By T. Scott Boatright
In a game where offense was as scarce as a snowball in summertime, the Grambling State Tigers found a special way to win Saturday as they edged past Alabama A&M 13-10 at Eddie G. Robinson Memorial Stadium.
Special teams were the difference in the contest, with Grambling’s scoring coming off a pair of Josh McCormick field goals and Delano Franklin’s 64-yard punt return to paydirt with time winding down as theTigers escaped with the win a game in which they had trailed since early in the first quarter when Alabama A&M scored on a David Faulk field goal on the Bulldogs’ first possession of the contest.
GSU coach Mickey Joseph admitted it had been a tough week for the Tigers after last weekend’s injury of starting quarterback C’zavian Teasett, who remains hospitalized in Las Vegas, where Grambling defeated Jackson State 26-24.
Teasett, a redshirt sophomore, was injured with around two minutes remaining in that game.
At the end of a 9-yard run for a first down, Teasett was tackled and remained face down and motionless on the field as GSU medical personnel rushed to his aid. Almost immediately after getting to Teasett, those personnel signaled for more help and equipment.
Eventually Teasett was strapped to a backboard and put into an ambulance that had driven out to the middle of the field and transported directly to a hospital.
During Saturday’s postgame press conference, Joseph admitted it had been a more than challenging experience preparing for and playing against Alabama A&M.
“My kids played with heavy hearts today,” Joseph said. “With what happened to C’za last week, they haven’t been the same. They’ve been messed up this week. This whole staff has been messed up. We went out there today and we played our hearts out. But these kids, these coaches, had a rough week.
“If you’re associated with us you had a rough week. I knew it was going to be like this. To pull this one out, I take my hat off to these players and to these coaches who had a rough week. We’ve got to get back to the drawing board.”
With No, 2 quarterback Ashton Frye also out with injury, the Tigers turned to third-stringer A/Myne Darensbourg, a true freshman, to start the contest.
And when Darensbourg went down with a leg injury and had to be helped off the field late the opening stanza, Joseph was forced to turn to fourth-string quarterback Hayden Benoit, another true freshman.
Alabama A&M was also without its starting quarterback, and the stats told the story of how both offenses struggled.
Grambling totaled only 175 yards of offense while Alabama A&M managed only 143. The Tigers rushed for only 51 yards on 44 attempts, averaging a meager 1.2 yards per carry while the Bulldogs ran for 52 yards on 29 carries.
And the teams combined to convert only 1-of-26 third-down conversion attempts, with GSU’s Andre Crews rushing for two yards on a third-and-one early in the third quarter for the lone successful try.
“It wasn’t great,” Joseph said. “But we knew going in playing with those young quarterbacks that we had to try to establish the run game and slow them down on offense and defense. We lost Darrensbourg, and then Benoit went in, another young kid.
“He’s our fourth guy but now he’s our first guy. We just have a saying around here — we put 11 on the field and we fight like Tigers. They had each other’s back.”
Benoit completed nine-of-13 passes for 91 yards on the day.
Joseph said he urged his team to focus on winning no matter what that win might look like.
“We knew if we won 2-0 or 3-2, it would still be a win,” Joseph said. “Some people focus on how winning should look. We had to just focus on winning the game. And we won. It wasn’t pretty and we knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. Yeah, they were the worst team (in Southwestern Athletic Conference run defense). But just because they’re the worst team doesn’t mean their kids don’t bow their neck and step up.
“We’re going to have to do a better job because it’s going to be the same thing next week. But we focused on winning the game. Our goal was to win the game. They were the worst defense and we knew it, and that’s why we just kept running the ball. Totally different than last year when we tried to throw it on them every down because they were the worst pass defense. So, damned if you do, damned if you don’t. But we won the game.”
After Alabama A&M jumped out to a 10-0 advantage by the end of the first quarter, Grambling tightened things up in the second.
Jalen Guilliard’s interception and 27-yard return early in the second quarter gave the Tigers the ball at the Bulldogs’ 43-yard line. The Tigers managed to get a first down on a fourth-and-four play (the only fourth-down conversion of the contest) when running back Byron Eaton, Jr. took the shotgun snap out of the Wildcat formation and ran for nine yards to keep the drive alive. Four plays later McCormick booted a 40-yard field goal to put Grambling on the scoreboard with 6:06 remaining in the first half.
McCormick’s 30-yard field goal with 23 seconds left in the second quarter cut the Bulldogs’ lead to 10-6 at halftime.
Joseph said that in practice over the week coaches had tried to split reps with Darrensbourg taking 60% of snaps with Benoit taking the other 40%.
“That’s not enough for high school kids, and they’re high school kids,” Joseph said. “The last time they played in a game was in high school. Last year at this time they were eating lunch in a (high school) lunchroom. So, now this stuff is moving pretty fast for them. The best thing we did was we put (Benoit) against (No.) 1 defense and hoped that he didn’t get hit and get hurt, just to try to speed the game up for him.
So, we’re doing everything that’s possible. We’re going to go back and look at this film and fix it, because we’re going to see the same thing next week. (Bethune Cookman, next week’s opponent) is going to load the box. We’ve got some good coaches in the building and they’ll figure it out. We’ll try to open up and tweak (the offense for Benoit) after we see more of him next week in practice and see what he can do.”
Late in the third quarter Grambling tried to cut Alabama A&M’s lead to one-point as McCormick tried a 35-yard field goal. But that attempt was blocked
The tide finally turned in GSU’s favor midway through the final stanza, when Franklin’s punt return gave the Tigers their first lead of the game with the final score of the contest.
“We needed a play,” Joseph said. “We were not moving the ball. And he took advantage of the opportunity when we needed it.”
The win keeps Grambling’s slight postseason hopes alive as the Tigers moved to 6-3 overall and 3-2 in the SWAC West.
Next up for the Tigers will be a home game next weekend against Bethune Cookman, which stands at 5-4 and 4-1 in the SWAC East after defeating Mississippi Valley State 42-34 on Saturday.
