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  * Non-conference games

NC A&M came into the 1893 football season with still relatively little football history, having played just one official game. As a college, though, A&M was growing. The college opened in 1889 with approximately 50 students and finished its first year with 72; on opening day of 1893, the college had 118 students (David Lockmiller, p. 42; News and Observer, September 8th, 1893, p. 1). By now, A&M had a large enough student body to draw up passable varsity and scrub teams, and this was reflected in their scheduling for the year; the men of the team averaged about 155 pounds (Joel Whitaker, p. 155). Among other new developments of the 1893 season were A&M's first official intercollegiate game, and their first intercollegiate victory. Additionally, the Farmers and played (and won) their first interstate football game, against Tennessee.

With the 1893 came another apparent coaching change. W. C. Riddick, coach of A&M's team for the 1892 season, appears to have relinquished the job. NC State's 2016 Football Media Guide says Bart Gatling was the football coach, however, Gatling appears to have been a student at Harvard for the 1893 football season (The Wilson Advance, August 10th, 1893, p. 3). C. D. Harris says Riddick was still the coach of the football team. However, Joel Whitaker, in his 1907 summary of A&M football, says the coach was Perrin Busbee; this fact is also corroborated in a post-game summary of A&M's second game against UNC's scrub team, which concluded the article by saying "Mr. Busbee's team was improved wonderfully" (C. D. Harris, p. 175; Joel Whitaker, p. 154; The Tar Heel, November 23rd, 1893, p. 3). Whoever the coach of the A&M team was, they were not brought in until sometime after the loss to UNC on October 12th; after the loss, the team "began discussing the possibility of hiring a coach to guide their efforts" (Beezley, p. 6). Also of note is that the college Athletic Association, "which at first had a hard struggling for existence" was now "on its feet and doing good work" (News and Observer, October 11th, 1893, p. 4).

With this budding football team came larger operating costs. In June of 1893, the Board of Trustees voted to give money towards athletics for the first time in school history, giving $50 (roughly $1,400 in 2019) towards the school's athletics programs (The Technician, September 19th, 1969, p. 8; Lockmiller, p. 56). C. D. Harris, in his somewhat-dubious history of NC State football written in 1910, writes that A&M played "a large and expensive schedule," and that the $50 donated by the school was not quite enough; the remainder of the money was furnished by "some friendly ladies, who gave a lawn party to help the boys out" (C. D. Harris, p. 175). Though Harris wrote that about the 1892 football season, sufficient evidence exists to know that is was in fact the 1893 season.

Early reports of A&M's progress as a football team were promising: an October 8th article from the News and Observer started its brief writeup by confirming that A&M had never officially played another college team and predicted that "by the first of November they will have a team that can play Trinity as well as Wake Forest." The paper went on to say that "Saunders and McRea [sic] are tackling unusually well" and that "with Mosely in the line they will push any team their weight" (News and Observer, October 8th, 1893, p. 4). John Hyer Saunders, one of 10 seniors then enrolled at A&M, hailed from Pitt County, and enrolled in the college in 1891. James Christopher MacRae, one of just 31 sophomores, was from Cumberland County. Wylie Thomas Mosely, of Lenoir County, on the other hand, was a fresh addition to the football team, being one of 73 freshmen at A&M, speaking to the rapid growth of the school (NC A&M Catalogue, 1893-'94).

1893 marked the first season where A&M played multiple formal games of football, and their first intercollegiate games. The team was led largely by Whitaker, a freshman who had played in A&M's first formal game of football as a member of the Raleigh Male Academy. Early in the year, the team lacked the organization and training to compete well against larger teams, but after a month of practice the team was strong and organized enough to defeat Tennessee and UNC's second team. The only other games of the season were two games against Oak Ridge, a local military school, played at neutral sites in Greensboro and Winston-Salem. Overall, A&M's 1893 season was very successful; though the team played largely against second-rate teams, that was more-or-less their level of skill at the time. A&M proved that it was capable of moving into the next level of football for the 1894 season.