MONTGOMERY, Alabama -- The Alabama State University football team held its' second scrimmage of preseason camp and once again the defense showed how strong it was in controlling most of the scrimmage. The difference was in today's scrimmage the Hornets' offense did show some marked improvement by scoring three touchdowns and kicking two field goals.
"Of course last week I was a little disappointed, but this one here was a little better," Head Coach Reggie Barlow said. "Offensively we started out a little slowly but the guys fought back. Obviously we know our defense is playing with a lot of confidence right now and doing some good things, but I was encouraged to see our offense fight back."
In the 60-play scrimmage the Hornets offense managed 230 yards on 53 offensive plays, with three of those plays culminating in touchdown passes; two from Quinterius Toppings and one from true freshman Cardelral Cook.
ASU's rushing game managed 96 yards on 29 carries and while the quarterbacks were rushed and harassed most of the scrimmage they did manage to complete 11 of their 23 pass attempts for 134 yards and the three scores.
Daniel Duhart actually led the rushing offense with 30 yards on two carries while freshman walkon Brandon Watkins finished with 20 yards on four carries. The Hornets top running backs Malcolm Cyrus and Khalid Thomas were held out of action.
Photos from today's scrimmage
"When you're missing Khalid and of course Malcolm it's tough and we have Bates (Offensive tackle Matthew) out," Barlow said. "We have a lot of players not practice; Barnes our other real good tight end, so we had to adjust a little bit without changing a whole bunch of what we do, but the guys that were there found a way to fight through it and I was encouraged by that, but it makes it awfully tough on the offense when 80 percent of your offense is standing on the sideline."
Toppings led the quarterbacks completing seven of his 12 attempts for the two scores and 98 yards. He threw a 40 yard scoring pass to freshman Joe Williams and a 39 yarder to another freshman Brenten Lindsey.
Cook only attempted two passes but completed one of those from 20 yards out to Shawan Parks for the third scoring toss of the scrimmage.
ASU starter Daniel Duhart only played a few series and completed four of his 10 attempts for 16 yards.
"There were a ton of big plays made today," Barlow said. "QT (Toppings) made some great throws as did Cook and some of the freshmen guys stepped up with big catches."
On defense, Kourtney Berry and Deontrelle Silmon led the way with six stops each. Silmon had two stops behind the line of scrimmage and Berry added another.
Like last week, the defense was in the offensive backfield a lot of the scrimmage with 10 stops behind the line of scrimmage (-47 yards) and had six sacks which cost the offense 36 yards.
Kadeem Murray had two of the sacks while Antonio Humphrey, Robert Brown, Edward Mosley and Derrick Billups added sacks.
The defense added a defensive score, just as they did in last week's scrimmage, although this time it was by a fumble return. Humphrey forced a fumble midway through the scrimmage and Selwyn Torbert scooped up the loose ball and made his way down the field for 56 yards for the score.
ASU is breaking in two freshmen kickers and spent a lot of time on the kicking games over the past week of practice and it seemed to show as both kickers showed some improvement.
Adam Shepherd hit his two field goal attempts, one from 42 yards out and another from 45. He hit two of his three extra point attempts and averaged 32 yards per punt on his two punts without any return yardage.
Preston Clark missed two field goals, but made up for by hitting all three of his extra points and boomed a 49 yard punt in his only punt attempt.
"Our kickers, I love those guys," Barlow said. "Adam Shepherd and Preston Clark today had an opportunity to do some stuff in some special teams work early on. I wanted to see those guys kick here in the stadium and I though Adam's leg was really alive today. He had some good kickoffs and really did well on field goals."
"Preston, I think he missed a field goal, but he still did a good job for us and hit a really good punt, so we're encouraged by that. Our thing is these guys are untested, fresh out of high school, and we have to keep working with them. Like I mentioned to them it's about them gaining their confidence."
ASU will be off on Sunday, but will be back on the practice field at 3 p.m. Monday afternoon to begin their third week of preseason camp.
COURTESY ALABAMA STATE UNIVERSITY ATHLETICS MEDIA RELATIONS
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