The hot midweek sun greeted the Alabama State football team during its Wednesday afternoon practice.
The Hornets will face the Mississippi Valley State Delta Devils Saturday at 6 p.m. at Cramton Bowl. It's the Blackout game, as fans are encouraged to wear all black. The game can be heard on WVAS 90.7 FM and will be video streamed live free of charge on bamastatesports.com/showcase.
The Hornets worked for about two hours today, getting set for Saturday's home opener and Southwestern Athletic Conference opener for both teams.
“Practice was solid; it was good to be out here in the elements,” head coach
Reggie Barlow said. “It was hot, and sometimes when it's hot, the focus and the attention to detail tends to slack off. For the most part, guys were dialed in and we were able to get some physical work in. The 9-on-7 drill was pretty good today, and we have a few more days to get ready for a good Valley team.”
Another focus of this week's preparation has been post-practice conditioning. A number of Hornet players suffered through physical issues in Sunday's loss to Bethune-Cookman in the MEAC-SWAC Challenge.
“We want to pride ourselves on being a well-conditioned team,” Barlow said. “I think down in Florida, the weather was hot but it could have been hotter. For all the travelling we did, I'm not sure if that had something to do with it. However, we want to be a team that's in great shape. I want to see how the guys respond this week coming off that game to going through practice and conditioning this week.”
The Delta Devils lost their 20-19 home opener to Concordia-Selma last Saturday. Defensively, Mississippi Valley State forced two turnovers, recorded five sacks and allowed just one of 13 third-down conversions.
“Valley is a team that we have a lot of respect for,” Barlow said. “Whenever the head coach (Karl Morgan) is a former defensive coordinator, you know that side of the ball is going to be really tough. They've done a good job defensively in the past forcing turnovers and being strong on third down. (Third down situations) is something we practice regularly. That's a skill-specific thing that we do. Yesterday, we worked third-and-five plays, and today we worked on third-and-long situations. We just have to practice the plays we're good in in those situations.”
The Hornets return to practice Thursday at 11 a.m.
