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To this point, the Farmers and Mechanics had endured a tough yet promising season. Depsite the proportion of their loss to UNC, the score was much closer for much of the duration of the game than in previous years' matches. In A&M's second recorded game of the season, they lost a close matchup against a nearby local prep school, Horner Military School, at a neutral site. Bingham, however, reportedly had a good football team in 1898, and attempted to claim their status as state prep school champion, which in practice was the best football team aside from UNC.

The job of figuring out the record of the Bingham School is a slightly difficult task, in part because at the time there were two schools named Bingham School in North Carolina. The William Bingham school operated out of Mebane, North Carolina; the other school, the Robert Bingham School, was located in Asheville. It is the Bingham School of Mebane that A&M played. Both schools originated as the same single Bingham School. The original Bingham School was opened in 1793 in Wilmington, North Carolina, by Rev. William Bingham. After running the school for aobut seven years in Wilmington, Bingham moved the school, first to Pittsboro, in Chatham County, North Carolina, and then to Mebane. In 1825, Rev. Bingham passed away, and his son, William J. Bingham, took over operation of the school. William J. Bingham moved the school to a location about twelve miles southwest of Hillsboro, North Carolina, but the school was again moved, in the winter of 1864-1865, due to the difficulty of attaining supplies during the Civil War. The school was moved to be closer to the railroad, about three quarters of a mile from the Mebane station. William J. Bingham continued to run the school until his health failed, in 1864, at which point he transferred ownership of the school to his sons, Col. William Bingham, and his brother, Robert; both sons had joined their father in teaching at the school since 1857. Col. William Bingham primarily ran the school until his death in 1873, at which point Robert and Mrs. William Bingham began running the school together. The school remained as one school in Mebane until 1891. At that point, a fire reportedly burnt down part of the school, and the Bingham family split over divisions of finances and school location. Robert Bingham moved to Asheville and opened the school bearing his name at that point; Mrs. William J. Bingham ceded control of the Mebane-based Bingham school to Col. William J. Bingham's son, Herbert Bingham, the following year. In 1896, Herbert Bingham passed away, and the William Bingham school came under the leadership of Preston Lewis Gray, the son-in-law of Col. Bingham. The Mebane location stayed open until around 1921. The Asheville-based school ran until 1928, at which point it closed following the death of Robert Bingham (Bingham School, 1793-1897, F. B. Arendell, p. 3; The Bingham School Catalogue, 1905-1906, p. 12; Bingham Military School, Paul Batesel; The Bingham School, Paul Batesel).

The record of the Bingham Cadets, as best as I can find, was as follows: a 0-23 loss to Greensboro Athletic Association on October 17th; a 5-10 loss to Oak Ridge on November 12th (though several papers mis-reported the score as 6-4), a 22-12 win against A&M; and a 24-6 win over Horner Military School on Thanksgiving Day. Including those games, Bingham won two-thirds of her games played in 1898. Based on that record, Bingham attempted to claim their status of state champion: "As to the football championship of schools and colleges, Bingham claims to have an equal, if not superior, right to it over any school, because, while defeated once, she has played more schools and colleges than any other school and has to her credit a greater number of victories over schools and college teams than any academy in North Carolina" (Charlotte Daily Observer, December 9th, 1898, p. 8). While part of that claim may have been true, it was certainly disingenuous. Oak Ridge fired back a letter, writing "It was quite clear that Oak Ridge had by far the best team," citing the opinion of former A&M coach George Stephens (Charlotte Daily Obserber, December 13th, 1898, p. 4; News and Observer, September 26th, 1899, p. 3).

While Bingham's team may not have been the best prep school team in the state, they were certainly one of the better ones. According to some reports, nearly every student at the school had been on the school's athletic fields helping the football team practice; by mid-October, the weight of the team was described as "pretty evenly distributed." Other articles described the team as "a clever set." Finally, one article reported that Bingham's team was "a strong one, consisting of four professors, and they play nice ball" (Daily Charlotte Observer, October 13th, 1898, p. 7; The Greensboro Evening Telegram, October 17th, 1898, p. 4; Daily Charlotte Observer, November 15th, 1898, p. 7; The (Reidsville) Review, November 18th, 1898, p. 2).

Incidentally, the game between the Black and Red of Bingham and the Red and White of A&M was the first time ever that UNC was not involved in a football game on UNC's grounds. Though permission had been granted by UNC faculty to use the grounds for a game between Bingham and Horner earlier in the year, the game never came to fruition. The game between the Cadets and the Farmers and Mechanics was first announced in the Tar Heel on November 16th, but no time was announced (The Tar Heel, November 16th, 1898, p. 3).

The game consisted of two twenty minute halves. The Farmers and Mechanics won the toss and elected to defend the west goal. Bingham kicked off the ball across A&M's goal line; there, Alford, of Bingham, fell on the ball, awarding Bingham a touchdown. Alford missed the following kick, making the score 0-5 in favor of the Cadets.

Though Person's kick-off work was the one bright point for A&M in their season-opener, his kicking duties were taken over by another player. Instead, Ramsey kicked off 55 yards and over the Bingham goal line. Alford recovered the kick and then kicked it himself, his kick going 15 yards. At that point, A&M recovered the kick. After a series of short gains, Caserley ran the ball in for a touchdown, followed by a successful kick by Ramsey; the Red and White were now on top with a score of 6-5. This was the first time the Farmers had led a game all year.

Alford kicked the ball off to Ramsey, who ran the ball back 20 yards. Caserley then carried the ball twice for a total of 20-1/2 yards. At that point, McKinnon kicked the ball 12 yards for the Farmers, but A&M fumbled the recovery of the advancing kick, which gave possession of the ball over to Bingham. After a few short runs by Alford and Johnston, Alford made a "beautiful run around right end for 40 yards" but was stopped just short of the goal line. The Red and White stood strong, though, and stopped the Cadets, earning the ball back on downs on their own 1 yard line. Unfortunately, A&M couldn't capitalize on their stop and failed to make the line to gain for themselves. Ramsey kicked the ball away, but unfortunately it was a "poor kick" that went only 10 yards. Alford recovered the ball for the Black and Red, and after a few rushes, Johnson carried the ball over the goal line for Bingham, and Alford made the kick after. The score was now 6-11, Bingham.

Ramsey kicked the ball 35 yards, where it was caught by Mangum, for the Bingham School team. Mangum ran the ball back 10 yards, and after a series of short runs by Johnson, Alford, and Smathers, Alford broke off a 60-yard touchdown run, and then kicked the goal. The score was now 6-17, Cadets.

Ramsey kicked the ball off for the Red and White, again kicking the ball behind the Cadets' goal line. Alford recovers the kick and then kicks it himself for 10 yards. At that point, the A&M team landed on the ball. The Farmers and Mechanics immediately fumbled the ball; they recovered it, but lost 8 yards. With the Red and White unable to make the required yards after the large fumble, Bingham got the ball back, but was themselves unable to make the line to gain. After a few short rushes, A&M fumbled the ball again, and the Cadets took over. Mangum kicked the ball for 25 yards, but the time for the first half expired with the ball on Bingham's 40-yard line.

Despite the fact that the Farmers were down 11 points at the half, the game had been largely good for them; one of the touchdowns on the Red and White was a fluke, and the other two resulted from long runs and fumbles.

Ramsey opened the second half poorly, kicking the ball out of bounds twice; this gave the ball to Bingham. Alford's kick went behind the goal line, where Ramsey secured a touchback. This brought the ball to the 25-yard line, where Ramsey kicked the ball again. This time, it stayed in bounds, where Smathers returned it 15 yards. "Good rushes" by Alford and Johnson bring the ball to the Farmers' 5-yard line; from there, Alford executed a "pretty run" to carry it across the goal line, but misses the goal. The Black and Red were now up 22-6.

Ramsey kicked off again for the Red and White to George, who carried the ball back 20 yards. Thankfully for the Farmers, the Cadets fumbled the ball after gaining just 11 more yards. After a few short carries by Ramsey and Caserley, Ramsey broke off for a 20-yard run and then another run of 8 yards. After two long gains by A&M, Bingham shot themselves in the foot with an offsides penalty, bringing the Farmers 10 yards closer to Bingham's goal. Caserley then ran the ball in for a short touchdown, and Ramsey successfully made the kick, leaving the score 22-12.

Alford kicked off to Ramsey of the A&M team; Ramsey ran the ball back for 15 yards. After that Caserley broke off a huge 38-yard run, followed by another long run by Ramsey for 12 yards. After a few more shorter runs by Ramsey and Caserley, Caserley made another long run, this time for 15 yards. After a 6 yard run by Ramsey, McKinnon ran the ball 44 yards. Unfortunately, after a few more short runs, time expired with the ball in possession of the Red and White on the Bingham 5 yard line (The Tar Heel, November 22nd, 1898, pp. 1, 4).

As the Tar Heel noted, the Red and White could have won the game if only they had played the whole game how they did in the last half. "A. & M. seemed to awake from her drowsiness only in the last few minutes of play and rushed Bingham all over the field. If only such play had been instilled at an earlier part of the game the score might have been different." Alford and Johnson were clear stars of the game for Bingham, and local newspapers Ramsey "played 'star ball' for the A. and M.'s." Late in the game, Caserley also began to show out for the Red and White as well.

Back in Mebane, the students of the William Bingham School were elated by the victory. Several local papers reporting on the team's travel back to Mebane mentioned how proud the boys were about their wins over A&M and Oak Ridge. Once back at their school, the Binghamites celebrated by lighting bonfires; the team was also invited to have dinner with their school's president, Prof. Gray (The (Raleigh) Morning Post, November 20th, 1898, p. 1; The (Winston-Salem) Journal, November 23rd, 1898, p. 1).