Damon Wilson has spent years talking about how Morgan State must respond when games get difficult. Against Towson, he finally saw the kind of “reference point” his HBCU program can use moving forward.
Morgan State has been close enough to Towson over the years to know the difference between competing and finishing. The Bears had not beaten their Baltimore rival since 2009, and last season provided another painful example when Morgan State held a late lead only to watch Towson score in the final seconds. At some point, being close stops feeling like progress. Saturday gave Damon Wilson something different to point toward.
Morgan State defeated Towson 41-26 to improve to 3-1, but Wilson’s postgame message was about more than ending a long drought. The victory came one day after Wilson lost his uncle, forcing him to miss Friday’s practice while his staff and players completed the final preparation without him. Wilson opened his press conference by thanking them, saying, “Those guys did everything that was needed to get the guys prepared to play today.” Then he began talking about the thing that seemed to matter most: Morgan State finally having a reference point.
Morgan State needed more than another close game
Wilson understood what the Towson matchup represented when he took the Morgan State job. A rivalry does not work particularly well when one side keeps doing most of the winning, and Towson had taken eight straight meetings entering Saturday. “The last 10, 15 years, we hadn’t done our part,” Wilson said. “You don’t win ball games till you deserve to win the ball games.”
That statement fits where Morgan State is as a program. The Bears entered 2026 with a schedule designed to provide answers, not simply collect comfortable afternoons. Morgan had already shown an ability to close a game in its season-opening HBCU matchup against North Carolina A&T, scoring 14 fourth-quarter points to turn a deficit into a 17-7 victory. Towson offered a different test because Morgan State had years of evidence showing how this particular matchup could go wrong.
“We had those guys last year down and we did not do what we need to do to finish the game,” Wilson said. This time, the Bears changed the ending. “We have a reference point,” Wilson added. “Anytime you encounter things, you don’t want to do the same thing twice.”
One mistake did not become three
Morgan State did not wait long to test that theory. The Bears opened with a penalty on the kickoff return, then turned the ball over on their first offensive possession, giving Towson possession at the Morgan State 7-yard line. It was exactly the type of sequence Wilson said had caused previous teams to spiral, where one bad play invited another and suddenly the scoreboard was explaining a problem that started several mistakes earlier.
Instead, Morgan State’s defense held Towson to a field goal. “Just because they’re inside the 20, that don’t mean they have to score,” Wilson said. The Bears later produced more red-zone resistance and blocked a field-goal attempt, part of a night when special teams and situational defense repeatedly mattered. The official Towson game recap shows a game in which the Tigers accumulated 426 yards, but Morgan State kept making the plays that prevented those yards from controlling the outcome.
That is where all the college football talk about culture becomes easier to measure. Coaches can discuss culture until the microphones run out of batteries, but there is nothing abstract about taking the field after your offense turns the ball over at the 7 and refusing to surrender a touchdown. Morgan State still made mistakes. The difference was those mistakes stopped introducing themselves to more mistakes.
Towson pushed, and Morgan State answered
Towson did not disappear after falling behind 24-6 at halftime. The Tigers scored in the third quarter and cut the margin to 24-13, creating exactly the kind of second-half tension Morgan State had failed to handle in previous meetings. For a program still learning how to finish, this was where the game became more important than simply protecting a lead.
Morgan responded aggressively. Early in the fourth quarter, Dante Archie connected with Justin Perry on a 37-yard trick-play touchdown that Wilson said had been set up throughout the game. Towson answered with another touchdown, only for Keith Jenkins Jr. to return the ensuing kickoff 95 yards for a score. Towson pushed, Morgan responded, and the Bears never allowed the Tigers’ momentum to become the dominant story.
That exchange may be the best example of what Wilson means by a reference point. Morgan State now has a game it can pull from when another opponent starts cutting into a lead, when a turnover puts the defense in a terrible position or when years of history begin creeping into everyone’s head. The Bears know what the wrong response looks like. They have lived through enough of those.
The win does not erase what needs fixing
Wilson did not leave Towson pretending Morgan State had solved everything. The Bears committed nine penalties for 105 yards and allowed 426 yards of offense, while Towson controlled the ball for nearly 37 minutes. When Wilson was asked what needed to improve, his answer arrived quickly: “Penalties.” Sometimes football analysis requires several hours of film; sometimes nine flags will save everybody some time.
Those problems matter because Morgan State’s schedule is not about to become forgiving. The Bears have a bye before traveling to Villanova on Oct. 3, another test in the challenging nonconference schedule Wilson built before MEAC play takes over later in October. One Saturday in September cannot determine where Morgan State’s season ends, but it can change what the Bears believe is possible when the next difficult Saturday arrives.
Wilson told his players to enjoy the night and report back Tuesday. When they return, there will be penalties to correct, film to study and another opponent waiting. But the next time a Morgan State game starts to wobble, Wilson will not have to explain what finishing is supposed to look like.
He can point to Towson.
Go Bears. My Uncle Sonny would be extremely proud. He loved Bears Football, where his MSC classmate and friend Roosevelt Brown, the First Black Player on the NY Giants, played collegiate ball.