CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Fabian Duncan had already spent Saturday carrying the football. With JCSU football’s championship hopes hanging in the balance, he wanted to carry the responsibility, too.
Late in regulation against Virginia State, the running back approached head coach Maurice Flowers with a request.
“Coach, give it to me. I got you,” Flowers recalled Duncan telling him. “Let me lean on them.”
Flowers listened.
Duncan delivered.
His 19-yard touchdown run in overtime finished a 203-yard rushing performance and gave Johnson C. Smith a 39-33 victory over Virginia State at the Irwin Belk Complex. The Halloween thriller handed the Trojans their first CIAA loss and kept the Golden Bulls in control of their path back to the conference championship game.
But the deeper story behind this HBCU football showdown was the trust that made its ending possible.
A week after an unexpected loss at Bowie State, JCSU faced another moment that could have unraveled its season. Instead, the Golden Bulls leaned on the people and preparation Flowers has built his program around.
The decision behind the finish
As regulation wound down, Flowers heard something different from what some spectators wanted.
Some questioned JCSU running the ball and letting the game reach overtime. From the outside, that approach could look cautious.
Inside the program, it came from a running back asking his coach to trust him.
Flowers said Duncan’s request helped shape the decision. JCSU ran twice at the end of regulation, then won the overtime coin toss and chose to defend first.
Once Virginia State’s possession ended without points, the assignment was simple.
“We called the offense together,” Flowers said. “And what we told the offense is we’re going to run the ball in for a touchdown. Game over.”
Three plays and 25 yards later, Duncan made that declaration hold up.
He finished with 39 carries, 203 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns. He also caught three passes for 19 yards and another score.
Duncan acknowledged that the workload took on greater significance when fellow running back Kamarro Edmonds went down with an injury. He understood what his team and position group needed from him.
And when the deciding moment arrived, he wanted the ball.
“With all due respect,” Duncan said, “coach, give me the rock.”
JCSU needed more than one answer
The Golden Bulls spent much of the afternoon building advantages that Virginia State refused to let stand.
JCSU opened a 10-0 lead behind an Alexis Rosario-Beltran field goal and Duncan’s first rushing touchdown. Later, Damien Mazil connected with Brian Lane for a 36-yard score.
Special teams added another swing when Divine Ohiaeri returned a blocked extra point for two points. Duncan’s 11-yard touchdown reception then helped send JCSU into halftime with a 26-13 lead.
Yet Virginia State quarterback Rahsaan Matthews Jr. kept making magic.
He threw for 476 yards and three touchdowns while rushing for 65 yards and two more scores. The Trojans piled up 614 yards of offense, repeatedly testing a JCSU defense that could never afford to relax.
Virginia State erased the halftime deficit to tie the game at 26 in the third quarter. Mazil answered with a 64-yard touchdown pass to Reggie Brigman, but the Trojans pulled even again with 4:46 remaining.
Mazil finished with 256 passing yards and three touchdowns. Brigman caught 2 passes for 98 yards.
Those explosive plays mattered. So did the Golden Bulls’ ability to survive when the afternoon stopped going their way.
JCSU blocked a potential go-ahead 23-yard field goal with 1:17 left in regulation, preserving the 33-33 tie.
The defense had surrendered plenty of yards. But they still gave the offense a chance to finish.
Vincent Hill kept the belief moving
For Flowers, the defensive response started with Vincent Hill.
The Senior linebacker finished with 11 tackles, two tackles for loss, a sack and a forced fumble. His influence also reached the moments between plays, when another Virginia State gain could have turned frustration into panic.
Hill understood that his own focus would mean little if it did not reach the players beside him.
“It doesn’t matter if I’m locked in if the man next to me … is not locked in,” Hill said in the post-game presser.
He described his responsibility as being “that pillar of energy and that pillar of focus.”
That leadership gave JCSU something the yardage totals could not measure.
Flowers credited defensive coordinator Barry Tripp and his staff while acknowledging that Virginia State’s offense would make plays. The goal was to keep responding until JCSU made enough of its own.
“There was never any panic on our sideline about anything,” Flowers said.
Overtime brought a shorter field and another opportunity to respond. This time, Virginia State did not score.
Then Duncan ended it.
A Brick x Brick response to adversity
Throughout the HBCU Gameday docuseries Brick x Brick with JCSU football, the work behind JCSU’s rise has provided the story beneath the scoreboard: establishing expectations, developing leaders and learning whether those habits hold up under pressure.
Saturday gave that process another test.
The loss at Bowie State had narrowed JCSU’s margin for error. It had not erased the Golden Bulls’ goals.
Flowers said the staff resisted the temptation to overhaul its routine simply because an unbeaten CIAA opponent was coming to Charlotte. No one held dramatically extended meetings or emergency reinvention.
The coaches trusted their preparation. The players answered with a performance that demanded composure through repeated setbacks.
By the end, that trust flowed in both directions.
Duncan trusted the work enough to ask for the deciding carries. Flowers trusted Duncan enough to give them to him.
“It’s really like a surreal feeling,” Duncan said of the finish. “Sometimes it feels like I’m dreaming a little bit.”
Livingstone is still waiting
The celebration came with a clear boundary.
JCSU still must beat Livingstone in the Commemorative Classic to complete the win-out path to the CIAA championship game.
Flowers made sure that distinction survived the excitement.
“Our work is not done,” he said. “We have not secured anything to go to the championship game.”
For Hill, November requires consistency paired with urgency. For Duncan, the approach remains steady: avoid getting too high or too low, and keep attending to the details.
Saturday showed why both ideas matter.
The Golden Bulls lost leads. Their defense absorbed explosive plays. Their season reached another moment when the next response mattered more than the previous mistake.
Then Duncan asked them to lean on him.
And JCSU football kept its championship pursuit moving, one more brick at a time.
Season 5 of Brick x Brick with JCSU Football is currently in production, with HBCU Gameday documenting the Golden Bulls’ pursuit of another CIAA championship. While this season’s story unfolds, follow the journey that built the program—from establishing a culture to winning a championship—in Seasons 1–4, now streaming on Tubi and Prime Video.