DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Saturday was the last time we have to see North Carolina A&T's Tarik Cohen on the opposite sideline.
 
Good. Now we can root for him ALL the time.
 
WHAAAAT? Cheer for someone from another team?
 
Yep.
 
And put some respect on it.
 
Any enlightened football fan can appreciate that a player who's a cross between Barry Sanders, Derrick Sproles and Warrick Dunn comes to the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) once a generation – just as much as any enlightened football fan knows that this aberration of a Bethune-Cookman football season is just a burp in the cosmic scheme.
 
Did you see that 87-yard touchdown run Cohen put on us in the second quarter? Two of our guys had angles on him and he still motored past. Speed! And for all the message board Belichicks crying "Stop Him" – well, all the teams have found a way to stop him nine times – it's that tenth and 11th time he grinds a way to make a play that kills you.
 
So, in a sense, Cohen has made the MEAC better.
 
Players have had to step up to stop him; coaches have had to step up to scheme him; and with B-CU's star power temporarily diminished, he's the one representing us in the national media. If there's one thing more infuriating than a fair-weathered fan base that leaves with 10 minutes remaining, it's an elitist, narrow-minded football media type (or fan) who dismisses a player or team because they're not in the FBS (Two Words: Larry Little. Bust in Canton for explanation point).
 
"He is outstanding for this league," B-CU head coach Terry Sims said of Cohen after Saturday's game. "I told him after the game that he shouldn't listen to anyone telling him he's one of the best backs in Black college football. No, he's one of the best backs in all of college football. I've been doing this a long time, and that young man is special."
 
Across the board, all the B-CU coaches encounter a similar situation. Gravelle Craig and @bcuhoops fought wars with Norfolk State's Kyle O'Quinn. Now, we're looking forward to seeing him play for the Knicks at Madison Square Garden next month. Jason Beverlin and @bcudiamondcats had some epic pitching duals against Savannah State's Kyle McGowin. Beverlin's been keeping an eye on McGowin's trip to the show (AAA last time he checked) as much as he is his own guys.
 
Cohen gets it, too. He knows that in addition to representing "Aggie Pride," he's representing all of us as well.
 
"I've been getting compared to all the running backs in all the other conferences," Cohen said. "Everyone calls me the `MEAC running back.' I feel like I have that on my shoulder. Every Saturday or Thursday, I go out and make it my career fair."
 
Jay Walker, who co-hosts the weekly Cohen infomercial, uh, is the analyst for ESPN's MEAC broadcasts (My bad, Jay) knows how important the national spotlight is for Cohen and the MEAC.
 
"I've got people all over the country asking me how good this kid is," said Walker, who is probably one of the top five all-time MEAC QBs [Inside joke. Hit my twitter for the punchline]. "When I was in the NFL and went to the combines, it was good to see guys you went up against, like Terry Mickens from Florida A&M. You want to see those guys succeed because there are so few openings, and you want to say you went up against those guys. So, yes, it is an alliance. We have to get behind Cohen and hope he wins the Walter Payton award."
 
Walker has dished out his props to B-CU in the past – he gave Steve McNair level love back in the day to Allen Suber, who we congratulate for his first collegiate coaching victory over the weekend – and propped up the Wildcats' team star power we've had during the championship run.
 
"B-CU's still trying to find `that guy' this season, and in the past few years, they've gotten away from the star and made it more of a team approach," Walker said. "It's a proud program that's having an unusual year – that's one of the best winless teams you'll ever see. They just need to hang in there and get back to the top."
 
And the rest of the conference has as well.
 
Vaughn Wilson, our partner in crime at Florida A&M in the 850, has been a long-time fan of Rashean Mathis. Cohen spent some time watching us as well.
 
"The Bethune defensive line is very athletic," Cohen said. "I like going up against them because they do a good job of getting off the blocks. You guys had a running back, Anthony Jordan, who I modeled myself after."
 
It's working. Good luck the rest of the way, Tarik.
 
Before I encourage you to click over to my good friend Andreas Butler's diatribe of why you should heed the call of another great North Carolina A&T alum and "keep hope alive" for this football season, I just wanted to take a paragraph or two to pay tribute to Dr. James Huger, who went to the Lord Friday night after 101 years of service here on earth.
 
He was the first African-American on both the Daytona Beach and Volusia County Councils. He was one of the first African-Americans to serve in the United States Marines. He ran with Dr. Bethune AND Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
 
Do I really need to type anything else?
 
So, maybe it's best to share the cool story.
 
About a decade ago, Huger's grandson – Travis Williams – was a just-slightly-under-the-radar player (Read: He didn't play for Mainland HS) for a just-slightly-under-the-radar Atlantic HS (Read: They weren't Mainland) team. I covered every Atlantic home game during Williams' senior season, and Dr. Huger was at every … home … game.  Dr. Huger would sit in the Municipal Stadium press box, which became his skybox because he was Dr. James Huger.
 
I'd go over and pay my respects to Dr. Huger, who always thanked me for covering his grandson. It was small talk, football talk, but it wasn't a media member chatting up a Civil Rights legend.  He was just being a proud grandpa on game nights.
 
One game, I'm sitting next to him, and Williams broke open a punt return for a touchdown.
 
"He knows how to make things happen, doesn't he?" Dr. Huger asked.
 
So did you, Dr. Huger. So did you.