Hornets conclude Saturday practice with scrimmage
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (bamastatesports.com) – The Alabama State University football team ended its second week of preseason camp with a light scrimmage held at ASU Stadium in Saturday’s second of two practice sessions.
The practice consisted of 10 drives in which the offense showed its dominance of the day by scoring on five of those drives.
On the first drive of the game the offense went 80 yards which was capped with an eight yard touchdown run from Kenneth Thomas.
It didn’t take the offense long to score again as they went the same distance on the third drive of the game which was capped off with a 22 yard touchdown pass from Kobie Jones to Marlon Archer.
“The offense look good and the defense didn’t do so well,” Head Coach Brian Jenkins said. “When your defense plays bad it makes the offense look even better, but the offense did a good job and I commend them.
Wrapped around the scoring the offense did have consecutive turnovers on the fourth and fifth drives of the game. The defense forced a fumble and then Treyon Garnett was able to step in front of a pass and take the interception 35 yards for a defensive touchdown.”
“The offense had two turnovers which is a no-no and we gave up a couple of quarterback sacks, so even though we looked good moving the ball there is still a lot of work we have to do.”
The scrimmage also featured a lot of the young players as the coaching staff dedicated this scrimmage to seeing what the younger players have been able to learn in the first two weeks of camp.
Freshman Jimmy Ferrell was able to throw two touchdown passes late in the scrimmage, one from 25 yards out to Marquez Spencer and a 20 yard strike to Johnnie Pope.
The four touchdowns were wrapped around a 32 yard field goal off the foot of David Albert.
“We wanted to get a look at some guys in live action and see how they respond,” Jenkins said. “I’ll tell you it is going to be a hard choice making out that travel roster because some of those young guys really performed and showed they are ready to play. It was a good showing by our young guys I can say that.”
Alabama State is now 21 days away from their season-opener on Sept. 3 when they travel to Texas to play Texas-San Antonio. And Jenkins is happy they have some days left because there is still a lot to be done.
“We are a work in progress,” Jenkins said. “We have seen some steady improvement in some positions and we see some places we feel real good about. But overall, we’re still a work in progress and there’s one thing I can say I’m happy about and that is the effort of the football team. They have given us effort, and they are focused, their trying to do everything we ask them to do so on that end I’m very pleased.”
The Hornets will use Sunday to attend an area church together and will go through team meetings and a short afternoon practice before hitting the field for regular practice beginning Monday.
