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  * Non-conference games

After coming off of a very bad 0-2 season in 1897, the Farmers and Mechanics hoped to rebound in 1898. There was just one obstacle to that rebound: the team had nowhere to practice or play. Finding a place to play had been a perrenial problem for the Red and White since sports began at the school, with previous teams playing games at Raleigh's Athletic Park but practicing on "whatever part of the [campus] grounds was uncultivated and without trees" due to the fact that it was a public park. Many of their failures of the previous season were partially attributed to the inability of the team school to furnish a steady practice area, with historian William Beezley writing "The students attributed their poor season to the lack of adequate practice fields and the absence of a regular football coach." The game-only deal at Pullen Park had been secured by the influence of Captain W. H. Day, at one point the superintendent of the nearby penetentiary; students would grade a section of the park as needed. However, this park was rudimentary, and came with some problems of its own--namely, that the park was unenclosed. Because of this, the school could not charge admission for home games, and as such was unable to profit much at all, if any, from their athletics (Beezley, p. 9).

While money was tight for the Farmers at the time (histories of the football team by both Joel Whitaker and C. D. Harris lamented the team's lack of cash and coaches in these years), the major motivating factor was probably the loss of the baseball field and football playing area due to the surrounding construction; the modification to the park caused the Raleigh area to be without a baseball field for the first time in 15 years (Red and White, Vol. IX No. 4 (December 1907), p. 155; Red and White, Vol. XII No. 4 (December 1910), p. 176). Conveniently, the city of Raleigh had agreed to build a new athletic park (unconfusingly also named Athletic Park) which would include a baseball diamond, a football field, and a bicycle track (The Press-Visitor, December 24th, 1897, p. 2; The Daily (Raleigh) Times, January 22nd, 1898, p. 1).

Unfortunately for the college boys, it was decided to build the new athletic field off-campus, near the National Cemetary; as such, the students, led by Maj. E. M. Hayes, petitioned the newly-elected governor, Gov. Daniel Lindsay Russell, for "the use of a number of convicts for several days" in order to construct their dual-purpose field on college grounds; Gov. Russell directed the students to state prisons Superintendent J. M. Mewboorne. Mewboorne denied the request, so the students got to digging, starting work around February 1898. The field was completed by late March, with a match baseball game taking place between the A&M team and the team of Augusta, Georgia. By February of 1899, however, A&M moved on from the previously-constructed field, which was likely a very basic field built in the middle of campus, to a new grounds on Pullen Park under an agreement with the city (The Daily (Raleigh) Times, January 26th, 1898, p. 1; The Daily (Raleigh) Times, February 1st, 1898, p. 1; The Morning Post, March 23rd, 1898, p. 5; The Wilmington Messenger, February 2nd, 1898, p. 1; Beezley, p. 9).

Though the Farmers were coming off of a rough year, there was reason for optimism: the students had practice grounds, they had some coaching, though still somewhat infrequent. At least two papers agree that John McKee, former North Carolina tackle, would spend some time coaching the Farmers and Mechanics. Another paper also reported that Judge Whitaker would be coaching the team, but this seems like a typo; if a Whitaker was coaching the team, it would have been Joel Whitaker, Jr., Judge Whitaker's son. Joel Whitaker was a former A&M and Tar Heel standout; McKee had spent the previous year as the captain and quarterback of UNC's scrub football team, a position he maintained in 1898 as well. Either way, Whitaker's coaching would not have lasted long into the season, as Whitaker continued his dentistry schooling shortly thereafter (The Times-Visitor, September 17th, 1898, p. 1; The Tar Heel, October 11th, 1898, p. 2). One article, written just after the 1897 season, wrote that "with improved facilities for practices for practice &c. [et cetera], they should turn out the best football team in the South" (The Daily (Raleigh) Times, January 26th, 1898, p. 1). Though that was unfortunately not the case, the team's record did improve with the advent of a practice field, and the foundation of a steady coaching situation was at the least in its infancy.

Another quick change to note in the offseason is that scoring changed between 1897 and 1898; touchdowns were increased from 4 to 5 points, while the point-after kick was decreased from 2 points to 1 point.

Though the record of the team does not fully show it, the A&M team improved greatly from 1897 to 1898. The game against UNC was significantly closer, and besides the game against the Tar Heels, the other two of A&M's losses were either close or won by flukes. The Farmers crowned their season with a win against the only team they could have hoped to have come back and won against in 1898, and did so with authority. A bright horizon was coming for A&M football.