Albany State Rams to take on winless Benedict

ALBANY — The Albany State Rams are just two games away from achieving their goal of returning to the SIAC championship game. With the season coming to a close, maintaining a high level of focus becomes the top priority for the Rams, especially after last week.

The Rams were able to make it out of Atlanta with a 26-14 win over Clark-Atlanta. Despite Jarvis Small rushing for 100 yards, Caleb Edmonds throwing for 150 yards and Jesse Atkins finishing with 92 yards receiving, head coach Dan Land wasn’t pleased with his team’s performance.

The Rams will play host to Benedict and former coach Mike White in their regular-season home finale today at 2 p.m.

While he said they played down to the level of the Panthers (1-7), he did say they didn’t play up to their full potential.

“We really didn’t have a lot of improvement in that game to be honest with you,” he said. “We didn’t play our best ball. Defensively, we allowed certain things to happen because our concentration level wasn’t there for whatever the reason was. Clark did some things that we had to make some adjustments to.”

He added that the offense didn’t look too sharp either.

“Offensively, we didn’t move the ball like we wanted to,” he said. “We went in with a good game plan. We obviously knew we were gonna run the ball, but passing the ball, we just wanted Caleb to be able to manage the game, just control it. For the most part he did, but I prefer to see a little bit more running and a little bit more controlling of the ball.”

Saturday will be a true test of focus for the Rams as White returns. Aside from doing too much to impress the former ball coach, they also have to worry about playing down to the level of their competition as the Tigers come in winless on the season.

Benedict (0-8) is coming off a 42-10 loss to Morehouse, a team Albany State beat soundly two weeks ago during homecoming. In that loss, the Tigers turned the ball over four times and gave up four touchdowns of 50 yards or more. The Tigers were held to just 188 total yards of offense, while giving up 429. Benedict struggled to extend drives, going just 2 of 12 on third down conversions.

While the Rams come in with the tools to get the job done, Land said anything can happen if his team lets their guard down.