ALBANY STATE FOOTBALL NOTEBOOK: Albany State Rams pleased with progress

At the halfway point of the season, Albany State head football coach Mike White isn’t ready to assign a grade to his team.

The Rams are 3-2 overall, 3-0 in the SIAC, and getting better.

The defense has posted back-to-back shutouts in victories over Paine and Lane College, while the offense scored the most points in a game this season in last Saturday night’s 33-0 victory over Lane. They also fell just short of amassing 500 yards of total offense, finishing with 486.

“That’s a tough one,” White said of grading his team. “I just like our progress. We’ve been slowly improving each week and I think our grade comes out when we see if things are for real. I would like our offense to play like that again before we stick a grade on the season.”

Consistency is what ASU coaches hope for when the Rams travel to Atlanta for their annual conference battle with Morehouse Saturday at 2 p.m. The Maroon Tigers dropped their first game last week – a 49-0 shellacking against Tuskegee in Columbus – but trail Albany State by just a game in the SIAC East Division.

The Rams lead the division, but Fort Valley State and Morehouse have just one conference loss each.

White said he is pleased with his team’s mentality. The players have stressed improvement.

“That’s what I love about this team, in fact I heard during the game, I heard in the locker room after the game, their approach is they want to get better for the next opponent,” White said. “As a coach, you’ve got to love that, especially the fact that the guys are not caught up in the wind or caught up in touchdowns.

“They stay on a basic even-keel, and they try to get ready for their next opponent. As a coach, you’ve got to be pleased with that.”

BEST SHOT: Junior running back Jarvis Small knows Albany State will get Morehouse’s best shot on Saturday.

“You have to prepare for everybody like it’s a big game because everybody is going to come at us because we’ve been the top dog for a while,” Small said. “You just have to play at a high level every time you step onto the field. We know everybody is going to get up for us, so we have to play above their level. We’re going to get everybody’s best shot.”

PENALTY DECREASE: Albany State cut its penalties in half last Saturday against Lane College, getting flagged eight times for 86 yards, down from two weeks ago when the Rams were penalized 15 times in a 17-0 victory over Paine College on Oct. 4.

But eight is still too many for White.

“I didn’t really worry about the numbers so much as the bone-headed ones,” White said. “We shoved the guy out of bounds, which I thought was a terrible decision. Pass interference, we’ve warned our guys about the same things in practice, then we made a hit too close to the sidelines, which we’ve got to let those things go.

“About half of them I thought we could have made better decisions on.”

THIS AND THAT: Albany State will be Morehouse’s homecoming opponent again on Saturday. … Last weekend was the last time ASU will play under the lights. ASU’s final four regular-season games will begin at 2 p.m., including next week’s home finale at the Albany State Coliseum against Clark-Atlanta. It will also be Albany State’s homecoming.