to play Saturday night, lost to James Madison. Still, an overall solid start for our state’s largest football programs.
* Our FCS contingent only went 1-6. Kudos to North Carolina Central, the final FCS team to play, for saving the weekend from being a total washout. To be fair, Elon, North Carolina A&T, Campbell and Western Carolina faced FBS competition.
* The Division III season does not start until this Saturday so none of our D3 teams saw the field. Brevard will have to wait an extra week to kick things off, not starting until Sept. 14.
* Division II teams were permitted to schedule games this past weekend if they chose. Eight of our state’s 13 D2 teams played, with Wingate, Winston-Salem State, Johnson C. Smith and the aforementioned Shaw Bears collecting a “W”.
Check out the NC Football News MASTER SCHEDULE to see all of the games involving North Carolina college teams on tap this week and for the rest of the season.
