Alabama State Hornets, Tennessee State Tigers Set to Meet on the Gridiron

GAME TELEVISED ON ASPIRE TELEVISION NETWORK (Find Aspire Channel)

MONTGOMERY, Alabama -- The Alabama State University football Hornets are set to open the home portion of the 2014 schedule when they play host to the reigning 2013 National Black College Champions and 14th-ranked Tennessee State University. The game has been deemed the Inaugural Classic as the entire week of events at ASU has been built around Dr. Gwendolyn Boyd's Inauguration as 14th President at Alabama State University.

TSU (1-0) enters the game coming off a convincing 58-6 season opening victory over Edward Waters. The Tigers rushed for an FCS-high 439 yards during the game as the two teams played the game in a driving rainstorm.

"It's the Inaugural Classic as our new President is having her Inauguration and we're having a good opponent here in Tennessee State," Head Coach Reggie Barlow said. "We have a lot of respect for them. They are a great program and they have been picked as the favorite to win the HBCU National Championship this year, so we do understand what type of challenge we have."

"Our young men have been practicing hard all week and we are looking forward to playing here in our home stadium and seeing how we measure up to a really good Tennessee State team."

TSU will present a different type of problem for the Hornets as their high-powered offense is more of a traditional offense and not one of the various spread offenses now used.

"It's a huge challenge for our defense," Barlow said. "Tennessee State will run a pro-style offense and they have great skill players. They have a really good running back that transferred from the University of Tennessee and their quarterback has a great skill set. He can make all the throws and their system is good and their offensive line is a big, big group of guys."

"Again our defense will have its work cut out for them, but that is what this is right now. Its college football, we signed up for it so we're looking forward to going out and playing Alabama State football, getting lined up and playing with passion and enthusiasm. We don't need to pay attention to the scoreboard because that will take care of itself."

The Hornets (0-1) enter the game after suffering a season-opening road loss at #16 Sam Houston State University. In fact it may be the first time in the history of the football program the Hornets have faced back-to-back nationally-ranked opponents.

"There definitely has to be some improvement from last week," Barlow said. "I didn't think we tackled well in the first game and we put a special focus on tackling this week. We were not very good on third down offensively or defensively and that's another thing we put emphasis on this week. We are hoping we made great strides this week against Tennessee State in those areas."

The game is scheduled to kick off at 4 p.m. and will be televised live on the Aspire Television Network. The game can also be listened to on HornetVision at bamastatesports.com

COURTESY ALABAMA STATE UNIVERSITY ATHLETIC MEDIA RELATIONS