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GREENSBORO -- Lee Fobbs has been around college football long enough to know how things work. And he's been around N.C. A&T long enough now to know things haven't been working here in a long time.

Aggies fans have been around long enough to know losing the Homecoming game is nothing new. They haven't won one in five years, and even Bill Hayes struggled sometimes in front of all the alumni. They didn't appreciate it then any more than they did Saturday when A&T lost 41-3 to Morgan State.

Fobbs hears what's coming from the stands seven games into his third season as the Aggies' head coach. And he knows his players are hearing it, too. When the weekly team meeting ended Sunday, and he'd said everything he could to his players and his assistants, Fobbs said the players asked him if they could meet on their own.

"They were kind of just getting themselves together for what's ahead of them," Fobbs said. "We've got five ballgames left, and we need to salvage those five ballgames. We need to play well."

Fobbs said he took the meeting as a good sign.

"I do," he said. "The captains came to me. They wanted to talk."

A lot of people need to sit down and talk at A&T. Now 2-5 after beating J.C. Smith and rival Winston-Salem State in their first two games, the Aggies will face the defending MEAC champions this weekend. Delaware State is a school A&T hasn't beaten since 2003, a school that has been through its own down cycles in recent years before changing the university's attitude toward football.

The result was Del State went 10-2 and found itself in the NCAA playoffs last year against in-state rival Delaware in one of the biggest sporting events in that state's history. The fact is, Del State went out and got the players it needed to compete in the MEAC and beyond, went up against Delaware for the best players and found itself on national television where recruits all over the nation saw the Hornets on a level playing field with a traditional power in the NCAA's Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA).

That's how programs are built, and it's how Fobbs wants to build A&T back to where it was under Hayes, back when Hayes knew all the high school coaches in the state and they knew him, back when former players acted as national recruiters, back when the Aggies were actually allowed to spend the money to recruit nationally.

Fobbs said Monday he believes he has the backing of the university, and he knows he has the backing of his players. He takes responsibility for the losses and simply asks his players to take responsibility for themselves. He's a good man, and he deserves better than what he's up against here, but Fobbs makes no excuses and says any talk of his future at A&T is no distraction.

"I coach football," he said. "I come to work every day to coach football. That's how it is for me. I get my excitement from that and getting back to work. If somebody tells me something, I'll react to it. If nobody tells me anything, I'm going right on to work."

He has a lot on his mind these days. His wife, Sheila, had exploratory surgery recently. The results, he said, were good. He smiled as he pointed her out in the crowd Monday and thanked people for the kind words and prayers.

Fobbs has five more games on his mind, too, and only then will he turn his attention to next season, he said. He believes he has his players' respect, and he knows they understand what he's been telling them, that the only way out of this mess is through hard work.

But that's just this year.

"Once we finish the season, we'll work hard at recruiting and do the things we need to do to make the team better," he said.

That's not easy any more at A&T. There are many houses to keep in order, and football historically suffers when there's unrest elsewhere in A&T athletics. Lately, the howling from the stands has been answered by silence from the administration.

There are a lot of moving parts here, and it's not as if A&T hasn't had to rebuild before. If he is indeed the man to get the program back to where it was, Fobbs deserves to have the full backing of the administration and the far-flung alumni who are the strength of the school.

He walked out of the Bryan Fitness and Wellness Center and into the parking lot on a beautiful Monday afternoon. I asked him if he wanted to go play golf.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, I would."

Then he and Sheila got into their car and drove away. Monday was a work day for Lee Fobbs. These days, every day is a work day.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com