Substance and style: Viral star shines on the field for N.C. A&T
In the preseason he went viral. In the season finale he was just plain sick.
North Carolina A&T running back Tarik Cohen gained fame this summer after a video of him doing a backflip while catching a football in each hand had football fans flipping out.
On Dec. 19, Cohen proved there was some substance to go along with his style as he zigged and zagged his way to a career-high 295 rushing yards and three touchdowns to lead the Aggies to a 41-34 victory over Alcorn State in the inaugural Air Force Reserve Celebration Bowl to win the school’s third HBCU national championship.
Cohen was unstoppable, ripping off touchdown runs of 74 and 83 yards, before sprinting 73 yards for the game-clinching touchdown with 4:17 left in the fourth quarter.
The 5-6, 173-pound junior proved to not only have tremendous football skills, but savvy as well. Before he scored the game-winning touchdown, Cohen had the foresight to ask head coach Rod Broadway if the opportunity arose should take it to the house or fall to the ground and milk the clock.
“It felt good (to get the game-winning touchdown), but I was thinking, ‘Should I score?' Because I didn’t want to leave too much time on the clock,” Cohen told FOX Sports this week. “I asked my coach before that drive if I broke for a run should I go for it or fall down? He told me just go ahead and score.”
It was good advice. The touchdown was the perfect way to cap a performance that reinforced what Broadway has known about Cohen for quite some time.
“We’ve said all along Tarik’s special,” Broadway said after the game. “I guess the nation got a chance to see what we’ve known he is capable of doing for three years now. He had a big game for us, and we needed it.”
The humble Cohen would go on to be named the game's MVP, and he credited his teammates for his performance.
“Without my offensive line, none of this would have been possible,” Cohen said after the game. “I felt like they played a tremendous game. All week they have been hearing how they are holding the team back. A lot of people want to say they are the soft point of our team. So they took that and ran with it, and showed everybody on national TV they are not to be messed with.”
The nation first got to see Cohen this summer when he posted a video of himself catching a ball with one hand while doing a backflip, then another of him upping the ante by catching one in each hand while doing a backflip.
“I saw (North Carolina wide receiver) Ryan Switzer do it and thought, ‘I can do it, too.’” Cohen said. “So one day in practice we tried it. After doing it (with one hand), I said, ‘OK, let’s take this to the next level.’”
It took 23 tries to pull off the one-ball catch, but practice made perfect and Cohen was able to complete the two-ball feat after only 13 attempts.
With a little help from his friends, Cohen’s catches went viral and landed him an invite to do the backflip live on SportsCenter.
“Some of my teammates were really pushing the video,” Cohen said. “One of my teammates, he really has a lot of followers on Instagram, and he put it on his Instagram and a lot of people just kept sharing it.”
The viral star added to his IMDb resume during the bowl game, as each of his touchdown runs was seemingly more exciting than the last one.
Cohen’s 295-yard performance was his fourth 200-yard game of his career and helped him run past Maurice Hicks to the No. 1 spot on the school’s single-season rushing list with 1,543, which was good enough to lead the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference for the third straight year.
Cohen’s shake-and-bake style has enabled him to become the Aggies' all-time leading rushing with 4,048 after just three seasons. Not bad for a kid who received zero Division I offers upon graduating Bunn High School in North Carolina.