Days after suffering a crushing 42-point loss on its homecoming, North Carolina A&T football will likely lose its best pass rusher.
Joshua Hardy announced via Twitter/X on Tuesday that he will enter the transfer portal. Hardy, a redshirt sophomore defensive end at North Carolina A&T, stands at 6’4″ and weighs 243 pounds. He said he will not play in any more games for NC A&T.
Hardy currently leads NC A&T in sacks with three in seven games. He has a total of five tackles — three of them for loss. He’s also forced a fumble.
He hails from Bowie, Maryland, where he starred at Annapolis Area Christian School. Rated as a three-star recruit by major scouting platforms, Hardy earned recognition as one of the top edge defensive ends in Maryland. During his senior year, he started all eight games and earned all-conference honors. Hardy’s father, the late Corries Hardy, played football at the University of Miami.
North Carolina A&T is currently 1-6 following Saturday’s 59-17 homecoming loss to Hampton University.
NC A&T head coach Vincent Brown said on Monday he believes his team is still with him, despite its struggles.
“I think our kids stayed engaged. There’s a lot of emotions throughout the course of the game. A guy makes a mistake, and then one player jumps in and claps back at him. So there’s a lot of emotion. I felt like our guys stayed engaged throughout the course of the game. If you look at the score at the beginning of the fourth quarter, we were down two scores, and I didn’t think the game would go the way it did. Our guys stayed engaged, and I felt like we had a chance early on in the game.”