Scenes from the 2011 A&M Fan Day


Pictures from the Fan Day Scrimmage


The Huntsville Times Original Story


HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - Alabama A&M head coach Anthony Jones said all was not lost following Saturday's scrimmage, but he was thankful the Bulldogs have two weeks to get ready for their season opener against Hampton.

"We've got a long way to go," said Jones, entering his 10th season. "What I was looking for was our level of execution. It was spotty at best. We're still trying to grasp what's going on out there, but that's why we've got two weeks to get ready."

The situation scrimmage featured A&M's offense against Hampton's defense and vice versa. In the end, it wasn't very pretty.

Unofficially, quarterback Deaunte Mason completed 14-of-25 passes for 230 yards and an interception, while engineering three touchdown drives.

Running back Kaderius Lacey scored two touchdowns on runs of 6 and 4 yards, while running back Terrell Badie had an 11-yard touchdown run. Lacey finished with 46 yards on 13 carries, while Badie had 14 yards on six carries.

"Over time, we'll get better," Mason said. "Everybody is learning where they need to be. I feel like it was a good day. We made a lot of progress, but there's always room for improvement."

Jones agreed.

"We dropped a lot of balls today," he said. "I venture to say we dropped six to 10 passes. We're not going to beat many people if we drop that many passes. We still have a lot of rust on us, particularly dealing with what Hampton does. We've got to get used to what they're doing and we've got to prepare for a lot of unknowns."

G'Alonzo Milton,who missed last week's scrimmage dealing with some personal problems, led all receivers with six catches for 108 yards. Terrance Pride had seven catches for 74 yards, while Reshaad DeJarnett had six catches for 55 yards. Montarius Smith had three catches for 64 yards.

While A&M struggled offensively, the Bulldogs' defense was stout, forcing five turnovers [- four interceptions and a fumble [- and coming away with three sacks.

Freshmen Chris Ervin, Jimelle James and David Dagrin had interceptions along with sophomore Theron Rice.

"I thought we responded well to what we saw today," defensive coordinator Brawnski Towns said. "We're getting better at our assignments and we had some youngsters step up today and make some plays."

Inside linebacker Willie Fuller said the Bulldogs are close to being ready to play.

"We're almost there," he said. "We're running to the ball, but we need to carry out our assignments a little better. We'll get there over the next two weeks."

That's what Jones is counting on.

"Next week I expect us to be sharper and in the game I expect us to be our sharpest," he said. "It's about progressing. We've got to step in this thing. We can't just jump. We've got to take steps and get prepared."