Before facing Virginia Union again, Maurice Flowers showed his team footage from last year’s title game. Brick x Brick takes you inside the locker room to see what he wanted them to notice.
Johnson C. Smith (JCSU) football led Virginia Union 21–14 at halftime of the 2025 CIAA championship game. Inside the Golden Bulls’ locker room, the lead sounded a lot like a missed opportunity.
“Two quarters of Golden Bull football,” Coach Flowers reminded them. “And we know we should have more points on that damn thing.”
Then came the count: “Not done yet on three.”
A year later, with the same two DII HBCU football juggernauts set to meet for the CIAA title, JCSU head coach Maurice Flowers revisited footage from that game. He ended Monday’s team meeting with clips from the 2025 championship episode of Brick x Brick with JCSU football and asked his players to pay attention to the energy on the sideline.
“The thing that was evident that we spent time on was the energy on the sideline,” Flowers said at Tuesday’s press conference. “And it wasn’t always after good plays.”
HBCU Gameday was there last year. Our cameras followed the Golden Bulls from the sideline into the locker room for Not Done Yet, the two-part championship event from Brick x Brick with JCSU Football. They were rolling again on Tuesday afternoon for Season 5, when Flowers returned to the subject of energy in a team meeting.
Saturday’s rematch gives this year’s Golden Bulls a chance to show what they took from it.
What the halftime score couldn’t tell you
Near the end of “Chasing History,” the first part of Not Done Yet, you can hear the crowd roar as JCSU makes a stop. Then the episode takes you inside the locker room. The Golden Bulls are ahead by a touchdown, but the talk is about the points they left on the field and the mistakes they still had to clean up.
One voice in the background tells the wide receivers to stay aggressive despite the drops. A player calls out, “Zero-zero, man!”
Then defensive coordinator Barry Tripp gets the defense going with a one-of-a-kind call and response: “We gotta kick their… from sideline to sideline, from goalpost to goalpost for four… quarters .” The response is so dense, the players insist that he runs it back for the whole team.
By the end, you can hear the players yelling and pounding on the metal lockers of Durham County Memorial Stadium.
Twp Part Championship Event
“Making History,” the second part, picks up as the Golden Bulls take the field again. “It’s time to bring it home and head back to the Ford,” comes the call from Coach Fly. “Hypeback” Zach Thomas takes over the huddle and tells his teammates to make the next quarter better.
Those scenes show the kind of energy Flowers was getting at in the presser. You can hear the coaches set the tone in the locker room, then hear the players carry it onto the field. JCSU went on to win 45–21, ending a title drought that stretched back to 1969 and denying Virginia Union a third straight CIAA championship.
Flowers traced the matchup back to 2024, when JCSU beat the reigning CIAA champions in Charlotte as the Golden Bulls learned how to beat championship programs.
Virginia Union won the next meeting in Richmond, and Flowers took responsibility for how his team came out of the weather delay. “My team was flat when we came out from the weather delay,” he said. Brick x Brick covered that loss in Season 3’s “Weather the Storm,” then followed JCSU into the title-game rematch in Not Done Yet.
Watch those chapters back to back and the sideline energy Flowers keeps bringing up this week takes on more meaning.
What’s different about the rematch
“They want what we took from them,” Flowers said of Virginia Union.
The Panthers enter Saturday as the No. 1 seed after going unbeaten in CIAA play. Flowers described their defense as more aggressive than it was a year ago. The defensive line still stands out to him, but he sees the linebackers bringing more pressure and a revamped secondary behind them. On offense, he pointed to a new group of receivers with more length and speed.
JCSU is the No. 2 seed after beating Livingstone 27–14 in Salisbury to clinch its return. Flowers said the Golden Bulls brought in 60 new players after losing more than 35 seniors.
Many of the players in the room this week never stood on that championship sideline. They still had to earn their way back, responding to the loss at Bowie State with an overtime win over Virginia State and then winning a rivalry game in a place where Flowers’ teams had fallen short twice before.
Flowers also remembered looking up from the trophy last year and seeing the stands full from side to side, top to bottom. He wants Charlotte to bring that crowd back to Durham County Memorial Stadium on Saturday, Nov. 14, for the 3 p.m. ET title game.
Watch what Flowers wants his team to carry into Saturday
“We have to go make our own memories for ’26,” Flowers said, recalling how he closed Monday’s meeting.
Last year, the huddle broke on “Not Done Yet.” This year, the motto has one more word: “Still Not Done Yet.” Before Saturday, go back to the moment that gave the original words their weight. Start near 39:23 in “Chasing History” for the halftime locker room, then roll straight into the opening of “Making History” to hear what the players took back onto the field.
Watch both parts of Not Done Yet free on Tubi. Stream Brick x Brick with JCSU Football, Season 4.