Albany State ready to shine on homecoming

ALBANY — Albany State has won its last two games and moved to .500 for the first time this season.

Even more than putting on a good showing for the homecoming crowd Saturday afternoon at the Albany State Coliseum, head coach Dan Land wants to see his team finish strong. ASU plays host to Clark-Atlanta at 2 p.m.

In the Rams’ last two victories over Miles College and Morehouse, Albany State has built big leads early, then held on to win by narrow margins. The inability to develop a killer instinct and finishing games has Land concerned.

“I am because we haven’t done it yet,” he said. “There’s different ways that you can get to your guys and make them finish. My guys are relaxed. What we are seeing now is our guys are relaxed and thinking these guys can’t play with us. But what they haven’t realized yet is that everybody wants to beat Albany State.

“So even though you may be up two or three touchdowns, them guys are going to continue to play because they still want to beat you. Then the next thing you know, it’s a ball game again. Now you’ve got to play. I know we’ve had a few games like that.”

Clark-Atlanta has won four straight since falling in overtime to Fort Valley State on Sept. 17. ASU leads the series 25-2 with the Panthers and has won 14 straight. Clark’s last victory was a 17-14 victory in 2001.

An ASU victory Saturday would put the Rams in the driver’s seat in the SIAC East Division with just two regular season games left. Land hopes the homecoming distractions won’t play a role. The players have tried hard not to get caught up in the festivities.

“Stay focused, you can have fun here and there, but you know what you have to do at the end of the day,” defensive lineman Monte Taylor said.

The Panthers (5-2, 3-2 SIAC East) will present a stern test, but Land said the Rams know what is at stake, at least as far as conference play is concerned. This is the second of a four-game stretch of East Division opponents.

“They know,” he said. “We’ve been talking about this since the hurricane came through and we were supposed to go and play Charleston Southern. We’ve got a four-game (SIAC East) schedule and we take it one game at at time and each one of these games are important because they are conference games. You can’t afford to lose a game and then think that you are going to the championship game … it’s not going to happen, so you have to win every game.”