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Following their tie against Villanova in the North Carolina State Fair, the Farmers played their first easy game of the season against Eastern College of Manassas, Virginia. A small school that opened in 1902 in Front Royal, the college moved to Manassas in 1909. Though a number of players from A&M had been injured during the Villanova game, the Farmers seem to have recovered well before the game began.

Unlike most other small colleges in the South, Eastern College had a number of notable players on their team, as well as a respected coach. Led by H. C. "Curley" Byrd, who would go on to coach and administrate at Maryland for nearly four decades. The Eastern team included two former Red and White players in the form of Sam Spencer, who played as halfback at A&M from 1907-08, and J. B. Ross, nicknamed "Big Ross," who played tackle at A&M in 1908. A final star player on the Eastern squad was their captain, Norris, who had been on the VPI team from 1908-09. According to some reports, this was the first time A&M had played against any of her own former teammates.*

Despite the smattering of skilled players on the Eastern team (whose colors were, inconveniently, also red and white), there was little excitement for the game in Raleigh. Papers lamented this fact because the easier game meant the Farmers' strong backfield was more likely to flourish, and because the Aggies were suspected to attempt some new tricks they had up their sleeve; this assumption turned out to be true, as will be seen in the second half of the game (News and Observer, October 29th, 1910, p. 6).

The start of the season for the Manassas boys had been a rocky one: their first two games, at Georgetown and George Washington, were both canceled because the Virginians were too slow in getting their team ready. Though Eastern requested a delayed date to meet George Washington, the two teams never met in a formal game, though they did meet in an informal practice game in mid-October (The Washington Herald, October 20th, 1910, p. 8). As a result, the only game Eastern had pulled off before coming down to Raleigh was a home game against Gallaudet which the Virginians won 15-0.

The day was marked for its crisp, cool fall weather which was reported to be "propitious" for the game; the "sharpness in the atmosphere... gave ginger to the game." Despite being chock full of transfers, the Eastern team was still markedly lighter than the Farmers, though it was noted that their line play was "good considering their weight."

* This assertion is nearly true. Two games should logically be excluded from consideration: the 1907 North Carolina All-Stars game, and the 1892 intra-squad match(es), which both featured either former or current A&M players. One close encounter was in 1905, after UNC poached a number of players from A&M's team, the former Farmers elected to sit out of the game. The one exception to this list is Joel Whitaker, who played for Farmers from 1893-94, and was on North Carolina's team when they met in 1895.

The game opened with Eastern kicking off to the Aggies; Stafford recovered the kick and returned it 10 yards before being downed. On a delayed pass, Robertson netted A&M another 15 yards with a run through the line, and a line plunge by Cool resulted in 5 more yards. On their first second down of the game, however, the Farmers failed to gain, forcing the Farmers to punt. Cool punted the ball 40 yards; it was recovered by Cooper, who returned the pigskin 4 yards. On their first down, Eastern lost 2 yards after Davis tackled Bouford, and on the next a failed fake play resulted in a loss of 5 for the Virginians. Facing third and 27, Eastern elected to punt.

Cool caught Eastern's punt, but after attempts by both Cool and Stafford failed to gain, the Farmers booted. Spencer caught the punt but was "nailed by Seifert on the spot." On the next run, Cooper got 5 yards, but a 2-yard second down by Spencer failed to get a new set of downs, forcing Eastern to punt again. Stafford caught the punt and carried it back 15 yards before being tackled. Stafford's good start was a sign of things to come: Robertson immediately tore off a run for 10 yards, followed by a 15-yard gain by Cool and a second 10-yard pickup by Robertson. A 10-yard run by Von Eberstein put A&M just 5 yards from the Eastern goal, and a second run by Von Eberstein put the ball across the goal line. A successful goal kick by Seifert put the Aggies up 6-0 after "a few minutes" of play.

Eastern kicked off to A&M again; this time, Stafford returned the kick, gaining 15 yards before being stopped. The next recorded play by the Farmers was a punt by Cool, who sent the ball 40-45 yards. Fortunately for the Aggies, Seifert recorvered the kick after an Eastern player -- likely Hamilton, who was noted for his "Miserable handling of punts and poor headwork" throughout the game (The Sunday Star (Washington, DC), October 30th, 1910, Part V, p. 1). Taking advantage of Eastern's error, the Red and White netted 25 yards on a forward pass to Seifert*. A few good gains by Robertson and Cool brought the ball to Eastern's 10-yard line, at which point the first 10-minute quarter drew to a close.

At some point either late in the first quarter or early in the first, the ball changed hands and was probably punted further away from Eastern's goal line. The next plays described in News and Observer's play-by-play report was a pair of gains for 20 and 5 yards by Robertson, which were then followed with a forward pass reception by Seifert for 20 yards and a touchdown. Unfortunately, Seifert missed the goal kick, leaving the Farmers up only 11-0.

Eastern kicked off for the third time that day; the Aggies again began a rapid march towards the Virginians' goal line. A 20-yard run by Robertson was followed by two runs for a total of 20 yards by Von Eberstein, and a 10 yard run by Cool put the Farmers on Eastern's 5-yard line. The Red and White from Virginia had their first real success of the day in the form of a goal line stop, forcing a turnover on downs; they immediately punted the ball away, out of danger. Despite gains of 10 and 15 yards by Cool and Con Eberstein, respectively, the Eastern eleven had successfully evaded being scored upon again; the half ended with the ball in A&M hands on Eastern's 20-yard line.

No paper described the third quarter in any real detail. Eastern remained wholly unable to advance the ball materially, while the Farmers experimented with the forward pass, largely without success. The Farmers scored for the third time this quarter; one paper noted that their scoring opportunity was again created by the mishandling of a punt by Hamilton (The Sunday Star (Washington, DC), October 30th, 1910, Part V, p. 1). No Raleigh sources described the scoring process; the two papers that do describe it disagree slightly, with The Sunday Star writing that Hamilton fumbled the ball on his own 5 yard line and that it was recovered by the Aggies just 1 yard from the goal line, and Charlotte Daily Observer noting that the Von Eberstein ran the ball twice, starting form 10 yards out, in the process of getting the touchdown. Either way, all sources agreed that Von Eberstein made the goal, as did Stafford the kick, putting A&M up 17-0 fairly early in the third quarter.

At this point, The Sunday Star mentioned that a new quarterback was put in to replace Hamilton, however no other summaries of the game mention this. There were, however, some other movements made regarding active players, with the Farmers substituting Sherman for Seifert at right end, Brown for Davis at left end, Clark for Bray at center, and Surratt for Cool at left halfback.

While the teams were more evenly matched with what was essentially A&M's scrub team in, the Aggies still managed one more score; Robertson made "the star trick of the game" in doing "a beautiful bit of broken field running, shaking off and dodging his tacklers and covering 35 yards for a touchdown." Other reports aggrandized the play further by claiming he made every Eastern player miss a tackle. The goal kick attempt by Seifert failed, giving the North Carolinians a 22-0 lead which they held until the end of the game (News and Observer, October 30th, 1910, p. 13; Red and White, Vol. XII No. 3 (November 1910), pp. 154-155; Charlotte Daily Observer, October 30th, 1910, p. 8).

The game was noted by its open play by the Farmers, who attempted twice as many forward passes in this game than they had the remainder of the season to this point, with five out of seven reportedly hitting their mark. The Virginians, on the other hand, completed two out of four of their forward passes, though this likely did not make much of a difference on their overall ability to advance the ball: the Farmers goal was not threatened once over the duration of the game (The (Richmond) Times-Dispatch, October 30th, 1910, Sporting Section).

The game was also noted for its clean play, in start contrast to the Villanova game the previous week, with no serious injuries reported and "only a few slight bruises and sprains." The cleanliness also extended to the style of play, as there were only 5 yards of penalty assessed during the game, and this to A&M. Stars of the day included Robertson, Von Eberstein, Cool, and Davis for the Farmers, with Glenn, Bray, and Floyd also garnering praise for their line work. Some combination of Spencer, Ross, Norris, Hamilton, and Hayden played the best for Eastern.

The Red and White from Virginia finished their season with a 2-3 record. Things looked up briefly, as they won their next game against Catholic University in Washington, DC on November 5th by the score of 22-2, however two weeks later they lost a nail biter to Rock Hill College of Ellicott City, Maryland 5-6, and lost a Thanksgiving Day matchup against St. Vincent's Academy, a Catholic boys school based out of Norfolk, 0-11.