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Despite having nearly entirely a new team, the outlook for the A&M team was bright. Many students were excited about their new coach, Coach Kienholtz, and expected that he would turn out "a fast team from very green and untrained men," and said that team practices under Kienholtz's direction "make one think that something will be doing at A. and M. this fall" (Red and White, Vol. 6, No. 41 (September 1904), p. 41). Another article said that while the outcome of the season was uncertain, there was one thing all A&M fans were certain of: "Coach Kienholtz [is] a hustler." The paper went on to add that the style of play Kienholtz was bringing to the state was "somewhat of an innovation in this state," saying it resembled the Yale system, which at the time predicated a high-speed style of play (The (Raleigh) Morning Post, September 24th, 1904, p. 3).

Guilford, on the other hand, was not making big changes on their football team. 1904 was the team's 6th season with no coach in 7 years, 5 of which were consecutive. Guilford's school-run journal, the Guilford Collegian, did not publish their first issue until after the completion of their first game against the Farmers, but local papers predicted that the team would be better than previous years' teams. A short letter from a Guilford student printed in the Charlotte Daily Observer wrote that "the outlook for a good team is better than it has been for several years," while a pre-game report in the News and Observer wrote that "Guilford, for a small college, always has high class athletics, and it is understood that their football team is an exceptionally strong one" (Charlotte Daily Observer, September 21st, 1904, p. 3; News and Observer, September 24th, 1904, p. 5).

The game was one of the only games played in Raleigh in 1904; as such, tickets to the game cost $0.50 (about $14.50 in 2019).

In two short, fifteen minute halves, the Farmers "Simply Galloped Away" from the Quakers, probably due to the reported warmth of the afternoon (though the high was reported to be a mild 76 degrees the next day) and the one-sided nature of the game. Guilford's team was described as much lighter than the Aggies; further hampering their chances of success, Thornburg, reportedly their best player, was unable to play, and two of their other players, Anderson and Hinton, were injured--Anderson by "a hard lick on the head" and wrenching his hip, and Hinton for being "severely winded" due to an injury sustained in practice. Thankfully for the Quakers, both players had reportedly recovered by the following day. Injury-wise, the Red and White fared a little better; "The team work was very good, considering that only two men playing had ever represented A. & M. before, and the physical condition of the men was good, as evidenced by the fact that only one man had to leave the game, and that was on account of a dislocated shoulder right at the start. That was Sykes at left guard."

Surprisingly, no paper published a detailed report of the game. As The Morning Post quipped, "it would be useless to attempt any detailed report [of the game]. It was simply a question of how many touchdowns A. & M. would make," adding that "a great deal of time was taken out." The team played an "open kind of play" that did not employ the popular wedge formations of the day. Guilford reportedly only got the ball once the entire day. The only known detail is that the score was 35-0 at the end of the first half (Charlotte Observer, September 26th, 1904, p. 8).

The best playing of the day was done by Arthur "Babe" Wilson, A&M's RHB. Wilson's ability to run and dodge, in addition to his speed and his "raw-boned" nature, were all praised. The game's summary said that trying to stop him was like trying to hold "a great big eel... with wet hands." To further enunciate Wilson's prowess on the football field, the paper described one of his touchdowns: "when he was nearing the goal on one of his terrific runs, only little Julian White, the Guilford quarter back... remained in his way. No dodge that time. As White stooped to make the tackle Wilson simply jumped over him, that was all, and kept right on." He was later praised as "the best half-back ever seen on a Raleigh gridiron." Former A&M star O. Max Gardner praised Wilson by saying that "the other southern half-backs will have to hustle to to heat [beat?] him for the all-southern team."

The team's coaching staff were happy with the outcome, but still found that the team could have used some work. Coach Kienholtz was optimistic of the team's playing, but held the typical reservations many coaches have: "They started off very nicely, but later on the interferences straightened up too much, which was partially due to the hot weather. However, with so many inexperienced men and so early in the season, I'm quite satisfied. The team as a whole and individually has many things to learn before the end of the big games." Captain Abernathy, a Civil Engineering student, put it in terms of mechanics, saying "We will have to acquire more force and steam to act like one machine, and that will probably come with cold weather. Considering the short halves, it was a good score."

The game consisted of 10 touchdowns and 9 goals, which tallied up a total of 59 points to Guilford's 0. What's more impressive is that, according to Coach Kienholtz, the Farmers could have scored an additional 15-18 points; the Farmers and Mechanics lost three touchdowns "they really ought to have had" (The (Raleigh) Morning Post, September 25th, 1904, p. 7).

The reactions of each school in their respective school journals was fairly predictable. The Red and White reprinted a short summary of the game which ran in the News and Observer but included an introductory paragraph which emphatically stated that "something has been doing for the A. & M. recently along the football line" before predicting that the team would be the best the school had ever had and derisively saying that the game "furnished opportunities for detecting weak points that have since been strengthened" (Red and White, Vol. VI, No. 2 (October 1904), pp. 99-100). The Guilford Collegian, on the other hand, was less cheery. Written after the completion of the A&M game, the journal included summaries of the Quakers' games against South Carolina and Davidson, but not their three season-opening games (The Guilford Collegian, Vol. XVII, No. 1 (October 1904), pp. 18-19; The Guilford Collegian, Vol. XVII, No. 2 (November 1904), pp. 39-40).

The Quakers' season did not improve after their poor season opener against A&M. After dropping their opener against the Farmers, the Quakers lost 0-29 at UNC on October 1st in a short, 20 minute game. The following game, on October 10th, proved to be an important one for Guilford, as it was both their only home game and their only victory of the year; the Crimson and Gray took down the Bingham School of Mebane by a score of 32-0. Ten days later, the Quakers were downed by South Carolina in Columbia 4-21; the following day, Guilford passed through Davidson and lost a short, 30 minute game 0-5. The next day, on October 22nd, there was a match between "the college kid team" and the Greensboro Athletic Club which was won by the collegians 11-0; it is unclear if the college team was Guilford's varsity team or one of their class teams. The Quakers closed their season with a Thanksgiving Day (11/24) rematch against Davidson in Winston-Salem. Advertised heavily locally as a close grudge match due to the nail-biting 5-point margin of the first game, the 32-6 blowout drew scorn in the local press, who opined that "The improper advertisement of this game had been done well and about seven hundred people, expecting to see evenly matched teams, attended," adding backhandedly that "Guilford had good material but showed a woeful lack of training."

Guilford had originally also intended to play the Farmers a second time; first on November 17th, and later on October 29th; fortunately for the Crimson and Gray, the Aggies dropped the date on the 17th for the chance to play UNC, who had originally refused to schedule the Farmers and Mechanics after a dispute during the 1904 baseball season; . The Quakers finished 1904 with an anemic 1-5 record, with only 36 points for Guilford (only 4 of which came from college matches) compared to 146 against.