By T. Scott Boatright
Grambling State’s football team looks to improve to 2-0 as the Tigers play host to Central State at 6 p.m. Saturday inside Eddie G. Robinson Memorial Stadium.
The Tigers are coming off a 49-7 win over Clark Atlanta, while Central State fell 41-14 at home to Kentucky State to open its season.
GSU coach Mickey Joseph feels the win by his Tigers was a good start but is looking for improvement in Game 2.
“After reviewing the film, I’m going to take my hat off to my staff and those players, because going into that game blind — not having any film — once we caught on to some things, we were able to be successful,” Joseph said. “Their defense gave us a little trouble with their movement. We didn’t expect that much movement.
“I was very disappointed in the penalties. I went over it with the team — all of those penalties can be fixed. And there were some problems with our special teams coverage. But it’s on me. I’ve got to make sure we do a better job of coaching each position on special teams.”
Joseph said he’ll keep a close watch on special teams play against Central State.
“Overall, we won the game,” Joseph said. “Our goal was to go 1-0 and we did. We have a lot of room to grow. A lot of kids, it was their first time playing a college game.
“Some of those guys hadn’t played special teams since their freshman or sophomore year in high school. And they’ll get better. I asked (special teams coordinator Alan) Ricard to give them one more week, and if they give us the same performance, we’ll make some personnel changes on special teams.”
Grambling played four quarterbacks against Clark Atlanta.
Starter Jakobe Robinson, a transfer from Southern Mississippi, completed 7 of 11 passes for 71 yards. Ashton Frye connected on 2 of 5 passes for 26 yards while adding 24 rushing yards on three carries.
Reginald Johnson, a transfer from Florida A&M, completed 15 of 17 passes for 133 yards, including an 11-yard scoring strike to redshirt sophomore receiver Tyson George. Hayden Benoit completed both of his passes for 34 yards while directing GSU’s final scoring drive.
“We think we have a very talented quarterback room,” Joseph said. “I thought Jakobe played well after he settled down. I thought Ashton came back and played well after he settled down.
“RJ (Johnson) looked more poised, but if you look around at that position, he has more hours of starting. And when Benoit went into the game, he was poised because he had some starts (last year) under his belt. This is a good problem to have. But we have to keep them in competition because that position is close right now.”
Joseph didn’t divulge who he believes will become his definitive starting quarterback, saying the competition could continue into Southwestern Athletic Conference play.
“We look at these out-of-conference games as the time to figure it out,” Joseph said. “But we’ve got to have it figured out by the time we go play PV (Prairie View in GSU’s fourth game at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas on Sept. 26).
“We should have a definite starter by the PV game. We might have one this week, but we don’t want to announce it because we want to keep this race competitive.”
Joseph also wants to see the kind of ball control that allowed his Tigers to hold a 34:03-25:57 time-of-possession advantage over Clark Atlanta.
“(Clark Atlanta) only played 55 snaps,” Joseph said. “I think that’s the least snaps the other offense has taken since I got here. That’s because we ran it 39 times and threw it 35 times, so it was balanced.
“We ran the ball well, and when you can run the ball well, that keeps the defense off the field and keeps the defense fresh. We think we have a good defense with a lot of depth. But we’ve got to keep them fresh.”
The main thing Joseph wants to see against the Marauders is continued improvement.
“I think the biggest jump in college football is from Week 1 to Week 2,” Joseph said. “So I want to see less penalties. I want to see better special teams play. I want to see our run game get really better and the pass game also. We still have room to improve.
“On defense, I want to see us rush the passer. I want everybody to be on the same page. We’ve been running these coverages since the spring. We’re looking for improvement across the board.”
Joseph also wants his players to eliminate some of the extracurricular talking he saw in the opener.
“We’ve talked to the kids about playing up to the Grambling State football standard of performance,” Joseph said. “We’ve got to do that no matter who we’re playing against.
“I told my kids I didn’t like yakking — the talking, the taunting. Let’s just play football. You take away from your energy when you do all that talking.”
