Alabama A&M notebook

Huntsville Times

Luke gets SWAC'sweekly offensive honor

Alabama A&M quarterback Kelcy Luke was named the Southwestern Athletic Conference Offensive Player of the Week, league officials announced Monday.

Luke, a 6-foot, 205-pound senior from Phenix City, completed 21-of-32 passes for 301 yards and four touchdowns to lead Alabama A&M to a 41-10 shellacking of Clark Atlanta.Through two games, Luke is 38-of-61 for 562 yards and seven touchdowns with just one interception.

A&M's honors: Luke, tailback Ulysses Banks, inside linebacker Quinton Holmes and punter Rashan Cylar were honored by the A&M coaching staff for their play Saturday.

Luke and Banks were named team co-offensive players of the week. Banks rushed for a school-record 211 yards on just 19 carries and scored two touchdowns. A&M finished the game with 608 yards in total offense.

Holmes was named the week's best defensive player after coming up with five tackles, including one tackle for loss and a sack, as the Bulldogs limited the Panthers to 198 yards in total offense.

Cylar was earned the A&M special teams honor. He averaged 34.8 yards on four kicks, including a long of 44 yards.

Bulldogs weren't perfect: Although coach Anthony Jones was pleased with A&M's effort in Saturday's win, the Bulldogs didn't play a perfect game.

A&M gave up a long kickoff return for the second week in a row that helped set up a Clark Atlanta field goal. The Bulldogs were penalized 10 times for 80 yards, gave up three sacks and missed numerous tackles.

"We blew a couple of protections that gave up some sacks," Jones said. "We had some missed assignments. If we clean up our details, we would have scored at least three more touchdowns."

Jones said his team must make corrections in those areas to beat Mississippi Valley State in its SWAC opener Saturday night. Kickoff is at 6:30 at Louis Crews Stadium.

"We've got to get ourselves ready," he said. "We've got to clean up the mistakes we made and try to come up with a good game plan."

Furthermore: With Saturday's victory, Jones tied former A&M coach George Hobson for third place on the school's wins list. Jones is 43-18 in his sixth season with the Bulldogs and needs 11 wins to pass Ray Greene, who was 53-27-5 in eight seasons. Hobson was 43-83-10 in 16 seasons. ... Luke's 301 passing yards left him one yard short of the school's Division I-AA record for a passing yards in a game. Chris Gunn had 302 yards passing against Southern on Oct. 7, 2000.

Reggie Benson