NORFOLK, VA – Last year’s (2023) champion Howard swept the preseason player of the year awards but 2022 champion North Carolina Central narrowly edged out the Bison as the Mid Eastern Athletic Conference’s choice to win the league’s football title in 2024.
Those were some of the picks unveiled last week as the league held its annual preseason media confab here Tuesday.
Head coach Trei Oliver’s NCCU Eagles racked up 110 points with four first place votes to lead the poll conducted by the league’s head coaches and sports information directors. Head coach Larry Scott’s Howard Bison were a close second with four first-place votes and 92 total points.
Damon Wilson’s Morgan State Bears garnered one first-place vote and 80 total points to finish just behind Howard in third. New South Carolina State head coach Chennis Berry’s Bulldogs were a close fourth with two first-place votes and 78 total points.
Dawson Odums’ Spartans of Norfolk State came in fifth with one first-place vote and 50 points. Lee Hull’s Hornets of Delaware State was the only program not to receive a
first-place vote and finished sixth with just 22 total points.
Howard defeated NC Central 50-20 on the next-to-last week of the regular season in 2023 and won the MEAC title with a 4-1 record that earned it the league’s berth in the Celebration Bowl. The Bison’s only conference loss was 27- 23 on the road at South Carolina State. Howard lost in the Celebration Bowl to SWAC champion Florida A&M, 30-26 to finish 6-6.
NCCU also was 4-1 in the MEAC, 9-2 overall that earned it a trip to the FCS playoffs. The Eagles lost in the first round at Richmond, 49-27 to finish 9-3.
Howard graduate running back Jarett Hunter and graduate defensive back Kenny Gallop Jr. were voted the preseason offensive and defensive players of the year respectively.
Hunter rushed for 626 yards and nine touchdowns and caught 26 passes for 257 yards and another two scores in 2023.
Gallop, the 2023 MEAC Defensive Player of the Year and Buck Buchanan Award finalist garnered several all-American honors last year. He had two interceptions, two quarterback hurries, three pass breakups and was one tackle
shy of tying for the team lead with sixty-five (65) total tackles, including four for a loss, one fumble recovery and one forced fumble. Gallop was named the 2023 Aeneas Williams Awardee, given to the top defensive back in HBCU Division I college football.
Howard placed 11 players on the preseason all-MEAC first and second teams including first team junior running back Eden James (627 yds., 5.6 ypc.) who joins Hunter in the backfield and first team wideout Kasey Hawthorne, the league’s leading returning receiver (38 rec., 535 yds., 2 TDs). NCCU, SC State and Morgan State had eight players named to the preseason teams.
