Albany State looking to bounce back against West Georgia

ALBANY — For the first time this season, the Albany State Rams are in a position where they are looking to bounce back from a loss.

After suffering the first loss of the season to North Greenville last week, Albany State head coach Gabe Giardina said things get no easier this week with a trip to West Georgia. The game is scheduled for a 2 p.m. kickoff, with a link to streaming video of the game available at uwgsports.com.

“I think West Georgia is the most talented team we’ve seen so far,” Giardina said. “I think they can really run at a lot of different positions. Offensively, I think they do what they do running their zone stuff and spread stuff.”

The Rams made a late comeback last week against North Greenville, but it wasn’t enough. Albany State lost 35-27, dropping the Rams out of the AFCA Division II Top 25.

Giardina said the Albany State defense gave up too many rushing yards, allowing two runners to top 100 as North Greenville racked up 251 total on the ground.

“They were able to run the ball on us better than anybody else has so far,” he said. “In order for us to win ball games, that’s the No. 1 thing we’ve got to do. We have to get people in passing situations, and we just weren’t able to do that.”

West Georgia (2-1), which also dropped out of the AFCA Division II Top 25 following a 17-7 loss to Delta State, enters the contest averaging 212 rushing yards and 222.3 passing yards per game.

ASU defensive coordinator Corey Peoples said the goal is to make the Wolves beat the Rams through the air rather than on the ground, something Albany State wasn’t able to do against North Greenville.

“We’ve got to play with better fundamentals and technique and probably make a little better in game adjustments,” he said. “(North Greenville) kinda exposed us on some things that we honed in on this week and got better fundamentally.”

Offensively, Giardina said the Rams have been moving the ball well but don’t have the points to show for it. ASU’s offense has generated 421.7 yards per game but just 25.33 points. Giardina said the redzone offense has to improve going forward.

“When the field shrinks, you’ve got to execute that much better,” he said. “I think it shows up a little bit more in the redzone, and so it may be a missed block here or we didn’t execute quite well. It’s been more execution than anything. We’ve been in position to make some plays, and have made some, but we’ve got to continue to make a bunch.”

Giardina said his offense will be tested by a talented and disciplined Wolves defense that has only given up an average of 268.7 total yards per game.

“Defensively, they’re just very stingy,” he said. “They run hard, they get to the ball, they don’t get out of character very often.”

The Rams will continue to rely on the steady attack of running backs McKinley Habersham and Kelan Fraise. Habersham enters the contest averaging 99 yards per game, followed closely by Fraise with 77.