RICHMOND, Va. - The No. 16 Eagles of North Carolina Central University ended their season on a sour note with a 49-27 loss to the No. 22/25 Spiders from the University of Richmond in the opening round of the FCS College Football Playoffs. 

NCCU’s quarterback Davius Richard ran in three touchdowns with one passing touchdown in the loss. He threw for 262 yards on 16-of-27 pass attempts with one throwing touchdown, an interception and four sacks. Richard also ran for 51 total yards. Devin Smith recorded an impressive 202 receiving yards on six catches with one touchdown catch, the 91-yard pass from Richard. All-MEAC linebacker Jayden Flaker led the Eagle defense with 11 tackles, seven solo.  

The game began with Richmond scoring in the first 70 seconds of the game as the Spiders scored on a 35-yard pass. The Eagles responded by scoring 20 unanswered points on three consecutive touchdowns and two successful point-after attempts. Two of the touchdowns came from Richard runs into the endzone while the third came on a 91-yard pass from Richard to Devin Smith. Richmond added one more scoring drive in the first half as the teams headed into halftime with the score at 20-14.  

The Spiders came out of the intermission with new life scoring three consecutive touchdowns to pull ahead 35-20. At about the 10-minute mark of the fourth quarter, N.C. Central found the endzone on a two-yard run from Richard that put the score at 35-27. The Spiders were not done yet as they added two more touchdowns to take a 49-27 victory. 

With the loss, North Carolina Central’s season comes to an end with an overall record of 9-3 and a MEAC mark of 4-1. The Eagles ranked as high as No. 7 in 2023 and were sitting at No. 16 heading into today’s matchup.  

BOX SCORE | RECAP