For the Howard University football team, it’s always a matter of which of their talented running backs, receivers, and athletes will be the ones to guide their offense to the critical score.
Saturday afternoon at Delaware State, it was senior Jarett Hunter accounting for 47 yards of a backbreaking 15-play, 92-yard drive that ended with a rushing touchdown from a yard out to give the Bison a 17-10 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference win over the Hornets.
The win pulls Howard even at 4-4 overall this season and 2-0 in conference games. The loss is Delaware State’s third straight, dropping them to 1-7 overall and 0-2 in MEAC play.
“Everybody did their job today,” said Hunter, who carried the ball 20 times for 82 yards. “The line got a good push and made great blocks. It was just up to me to hit the holes and make big plays.”
After a scoreless first quarter, Howard struck first when senior quarterback Quinton Williams pulled a smooth play-action and found Kasey Hawthorne open for a 44-yard touchdown, a 7-0 Bison lead just three minutes into the second quarter.
A botched squib kick attempt gave DelState the ball at midfield, and the Hornets capitalized, scoring six plays later on an 11-yard run by redshirt sophomore running back Marquis Gillis to even the score at 7.
Howard ate up much of the second quarter clock but could only get a 39-yard field goal from Aaron Bickerton to take a 10-7 lead into halftime.
Hornets placekicker Nate Wilson evened matters at 10 with a 36-yard field goal of his own, but Howard began the game-winning drive from their eight-yard line in the final 1:35 of the third quarter and took nearly 6 minutes of the fourth quarter as well to wear down the Delaware State defense.
Hunter had two critical runs of seven and 10 yards to gain first downs before his one-yard shove into the end zone for the go-ahead touchdown.
Delaware State drove to the Bison 24, but a reverse-turned-wide receiver option pass by Rahkeem Smith was picked off by graduate defensive back Ray William, and Howard ran out the clock.
“Pre-snap communication with Kenny [Gallop] and Clayton [Perrin] was how we figured it out,” Williams said. “I saw the running back coming back to me,e and I just happened to be the one to make the play.”
Bison head coach Larry Scott was happy to escape Dover with the win, but he wants his team to clean some things up, especially with always dangerous South Carolina State looming next weekend.
“We tried to make it as hard on ourselves to win as we could,d and yet, these last two weeks, we’ve been able to overcome that,” he said. “There will come a time where we won’t be able to do that. We need to clean up miscues, pay more attention to detail,l and do the little things better. But I’m proud of how these guys did what we needed to do to win this game.”
