Berry earns SWAC weekly defensive honor in Alcorn loss
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (bamastatesports.com) – Alabama State University head football coach Brian Jenkins talked with the national media through the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) head coaches teleconference Monday morning and took some time to reflection Saturday night’s hard-fought loss at Alcorn State and also looked ahead to this week’s opponent, Southern University.
“As far as our game with Alcorn, it was an Ali-Frazier type of event,” Jenkins said. “It went back-and-forth and I’ll tell you what, Alcorn deserves to be called champion. They found a way to make a play when a play was needed and so congratulations to them and their coach, Coach McNair.”
“We came in and we played to win and they wanted to win. The game showed the effort of both teams and both teams were exhausted, and the coaching staff was exhausted afterwards because of the effort. It was a good football game and they won and we lost. There are no excuses. We didn’t do a good enough job to win and they did. It came down to the last play and once again they needed a play and they made it and that is what championship football teams do and that’s why they won and you have to commend them for that.”
The task for the Hornets will not get any easier this weekend as they hit the road for the third consecutive week and will face a Southern team that many think could find their way to the SWAC Championship game as the West Division Champion.
Like the Hornets, Southern enters the game with a 0-2 record and will be coming off a 66-21 loss to FBS and Conference USA-member Tulane University.
“This week we will be up against another juggernaut in Southern,” Jenkins said. “They are playing really well. They are putting up some points and really moving the ball. We have our work cut out for us, which we knew we would, again. We are going to prepare to win and we are going to go in and lay it all on the line, give it all we’ve got. Hopefully we can play a little more detailed and maybe we can come away with a victory.”
The SWAC also announced the weekly honors for this past weekend and senior linebacker Kourtney Berry has been named the SWAC’s Defensive Player of the Week.
Berry had missed the first game of the season at Texas-San Antonio, but that did not seem to bother the Preseason Defensive Player of the Year. Playing a limited number of plays, the Indiana native finished the game with a team-high 10 tackles (4 solo). He also had a tackle behind the line of scrimmage and also forced two fumbles which ASU recovered.
Opening kickoff for the game in Baton Rouge has been set for 6 p.m. All the live action can be heard on the Hornet Radio Network.
