CHARLOTTE, N.C. — By the time Johnson C. Smith (JCSU) football took the field Friday night, we had heard Maurice Flowers deliver the same message three times.
Tuesday’s team meeting. Thursday after practice. Then again in the locker room before kickoff.
There are levels to it.
Filming this week for Brick x Brick, we watched Flowers use Meek Mill’s “Levels” as the framework for a challenge. Shaw was a good young football team, a program whose climb reminded him of where JCSU stood a few years ago.
But the Golden Bulls had already reached the CIAA championship and Division II playoffs. They needed to show what separates a team building toward that standard from one expected to uphold it.
A 49–6 victory offered a convincing answer.
One week after beating Bluefield State 51–0, JCSU delivered another complete performance at the Irwin Belk Complex, improving to 5–1. Across two games, the Golden Bulls have outscored their opponents 100–6. Against Shaw, they produced 518 yards, averaged 9.1 yards per play, and never punted.
The championship standard Flowers kept describing throughout the week was becoming visible again.
A championship standard taking shape
For Flowers, the challenge involves getting a substantially rebuilt roster to understand what the program has become.
“When you bring in 60 new guys, they’ve got to earn their stripes,” he said afterward. “You bring in 60 new guys to a program that’s won a CIAA championship and went to the playoffs, they’re new and they’ve got to learn the program.”
That means learning the systems, but also the core values, expectations, and habits behind the results.
“We’re very talented, but talent does not guarantee wins,” Flowers said. “And so what you’re seeing is you’re starting to see chemistry now with some talented guys.”
Shaw represented a useful measuring stick. Flowers spoke warmly about the Bears’ growth and how it mirrored JCSU’s own climb. His message to the Golden Bulls carried an accompanying expectation: recognize that progress, then demonstrate the level your own program has reached.
“We brought a level of physicality today,” Flowers said. “That’s really been an emphasis for us. Teams that are championship-level teams, they’re physical for a long period of time.”
This could have been a competitive conference game that left JCSU still searching for consistency. Instead, the Golden Bulls controlled it early and sustained that control through four quarters.
Coming immediately after the Bluefield State shutout, it was another strong sign that this group is finding its championship form—and giving itself reason to believe it belongs there.
Damien Mazil opens up the offense
Quarterback Damien Mazil supplied much of that evidence.
Mazil completed 12 of 18 passes for 301 yards and four touchdowns without an interception. He also rushed for 29 yards and an eight-yard touchdown, accounting for five scores.
His four touchdown passes went to four different players, showing what happens when defenses commit resources to slowing JCSU’s running game.
Fabian Duncan opened the scoring with a 45-yard touchdown reception, then added a two-yard rushing touchdown to put the Golden Bulls ahead 14–0. Mazil found Kamarro Edmonds for a 24-yard score in the second quarter before running for another touchdown with 19 seconds remaining in the half.
JCSU led 28–0 at the break.
A 57-yard touchdown connection with Reginald Daniel extended that advantage early in the third quarter. After Shaw scored on Fabian Diggs’ 23-yard run, Mazil answered with a 13-yard touchdown pass to Brian Lane.
Parker McQuarrie finished the scoring with a 15-yard touchdown pass to Christian Rutledge. McQuarrie completed all three of his attempts for 31 yards, giving JCSU five touchdown passes from two quarterbacks.
Duncan finished with 95 rushing yards and 57 receiving yards. Daniel led the receivers with 76 yards, while Lane added 68.
The production reflected an offense becoming more comfortable together.
“We’re not doing anything different. We’re just getting better,” Flowers said.
Mazil described the same progression from inside the quarterback position.
“As time goes and more reps happen in practice, I get more comfortable,” he said. “And again, these receivers, they make my job really easy.”
That comfort extends beyond the practice schedule. Mazil credited extra work during the offseason and relationships built away from football.
“Those guys trust me,” he said. “We hang out off the field almost every single day, and it definitely showed today.”
For a team integrating so many new players, those connections are beginning to show up in the decisions, timing, and confidence that make an offense dangerous.
The defense keeps the standard intact
JCSU’s defense made sure Shaw had little opportunity to change the direction of the game.
The Golden Bulls held the Bears to 212 total yards and 81 passing yards, recording three sacks and recovering a fumble. Vincent Hill led the defense with 11 tackles. Jalen Gaskins contributed an 18-yard sack and a forced fumble.
Shaw reached the red zone twice but left without points on either trip. Its only touchdown came on Diggs’ third-quarter run.
Combined with the previous week’s shutout, the performance gave Flowers the kind of sustained physical football he had been asking to see.
The game had been moved to Friday to accommodate the weather, shortening the usual preparation timeline. Mazil said the adjustment did little to disturb the team’s readiness.
“If honestly they told us we had to play on Thursday, I think we would have been ready,” he said.
Why the pink mattered
Friday’s breast cancer awareness game also carried personal meaning for Flowers.
He lost his mother to breast cancer when he was 25. When his players wear pink, he asks them to understand the purpose behind it.
“If you’re going to wear it, you know, wear it for a reason,” Flowers said.
He spoke about his mother coming to watch him play and the opportunity October provides to honor her. He also connected that openness to the closeness of his team.
It was a reminder of how much a football program carries into a game beyond its scouting report. Flowers had spent the week challenging his players to show toughness and uphold a championship standard. Afterward, he spoke about loss, gratitude and the thoughtfulness of the young men around him.
Both belong in the story of this team.
Homecoming brings the next test
JCSU now turns toward its October 17 homecoming matchup with Lincoln University (Pa.), carrying the momentum of consecutive dominant victories.
Homecoming will bring its own energy and distractions. Flowers’ message after Shaw was grounded in the focus that produced Friday’s result: prepare each day, concentrate on the opponent, and play to the program’s standard.
The Golden Bulls have spent two weeks showing what that standard can look like. The next task is to keep meeting it.
That is also the journey we continue to document through Brick x Brick: how a message travels from a Tuesday meeting to a Thursday practice to a Friday night performance, and how the people inside the program learn to carry its expectations.
Earlier chapters of JCSU’s rise are available on Tubi and Prime Video, offering the context behind a team now working to sustain what it once fought to build.