The struggle for Florida A&M football continues.
The Rattlers, 1-3 overall (0-1 SWAC), could not establish much on offense and were a total disaster on defense in a 42-14 loss to Alabama State on Saturday at Bragg Memorial Stadium.
Alabama State 3-1 overall (1-0 SWAC), totaled 405 yards led by running back Jamarie Hostzclaw, who led the Hornets with 22 attempts for 135 yards. Andrew Body, the great dual-threat quarterback, accounted for 146 yards and two touchdowns in the Hornets’ first win over the Rattlers in five tries since FAMU joined the SWAC in 2021.
Conversely, the Florida A&M offense continued to sputter. RJ Johnson III threw for 133 yards on 3.9 yards per attempt, and the running backs mustered 119 yards on the ground, including one touchdown.
The overall performance on Saturday wasn’t good enough, as it hadn’t been through the first four games of the regular season.
And second-year head coach James Colzie says he and the coaching staff would work through the night to find a solution.
“I don’t think the score was indicative of what our football team looks like or is about,” James Colzie told the media after the game. “As a staff, we’re not going home tonight. We’re going to sit down and rethink how we need to handle this football team.”
The coach lamented that the offense didn’t take enough deep passing shots and the quarterbacks failed to involve their best receivers in the game plan consistently.
“That’s not indicative of what I think this offense should be, throwing the football. I don’t think we threw the ball deep enough and took advantage of our receiving core like I would hope we would.”
It might take longer than just a late-night coaching review to fix a football team that isn’t the juggernaut it was two years ago.
