By T. Scott Boatright
GRAMBLING — A win is always a good thing, and Grambling State head football coach was happy to get his first one as head coach of the Tigers Saturday night.
But that doesn’t exactly mean he liked everything saw during GSU’s 37-20 win over Tuskegee in the Tigers’ home opener at Eddie G. Robinson Stadium.
And after it was all over, Joseph didn’t mince words talking about what he had seen out on the field from his team.
“You gotta take the win because you’re on the plus side,” Joseph said. “You’ve got to take the win. But you’re not going to beat many teams in this conference the way we played tonight. And I expressed that to the kids. We won’t win many games like that if we play that way.”
The Tigers started out in strong fashion, taking advantage of an interception by 56 that set them up to start their second possession at the Tuskegee 18-yard line.
On first down quarterback Myles Crawley connected with receiver Nicholas Howard on a pass that was initially ruled a touchdown. But after a lengthy video, officials ruled that Howard only made it to the 1-yard line before his knee hit the turf.
After running back Tre Bradford was stopped for a one-yard loss on the next play, Crawley connected with tight end Cordavis Knighten on a 2-yard scoring strike that put GSU on top 6-0 (Ryan Harradine’s point after kick drifted wide right) at the 11:44 mark of the opening stanza.
And after holding Tuskegee to a three-and-out on the ensuing possession for the Golden Tigers, Grambling quickly scored again as Crawley’s 53-yard pass to Javon Robinson set up a nine-yard touchdown pass to Howard, who twisted and stretched out over an attempted tackler to reach the ball over the goal line to put GSU on top 13-0 with 8:38 left in the first quarter.
Grambling pushed its lead to 20-0 on a four-yard touchdown pass to Tony Phillips 1:33 into the second quarter before a 36-yard field goal by Harradine made it 23-0 in favor of the G-Men with 2:38 left in the first half.
After forcing Tuskegee to punt again on another three-and-out possession, GSU scored again with 1:32 left before intermission as Crawley connected with Robinson on a 53-yard touchdown pass.
The G-Men weren’t done as Josh Darling returned a Golden Tiger fumble 19 yards for another score to make it 37-0 before Tuskegee’s Lorcan Ryan hit a 46-yard field goal with one second left in the half to make it a 37-3 halftime score.
But as strong as they started the game, the G-Men came out flat in the second half as Tuskegee outscored GSU 20 in the final 30 minutes of the contest.
“Good football teams come out and finish games,” Joseph said. “But we’re not a very good football team right now.”
Joseph has preached cleaning up a penalty problem that plagued the G-Men last season, but ended up being disappointed with the way his team handled that aspect of the contest.
“I thought we played good for 20 minutes out of 60,” Joseph said. “I thought we were clean for 20 minutes. But the other 40 were bad. We had 16 penalties for 166 (yards lost). That’s terrible.
“We can’t revert back to foolishness and that’s what we reverted back to. I’ve got to do a better job as a head coach and I will and my assistants have got to do a better job. We’ll clean that up.”
Crawley completed 16-of-26 passes for 304 yards and four scores before being pulled in the third quarter while Robinson led Grambling with four catches for 151 yards.
“We got a little complacent in the second half but we’ll get better,” Crawley said. “We’ll celebrate the win and get back to work.”
But Joseph wasn’t happy with a run game that saw GSU average only 2.4 yards per carry.
Bradford led GSU rushers with 52 yards on 13 carries.
“We had explosive players, so if we can get the ball into space to our kids that are explosive, they’re going to make something happen,” Joseph said. “But we have to establish the line of scrimmage. We did not establish the line of scrimmage on the offensive side of the ball and I was disappointed in that because I thought we were going to be able to run the ball.”
Personal fouls played a significant role in GSU’s plethora of penalties, something that really bothered Joseph, especially after a personal foul extended a final minute Tuskegee drive and resulted in a Golden Tiger touchdown.
“Some of the penalties were stupid things,” Joseph said. “They always catch the second guy. Our kid said ‘they slapped me in the face.’ OK, but he caught you though. So who’s guilty? You are.
“We had some calls that didn’t go our way. But good teams play through things like that. We’re just not a very good football team right now.”
Andrew Jones led the G-Men with 11 tackles and added half a sack while Bryce Cage added six takedowns with one sack.
“I thought the defensive line played well,” Joseph said. “They kind of wore down toward the end but I thought they played well in the beginning. But football is a whole. You can’t have a D-line play better. Everybody’s got to play well.
Grambling (1-1) will next play at 6 p.m. next Saturday at Texas-A&M Commerce, which lost to San Diego State in its season opener and was playing at Cal-Davis late Saturday night.
Joseph expects to see a better performance from his team next weekend.
“Like I said, we’re just not a very good football team and I’ve got to get it fixed,” Joseph said. “I’m not a very good head coach right now and I’ve got to fix it. I will.”
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