Giardina: Albany State seniors ‘showed up every week’

ALBANY — With season one of the Gabe Giardina era in the books, the Albany State Golden Rams head into the offseason with optimism and a bit of momentum after their 34-9 win over Fort Valley State.

Giardina said they’ll need this enthusiasm as they work to replace the 13 seniors they’ll be losing to graduation.

Emmanuel Bown, Tedrick Cofield, Zane Fields, Nicholas Harris, Marvin Lewis, Quintavious Martin, Yusuf Muhammed, Nick Scott, Zavondric Shingleton, Rodel Shorter, Quardrey Simmons, Marquez Thomas and Stefan Whitehead have been consistent contributors during their time in Albany, Giardina said, and were a large part of team’s success this year.

“Our seniors did a great job of getting in and just trying to buy in and playing hard every game, and it wasn’t easy,” he said. “It’s never easy when you play with three different coaches in four years, nothing’s easy about that. A lot of teams they just go head and tank, but these guys didn’t.”

Giardina added hard work paid off as this year’s class of seniors leaves with an impressive resume.

“They showed up every week, they played their rear ends off, and they deserve our respect,” Giardina said. “They’re a special group. They beat Valdosta State, they beat Tuskegee and they beat Fort Valley in one season. There aren’t many Albany State teams that have done that. And it’s credit to those 12, 13 guys and their hard work and their love for this school.”

While they leave huge voids in play and leadership, particularly on the defensive side of the ball, defensive coordinator Cory Peoples said he’s optimistic up to the task of keeping the “Dirty Blue Defense” a force to be reckoned with in the SIAC.

“We’re young. We’re graduating a lot of guys that were contributors in a lot of ways,” he said. “We’ve just got to make sure our young guys have a great spring. Go out and recruit and gets some guys to play with them. It’s hard to replace experience. You can bring a body in, but experience takes time. So hopefully we can get the guys going that we bring in and get the guys we have coming back to buy in and we can keep it going.”

Giardina echoed these sentiments and said if he could, he would skip right over winter and get right to spring practice.

“I’m so excited for spring ball,” he said. “I can’t wait to recruit young men to this university and put bricks into a solid foundation that’s already here.”