The Falcons football team will face the Miami RedHawks on Saturday afternoon as the team continues their Mid-American Conference schedule.
Despite losing in their first MAC game of the season to the Akron Zips 34-23 last Saturday, the team is optimistic about facing Miami.
“I think we’re moving in the right direction,” Falcons head coach Mike Jinks said. “To see those guys go down 20-6 and not hang their head, take the body punch and continue to fight back [was great]. Not only to tie the game up but take the lead, to me that is growth, and it’s against an Akron team; that’s not a bad football team.”
The team is also looking to stop Miami quarterback Gus Ragland, who has passed for 10 touchdowns and 1,143 yards through five games this season.
“Their quarterback is a special player,” Jinks said. “He’s really the engine that makes everything go, he just has a unique ability when we talk about decision making. It seems like he’s making all the right decisions, and he’s giving his play-makers a chance to make plays. That being said, they want to run the football, and we’ve got to be sound and we’ve got to stop it.”
The team also knows that they need to continue to create turnovers on defense as well as cleaning up penalties to give themselves an advantage going into Saturday’s game.
“The bottom line is that if you lose the turnover battle 4-2, which we’ve done a pretty good job of this year, you don’t give yourself a chance to win,” Jinks said. “We had eight penalties and, really, the penalties were made with guys in good position.”
The team feels that relieving some of the pressure on themselves to play will also be helpful in stopping mistakes.
“It’s those little things that we’ve got to stop doing,” Jinks said. “It’s just guys trying to do too much, so we’ve got to get them to relax and play within themselves.”
The defense is also looking for a more aggressive mindset coming into this game.
“I don’t need them to compete right now,” Jinks said. “I need them to dominate because competing is not leading to wins, so we need a different mindset right now, we need [them] to defensively take over a game.”
However, the team is confident that by continuing to put together good efforts, they will find themselves in contention for wins and can get the season turned around.
“We know the work that we put in every day,” Jinks said. “I know the way that our coaches prepare. I know nobody wants it more than those young men and those coaches, so we’ll stay together, we’ll continue to compete, we’ll continue to fight and we’ll find a way to get some wins.”
