Young UAPB linebackers step up
Running a 4-2 defense, the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff played without three of its top linebackers for the second straight game.
It is still not clear what has ailed starters Timon Akins and Monroe Beard and backup Isaac Peppers, but they missed the Southern University and Texas Southern University games. True freshman Mike Riley and sophomore Rylan Woods filled the starting roles again this past Saturday, and UAPB (2-4, 0-3 Southwestern Athletic Conference) produced one of its better defensive efforts of the season despite a 24-17 loss to Texas Southern.
The 24 points allowed to Texas Southern is the second fewest the Golden Lions have given up all year. Only the 3 points allowed to North American University in Week 2 was better.
“We had to coach up what you had to work with,” Lions Coach Doc Gamble said. “I think the defensive staff came up with a great game plan. We didn’t want [Texas Southern quarterback Andrew] Body to move the ball. We didn’t want him to have a game like he had against us a year ago. Our younger linebacking crew, those guys stepped up with a redshirt freshman, redshirt sophomore, true freshman. They did a good job.”
Gamble was also impressed by the defense of Texas Southern, which ranks third in the SWAC at 22.2 points per game allowed. The Golden Lions were held to their third-lowest point total of the season.
“Good brand of defense for them,” Gamble said of Texas Southern. “All you have to do is look at their scores with comparable opponents. They’re a little stingy on defense, and that’s different about them from past years. Good game. Proud of our guys for how they fought. I was disappointed of the result of it, but we’ve got to find a way to win these close games.”
FIRST LOOK AT ALABAMA A&M
The Lions can still turn their season around starting with a win against Alabama A&M (24, 2-1 SWAC) at The Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis. Kickoff is scheduled for 3 p.m. Sunday.
The teams last met on neutral turf for the spring 2021 SWAC championship, which Alabama A&M won 40-32 in come-frombehind fashion. The Bulldogs have won two straight this year, needing double overtime to beat Grambling State University 37-31.
MEN BEHAVING BADLY
Prior to kickoff Saturday, players from Prairie View A&M and Southern engaged in an all-out brawl without shoulder pads.
It was not clear what precipitated the fight, which was caught on video, but it marked Southern Coach Eric Dooley’s return to Prairie View, where he had previously coached. Southern won the game, 45-13.
The SWAC is reviewing video of the brawl, according to The Advocate newspaper of Baton Rouge.
A brawl at the end of a 2011 Southern game at UAPB resulted in multiple suspensions against both teams handed down by the conference.
SANDERS VS. ROBINSON
The incident that caught more immediate and national attention was Alabama State University Coach Eddie Robinson Jr.’s stiff-arm of Jackson State University Coach Deion Sanders following J-State’s win. Sanders attempted to embrace Robinson when the latter stuck out his arm to prevent him from doing so. Sanders reacted as if to ask why he had gotten such treatment.
Robinson said after the game he felt Sanders was being disrespectful the whole week leading up to the game. Sanders reportedly criticized Alabama State for scheduling Jackson State as the homecoming opponent despite being defending SWAC champions and undefeated this season.
“We didn’t talk in the pregame. I was out there the whole time at the 50-yard line,” Robinson said during his postgame interview, a video of which appeared on FoxNews.com. “He walked through our whole huddle and our end zone and came the long way around to get to his side of the field during the pregame. I didn’t think that was classy at all. So, in the postgame, I’m not about to give you the Obama brolove. I’m going to shake your hand and go home.”
Sanders said that has been his personal tradition since his NFL playing days to run around the field and was not making an unsportsmanlike gesture toward Alabama State.
“It was nothing personal to invoke any riotous act against them,” Sanders said in an ESPN College Football video. “That’s not who I am. That’s not what I stand for. That’s not what I am about.”