THE GAME
Coming off of their first home game of the young season, the Savannah State University Tigers (2-1, 1-0 SIAC) will travel to Brunswick, Georgia to play Albany State University (1-2, 1-0 SIAC) in the inaugural Coastal City Classic at Glynn County Stadium.
 
Savannah State and Albany State have been playing each other since 1932, making the Golden Rams one of the Tigers' oldest rivalries. This Saturday will be the 65th time the teams have met on the gridiron. Albany State holds the series lead, 45-17-2.
 
LAST YEAR
Albany State defeated the Tigers 31-20 in a game played at Theodore A. Wright Stadium on October 22, 2022. SSU had the ball with a chance to take the lead in the final minutes before the Golden Rams recovered a fumble and scored a late touchdown to secure their 31-20 victory. ASU's defense held Savannah State to just 38 yards on the ground but wide receiver Da'Shun Mitchell had five receptions for 91 yards.

COACHES QUOTE
SSU head coach Aaron Kelton says "We are pleased with the effort of the team. Our goal every week is to win and we did that. We need to be more disciplined about out situations and continue to get better. We will need to play a clean complete game this week against a good Albany State team. We will have to play hard and compete for a full 60 minutes. It will be a great game and the atmosphere will be electric."
 
LAST WEEK
Savannah State hosted Clark Atlanta University in their home and conference opener and defeated the Panthers 28-21. The Tigers trailed 21-20 at the half but held CAU to just 22 offensive yards in the second half.
 
TOP OFFENSIVE PLAYERS
Quarterback Jadon Adams engineers the Tigers offense. So far, the junior signal caller has completed 45 percent (37 of 83) of his passes for 456 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions. He has also ran for two touchdowns and leads the team in rushing with 107 yards.

Sophomore tailback Joseph Hampton has 103 yards and a touchdown this season and is averaging 5.7 yards per carry.
Wide receiver Da'Shun Mitchell is the top pass catcher with 12 receptions for 168 yards while Brent Carr has eight catches for 136 yards and two touchdowns.
 
TOP DEFENSIVE PLAYERS
Savannah State's defense is led by linebackers Tavare Brewton who has 23 tackles and Deon Bell who has contributed 12 tackles. 
Defensive lineman Ameer Phillips leads the unit with five tackles for loss and two sacks.

Roaming the secondary is Dreshawn Dawkins, Kirk Smith and Deandre Creary who all have an interception. Smith and Dawkins also have a fumble recovery to their credit.
 
SPECIAL TEAMS
After missing the 2022 season while recovering from an injury, Kenneth Lockhart is back. In three games, he has punted 17 times and is averaging 35.8 yards per punt with a long of 50 yards. Six have landed inside the opponents 20. He has made three of four field goal attempts and has a long of 37 yards.

Joseph Hampton has four kick returns and is averaging 26.5 yards a return and Randy Scott has four kick returns and is averaging 26 yards a return.
 
SCOUTING THE GOLDEN RAMS
ASU is coached by Quinn Gray who is in his first year with the program. Prior to coming to Albany State, Gray served as the senior offensive analyst at the University of Memphis.
The Golden Rams are seeking to even their overall record to 2-2 and 2-0 in the SIAC. They opened the season with back-to-back losses to Wingate (30-7) and Valdosta State (21-16) before earning their first win last week against Morehouse in the HBCU New York Classic by a score of 24-14.

ASU is averaging 15.7 points  and 285 yards a game while giving up 21.7 points and 345.7 yards a night.

Two of the power players in the Albany State offense are Savannah natives running back Aljhanod Thomas and wide receiver Ralph Lovett. Thomas has 34 carries for 111 yards while Lovett has hauled in 16 catches for 196 yards and a touchdown. Isaiah Knowles seems to have won the ASU quarterback battle and so far has thrown for 347 yards, four touchdowns and two interceptions.

Defenders Randy Fillingame, Jalen Mitchell and Marlon Polock all have 17 tackles for the Golden Rams.
 
SHORT TRIP
Savannah State will make their shortest road trip of the season, only having to travel 78 miles to get to Brunswick.
 
HOMECOMING
The game in Brunswick will be a homecoming for SSU defensive linemen Christian Hampton and William Jones. Hampton is a Brunswick native While Jones is from nearby Darien.
 
SSU/BRUNSWICK CONNECTIONS
Savannah State has done well in the past finding players in Brunswick. Ken Dawson, Gerald Jones and Reggie Jackson earned all conference honors during their time at SSU. Dawson was a bruising running back who made the All-SIAC team in 1979 and 1980. His efforts on the gridiron led him to become the first player at Savannah State to get drafted when he was selected in the 10th round of the 1981 NFL draft by the Seattle Seahawks. Jones made the All-SIAC team as a punter in 1985. His 80 yard punt that season against Morris Brown still stands as a school record. Jackson was a hard-hitting linebacker who was a 1997 and 1998 member of the all conference team. Jackson led the team in tackles in 1997 and the following year led the Tigers in tackles and sacks and was named the SIAC Player of the Year.
 
PROTECTING THE BALL
SSU quarterbacks have not thrown an interception so far. The last interception thrown by a Tiger quarterback was October 29, 2022 against Fort Valley State.
 
RECOVERY EFFORT
Dating back to last season, SSU has at least one fumble recovery in the past six games.
 
CHASING 500
Quarterback Jadon Adams has thrown for 456 yards so far. He needs 44 more to reach 500 for the season.
 
POLL WATCHERS
With their victory over Clark Atlanta, SSU jumped from #10 to #9 in the latest HBCU Division II Football Poll. The Tigers received 15 votes in the latest BOXTOROW Division II Coaches Poll.
 
CHASING 100
Sophomore linebacker Tavare Brewton has 23 tackles on the season and 89 for his career. He needs 11 more to reach 100 for his collegiate career

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
The SSU roster is made up of players from eight states (Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Connecticut, New York, California, Tennessee and Alabama) as well as the District of Columbia
 
THE LEGACY CONTINUES
SSU defensive back Dwayne Ruff is the son of Savannah State alum Dwayne Ruff. The younger Ruff played three seasons at East Tennessee State. He earned his degree at ETSU and decided to play his final season of eligibility at SSU as a grad transfer. The elder Ruff was a two-sport student-athlete at SSU, playing football and basketball from 1986-89. He was a member of the 1989 team that included NFL Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe that posted a 8-1 record.
 
WELCOME TO THE MARSH
SSU head football coach Aaron Kelton welcomes two new coaches to his staff. Marking their first season at Savannah State are A.J. Walsh (offensive line) and Keon Cezar (defensive line).
 
IN MEMORY
SSU mourns  the loss of former Tigers head football coach Dr. Leo Richardson. He led the Tigers to a 6-2-1 record in 1967 which was good enough to win the Southeastern Athletic conference championship. That same year Richardson was named the SEAC Coach of the Year. In addition to coaching football at SSU, Richardson also served as the head men's basketball coach and a biology professor. He was inducted into the SSU Athletics Hall of Fame in 2010. Richardson died on July 23, 2023.
 
TRANSFER U
SSU has 15 players on the roster that have transferred from other schools. The programs, which range from FBS to junior college, include East Tennessee State, Bryant University, Pittsburgh, North Carolina Central, Glennville State, Point University, Georgia Southern, Lane College, Grambling State, Albany State, Louisburg College, Hobart College, American River College, Los Angeles Valley Community College and Hutchinson Community College.
 
SURVIVOR
SSU signee Kyle Frazier is a cancer survivor. Frazier was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma in April 2019 but after chemotherapy treatments, he was declared cancer free in August 2019. The Augusta, Georgia native enrolled at SSU in January 2020 and joined the football team in 2021.He has made the all conference team his freshman and sophomore years.

FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE
Savannah State will appear on ESPN+ twice during the season.The Tigers will play Clark Atlanta on September 16 at Theodore A. Wright Stadium at 6 p.m. The 2023 SSU Homecoming match-up with Tuskegee University on October 21 will also appear on ESPN+ with a 3 p.m. kickoff.

HOME GROWN
SU has 14 players in its roster from ten different of the local high schools (Islands, Savannah High, Johnson, Windsor Forest, Memorial, Beach, Bethesda, New Hampstead, Calvary and Jenkins.
 
THE SIZE OF IT
Freshmen linemen Kamrem Bing and Derrick Clark are the biggest players on the team. Bing, a offensive lineman weighs 340-pounds while Clark, a defensive lineman stands 6-foot-5. Freshman wide receiver Jason Cobb is the smallest player on the roster at 5-foot-7 and 150 pounds.
 
GETTING THE MILES IN
SSU has six road games on the schedule with an average of 355 miles for each game. Tiger fans will travel to Lakeland, Florida (335 miles), Daytona Beach, Fla. (234 miles), Brunswick, Georgia (79 miles), Fort Valley, Ga. (175 miles), Wilberforce, Ohio (689 miles) and Jackson, Tennessee (620 miles).
 
PRESEASON HONORS
During the SIAC Football Media Day in July, four SSU football players were named to the preseason all conference team. Offensive linemen Kyle Frazier and Riyon Adams and running back Shamarcus Poole were named to the First Team while punter/kicker Kenneth Lockhart was picked for the Second Team.
 
WHAT'S IN A NAME
There are ten sets of players on the SSU roster that share the same last name. The team has three players with the last name of Williams, Brown and Johnson and seven sets with the last name of Roberts, Leonard, Adams, Bell, Davis, Hampton and Jones. Additionally there are players with the last name that is pronounced the same but spelled differently as in Brown/Browne and Clark/Clarke.