Forty years ago, Morgan State won eight of its nine football games. Fans were unimpressed. That defeat, by a single point, was Morgan's first after 25 straight victories.
Coach Donald Hill-Eley says it's time to rekindle the legacy of the 1960s.
"This is the year we'll be known as the Bears of old, when this team won championships and built men," he said. "There has got to be some of that rich tradition left. There's got to be."
But where? Morgan went 5-6 last season, the 26th time in 28 years that the Bears finished under .500.
The games were close. Two defeats came in overtime. No loss was by more than eight points. One game turned on an official's mistake when an apparent Morgan touchdown was ruled a fumble. Another time, a penalty on the school's marching band nearly cost the Bears the game.
At season's end players huddled, resolved to make amends. In June, for the first time, about 30 chose to stay on campus, taking classes, lifting weights, playing pickup games and honing their timing, determined to turn things around.
It was a different team that the coaches met when fall practice began.
In years past, Hill-Eley said, "we [coaches] were doing the yelling. Now it's the players saying, 'C'mon, c'mon, pick it up!'
"They are demanding effort from each other."
Friction? There's none.
"Now we're more brothers than teammates," guard Dwayne Delaney said. "There is no negativity. I guess we've grown."
No unit is closer than the offensive line, a group that dubs itself "the Trench Mob." Four of those five starters return from last season, including behemoths Delaney (320 pounds) and Robert Norris (315), the other guard.
Morgan's season might hinge on the hulks up front. Not to worry, teammates say.
"If the Trench Mob put their hands on you, it's over," said Jarrell Guyton, the Bears' star linebacker. "They are prototype offensive linemen. If I played running back, I'd be in love with all of them."
Delaney, a senior from rural Virginia, struck a chord with the coach when he arrived at camp with a gift from home.
"He's the only player ever to bring me deer meat," Hill-Eley said.
The coach had a cookout. The 30-pound bundle fed the team.
Norris, a junior, caused a stir of his own when he came to camp. Players guffawed when the big lineman wobbled out to practice on a bicycle he had bought to get around town.
Why the bike?
