Inside the CAA · preview

Hampton and Howard bring two wins between them to Audi Field

Hampton and Howard have been playing each other since 1908. On Saturday they meet at Audi Field in Washington with a combined record of 2-7.

Both of those things are true and only one of them will matter by kickoff.

What has happened to Hampton

The Pirates opened with a 45-0 win over Virginia-Lynchburg and have not won since. Maryland beat them 62-0. Bryant beat them 31-3. Norfolk State beat them 42-21 in the Battle of the Bay. Campbell beat them 44-20 last Saturday after scoring 31 points in the third quarter alone.

Add the Division I games up and Hampton has been outscored 179-44 since the opener. They are 1-4 and 0-2 in the CAA in Van Malone's first season.

The Campbell game is the one that should worry them most, because it was tied 13-13 at halftime and then stopped being a game inside about twelve minutes. Tre'Von Taylor threw for 259 with a touchdown and two interceptions and was also Hampton's leading rusher with 35 yards, which tells you what the ground game is producing.

What has happened to Howard

Howard won its opener too, 31-24 over Alabama A&M in Atlanta, with Ja'Shawn Scroggins throwing for 315 yards and three touchdowns.

He has not thrown for 110 in a game since. Richmond beat them 28-21. Then Indiana beat them 55-0 in a game where Howard finished with 57 total yards. Then Rutgers beat them 58-7 on September 25.

Scroggins has thrown one touchdown and four interceptions across the three losses, and his last two lines read 8-of-15 for 43 yards and 5-of-14 for 38. Two Big Ten teams will do that to an FCS roster, and Richmond is 4-1 and a genuinely good team, so the schedule deserves some of the blame. Not all of it.

The one thing that worked against Rutgers was Eden James, who ran for 116 yards. That is the most encouraging number Howard has produced in a month.

The game itself

Hampton leads the all-time series 58-44-1. Howard won the most recent meeting 34-7 on September 20 last year, also at Audi Field, in front of 18,672.

The game used to be called the Truth and Service Classic. This year it is the Battle of the Real HU, which is what everybody who went to either school has called the argument for a century anyway. Kickoff is 3pm on Saturday, streaming on HBCU GO with broadcast syndication into New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas and Atlanta.

That last detail matters more than the records do. Nothing else on Hampton's schedule comes with that kind of reach, and Howard's only other national window is a Thursday night against South Carolina State on November 5. Saturday is the one people outside the 757 and outside Washington will actually see.

What decides it

Whoever throws fewer interceptions. That sounds glib and it is the actual answer. Scroggins has four in three games. Taylor threw two against Campbell. Both offenses are struggling to sustain anything, so the short fields are going to come from giveaways rather than drives.

Watch the second half. Hampton was tied 13-13 with Campbell at the break and lost by 24. They led Norfolk State 14-13 in the second quarter and lost by 21. Whatever is happening to this team after halftime has decided most of their season.

And watch Eden James against a Hampton front that Campbell ran through for 197 yards. If Howard can hand it off and stay out of third and long, Scroggins does not have to be the quarterback he was in August.

Hampton has two home games left after this one, Monmouth on October 24 and North Carolina A&T on November 14. For a team that has not won since August, Saturday in Washington is the one that would actually mean something.