Rams try to remain undefeated in SIAC

ALBANY — The Albany State Rams are one of just three SIAC teams that remain undefeated in conference play, and they look to continue that streak as they head north to take on Clark Atlanta at 2 p.m. on Saturday.

ASU is coming off a 34-10 Homecoming win over Morehouse. It was a game in which the “Dirty Blue Defense” kept Morehouse’s offense out of the end zone while holding the Maroon Tigers to just 180 total yards of offense.

On the season, the Rams are allowing just 18.7 points per game on 283.4 total yards of offense.

“I think we need to keep doing the things we’ve been doing the last couple weeks, and that’s tackling well and getting to the quarterback,” Albany State head coach Gabe Giardina said. “After watching the film, we did a great job of affecting the quarterback and his decision making, not giving him all day to sit there and pat the ball.

“I give Coach (Cory) Peoples credit for that. We kind of changed some things, got a little pass rush package in there with our personnel group, and it’s really helped some things.”

Offensively, the Rams enter the contest averaging 27.1 points on 348.6 total yards of offense. They’ll face a Clark Atlanta team that yields 23.7 points on 318 total yards of offense.

Giardina said the offensive line has to be ready to go Saturday.

“I think they do a good job of mixing their defense,” he said. “(Clark head coach Kevin Ramsey) is really imaginative, he’s aggressive defensively. So we gotta be ready for pressure and we gotta block them. We gotta cover guys up and do a good job of not just cutting free runners to the ball.”

He also said the offense has to get out the gate faster and get into a rhythm earlier. Offensive coordinator Newland Isaac said Morehouse’s defense had some tricks up its sleeve that kept the Rams off-balance in the first half.

“We were just more locked in and more focused on our assignments,” Isaac said. “In the first half they tried to beat us mentally and tried to do a bunch of different stuff that our guys didnt adjust to. Second half it was basically the same stuff, our guys just handled it a little better than they did in the first half.”

The Maroon Tigers got to ASU quarterback Chancellor Johnson six times and returned his second interception of the season for their only touchdown of the game.

“That was part of the confusion. They did a lot of different movements on us and tried to confuse our o-line a little bit, and it worked in the first half,” Isaac said. “We got them settled down in the second down, and it was a little bit better.”

Isaac added that having seen creative defenses like Morehouse’s should give them an edge heading into Saturday’s matchup.

“They’re very similar to Morehouse and Lincoln as far as far as trying to do a bunch of different defense,” he said. “They try to confuse you with that aspect of it, and that’s how they’ve been able to be a little bit stingy and confuse some teams and shut some teams down. We’ve seen similar style the last two weeks and feel like we should be fine as long as we prepare like we should.”