By T. Scott Boatright
After a homecoming win over Alcorn State followed by a victory over No. 1 Jackson State, Grambling State will fight for a third straight win today as the Tigers play at Alabama A&M in a game between two Top 10 HBCU powerhouses at Louis Crews Stadium in Huntsville, Alabama.
Kickoff is scheduled for 2 p.m. CT, with the game available on SWAC TV.
Grambling stands at 4-2 overall and 2-1 in Southwestern Athletic Conference play and is ranked No. 5 in the Boxtorow HBCU poll, while Alabama A&M is 5-2 overall and 2-1 in the SWAC and is ranked No. 4
GSU coach Mickey Joseph hopes his Tigers can continue the momentum they’ve built with the win over Jackson State, which had been ranked No. 1 in the Boxtorow HBCU poll.
“It was a big win — so-called Homecoming Part II with J-State coming in the week after homecoming,” Joseph said. “We had a good game plan. The kids, you know, they showed they’ll fight. They don’t look at the scoreboard, so they’re slowly buying into what I’m telling them we need to do to win.
“And sometimes it’s hard to do that. It’s hard to do that because they have so many people in their ear. But they’re starting to block out the noise and listen to what we’re saying in this building. It’s starting to pay off, so I want to take my hat off to everybody who was involved in that game. Now we have to learn to finish on the road.”
Joseph knows his defense will be challenged by an Alabama A&M offense that scored 55 points last weekend in a win over Bethune-Cookman.
“We’ve got to stop the run,” Joseph said. “We’ve got to do a better job stopping the run. I spoke with (GSU defensive coordinator Jason) Rollins and the D-line coaches. But we’ve got to stop the run. We’ve got to figure out how to do it and see what we need to do and put the best game plan together to win the game this week.
“The thing is, we’ve got to start it and finish it on the road. That’s been the big message to our team this week — ‘You’ve got to finish on the road.’ And I’ll give them a couple examples of where I’m at on that, and they’ll understand what I’m saying.”
Containing Bulldogs quarterback Cornelious Brown IV is another thing Joseph is asking his team to focus on.
“He’s a big-time quarterback,” Joseph said. “We’ve got to figure that out. We’ve got to get the game plan and execute it. Sometimes kids have ideas. We’ve got to execute the game plan because there’s nothing wrong with the scheme. They just have to execute as players, and as coaches, we’ve got to get them to execute the game plan.”
Grambling quarterback Jakobe Robinson, who completed 17 of 21 passes for 212 yards and four touchdowns in last week’s 45-38 win over Jackson State while adding a rushing score, will be looking to build on that performance, as will his head coach.
“(First-year GSU offensive coordinator Bruce Eugene) is doing a good job of slowing Jakobe down in his mind,” Joseph said. “And a lot of people don’t understand this, but when you transfer to multiple schools and you really haven’t played, you’ve spent a lot of time on the sideline analyzing things. But being on the sideline and being in the game are two different things.
“You’ve got to react in the game. And Bruce is doing a good job of getting that out of him. The kid didn’t sign at Boston College, didn’t sign at Southern Miss, for no reason. The kid can play. So, we’ve just got to make sure that we slow things down for him and he’s in tune with the game plan. He’s starting to come out of his shell now and tell us what he likes and what he doesn’t like.”
Today’s contest marks the 32nd all-time meeting between GSU and AAMU. Grambling State leads the all-time series 22-9. The two teams first met in 1989, with the Tigers prevailing 34-22.
The G-Men are looking for their first win in Huntsville since Nov. 10, 2018. GSU won that contest 29-16.
