By T. Scott Boatwright
GRAMBLING — Grambling State football coach Mickey Joseph means business as he looks to ground and pound opposing defenses into submission.
But Joseph also knows you also to keep those defenses off balance with a little passing to help establish the run.
It was the Gold team that took care of business best Saturday afternoon as it blanked the Black team 21-0 in GSU’s Annual Spring Game at Eddie G. Robinson Memorial Stadium.
The Gold team started strong, with quarterback C’Zavian Teasett connecting with Keith Jones on a 21-yard scoring strike that put their team on top 7-0 at the 5:09 mark of the opening stanza.
That would be the only score of the first half as GSU coach Mickey Joseph didn’t have his Tigers do anything fancy on the offensive side of the ball, opting to keep things basic and focus on player evaluation.
“We stayed in open sets and tried to keep it vanilla,” Joseph said. “We were just kinda looking at assignments first — make sure you do your assignment, and then we wanted to see you compete. And I thought I saw some good things. I’m sure after watching film we’ll find some things we need to clean up.
“As you can see, we’re investing into running the football,” Joseph said. “I think we have some good young backs. I think we have some good young receivers, but the first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to run it to throw it and then throw it when we need to.”
Phillips had the longest run of the first half with a 16-yard scamper while Eaton had the longest run of the contest as he raced around right end and sprinted 57 yards down the sideline for the Gold team’s final touchdown with 8:51 remaining in the game.
Grambling’s running back corps is led by graduate student Dedrick Talbert, who was joined by Tony Phillips and Clyde McClendon handling running duties for the Black squad while Byron Eaton Jr., Andre Crews and Roderick McCrary handled the ball-toted duties for Team Gold.”
“Talbert is the senior in the group and has been around a while — he got an extra year with the junior college rule, so he came back,” Joseph said. “He didn’t have to come back, but that’s a credit to our coaching staff that he came back. So he’s our leader, our banger. Then you have Eaton, a young kid, and Tony Phillips and Crews — kids that are home run hitters. Then you have McClendon, another banger like Talbert but he’s a redshirt freshman.
“So we’ve got three or four redshirt freshmen back there. We’ve got to get them better in protection. We know when we give them the ball, they see it. They just have to trust their vision. And we have McCurdy. Rod had a good day running the ball, and Rod’s the fifth back, but that doesn’t mean anything in this offense because there might be a game where you play five backs to keep their legs fresh. At Nebraska we played five running backs a game, because that’s how you’re going to keep them fresh if you’re going to bang them.”
Joseph credited the play of his offensive line, under the guidance of new OL coach Erik Losey, who has reclaimed the same role he played at GSU from 2014-21, for their efforts in the Spring Game.
“I think Losey coming in as the offensive line coach, he’s doing a real good job with them,” Joseph said. “They’re doing some different things up front. They understand that. An offensive lineman loves to hear that we’re going to run the football. They really don’t want to hear that you’re going to throw the football. They’d rather go forward than backwards. That’s anybody. I’d rather go forward. They understand and are buying into it. They’re really better run blockers than pass blockers. I think that goes for a lot of kids in this league. So we’re going to play to their strength. We’re going to test the A and B gap and we’re going to see what they can do.”
Teasett had the best day out of Grambling’s quarterbacks, adding a second touchdown with 11:50 left on the scoreboard as he hit Nick Howard on a 24-yard scoring pass to put the Gold team on top 14-0.
Ashton Frye and Jerome Stewart also each took snaps playing quarterback for the Gold team while Ty Keyes and Tyler Turner were the Black team QBs.
“First of all, I think (quarterbacks) Coach (Shyrone) Carey is doing a great job with them,” Joseph said. “He’s being real detailed with them and they know where to go with the ball. That’s the big thing for me, because with quarterbacks, taking care of the football and making good decisions goes hand in hand. I think Coach Carrier’s done a good job with them. I thought Frye was solid this spring along with Teasettt and Keyes. I thought Tyler came along also.
Despite Teasett’s performance, Joseph wasn’t ready to talk about a starting quarterback after the Spring game was over.
“We still have a way to go at that position,” Joseph said. “You want to pick a starter. And we’ll meet on Monday and figure out if we need to pick a starter. I’m in no hurry. I’m in no hurry to pick a starter because I think you still have to have two going into the season that can play. I think that if you have two, you have one. If you have one, you have none. But if we have three, we have two. So we’ve got to think along those lines. I thought they all did a good job this spring of catching on to the offense that I want, and we’re going to go from there, because at the end of the day, the offensive play call is going to come out of my mouth. Jerome did a good job of being on the same page that I would be on.”
One thing Joseph said he did like in the Spring Game was the way the Gold team took care of business.
“I like the way the Gold team finished,” Joseph said. “They pulled away with it. When it’s 7-0 and you get an opportunity to make it 14-0. Then you get another big run and make it 21-0. And you’re smart — you’re smart with the clock. That’s how you get them off the field. We’re going to play complementary football this year. But the first thing we’re going to do is run it.”
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
