Albany State Rams take positives from loss to Valdosta State Blazers

VALDOSTA — Albany State quarterback Caleb Edmonds beat himself up pretty badly outside the visitor’s locker room at Bazemore-Hyder Stadium late Saturday night following Albany State’s 16-7 loss to Valdosta State.

Despite helping the Rams outgain VSU 377-204 in total offense, three Blazer third-quarter scores as well as four turnovers sent Albany State to its 17th loss in 18 tries against Valdosta State.

Two of Edmonds’ four interceptions were deflected passes, including one by former Deerfield-Windsor standout Gaughf Ivey late in the third quarter that Dante Robinson caught at the Rams’ five-yard line, setting up the go-ahead score.

Edmonds said he would have liked to have had that throw back.

“I do, but you know the guy tipped it up and when the ball goes into the air like that, it’s bad,” Edmonds said. “No quarterback likes that and no offense likes that. It’s going to be bad most of the time.”

Valdosta State scored its final touchdown as time expired to end the third quarter.

While the Rams played well enough on defense to win the game, they can’t look back at Saturday night’s game.

With a trip to Phenix City, Ala. to face Tuskegee in the White Water Classic Saturday, Albany State must keep moving forward.

“Tuskegee,” head coach Dan Land said. “We’ve got to go get them. We’ve got to find a way to go get them. We need to see the good things we did and the mistakes we made, make corrections and then move on to Tuskegee.”

Land and the Rams chose to dwell on many of the positives. Edmonds threw for 157 yards on 15 of 30. He threw passes to five different receivers, including eight to former Westover standout Ta’Keevian Harris who finished with 74 yards. In addition, Michael Green, who also played at Westover, finished with four catches for 39 yards.

Former Bainbridge wideout Tyler Storey caught a key 21-yard pass on the Rams’ only scoring drive, which set up Edmonds’ six-yard touchdown gallop.

“There was some good things that I liked but also some bad things,” Edmonds said. “You know the bad things are the reason that we lost. We’re just going to take the good, try to fix the bad and get ready for Tuskegee next week.

“A lot of guys stepped up, Ta’Keevian (Harris), Mike Green, Quadrey (Simmons), he’s a veteran. Even Tyler Story, a freshman stepped up and made a huge catch for us. It’s positive to see. We’ve got nine more games, so it’s really positive to see going forward.”

One of the biggest positives Land took was the play of the defense, which held a potent Valdosta State offense scoreless in the first half and 10 of VSU’s 16 points came off turnovers. The Blazers’ longest scoring drive was 42 yards.

“We don’t like that we lost, but we feel really good that on defense, we know what we’re doing,” safety Nick Scott said. “We’ve got everything together and we see how good we can be.”