Mississippi Valley State got dominated up front on both sides of the ball in a 35-16 loss to Alabama A&M Saturday at Rice-Totten Stadium in Itta Bena.
The Bulldogs outgained the Delta Devils 194-16 on the ground and finished the SWAC opener for both teams with 21 unanswered points to leave MVSU coach Rick Comegy scratching his head.
After falling behind 14-0 in the first quarter, Comegy’s team reeled off 16 straight points for a two-point lead, but Valley was shut out in the three other quarters.
“We’ve got to figure out a way to put a full fourth quarters together. I will have to see the film before I know just what happened, but we lost a lot of battles in the trenches after doing some good things in the second quarter,” said Comegy, whose team falls to 0-2. “They had numerous sacks and were pressuring our quarterback up the middle pretty good.
“We need to shorten some routes to negate the lack of time we had in the pocket, and maybe throw in more screens and draws to slow the rush.”
A&M (1-1, 1-0 SWAC) took a 14-0 lead early in the second half on a 50-yard touchdown pass from De’Angelo Balla to Bryan Brower. But Valley responded with a 7-play, 65-yard TD drive capped by a 12-yard scoring strike from Austin Bray to running back Charlie Crenshaw.
MVSU took a 16-14 lead with 1:46 left in the opening half when Greenwood’s Booker T. Chambers took a screen pass and then hit Itta Bena’s Grant Simms with a 45-yard TD pass on some trickery.
But the Bulldogs put together a quick 75-yard scoring drive that ended with a 4-yard run by Balla, who finished with a game-high 78 rushing yards on 15 attempts with two touchdowns. He also completed 11-of-24 passes for 140 with a touchdown and no interceptions.
“That was very disappointing giving up that score in the final seconds of the first half. That was pretty deflating for us,” Comegy said.
Then both teams had to sit through a 30-minute lighting delay before the start of the second half. After a scoreless third quarter, Balla put the game on ice with a 57-yard touchdown scamper.
Valley finished with 322 total yards, but only 137 of that came outside of the second quarter.
For Valley, Bray completed 19-of-35 for 188 yards with one interception.
Chambers, a Greenwood High School product, had five catches for 53 yards, to tie receiver Joshua Banks for a team-high in receiving yardage.
Chambers also had two punt returns for 36 yards.
