If Tuesday’s weekly football press conference had had a theme it would have been called “one at a time.” Rattlers players and coaches expressed that to ensure success for the rest of the season the team must take each game one at a time. Every game is different.
Last Saturday’s game against Tennessee State University was another close-call victory for the Rattlers. Now, they are preparing for the Circle City Classic against Winston-Salem at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis. Winston-Salem lost to Howard, a team that the Rattlers defeated and had one of their best games of the season against. However according to quarterback Leon Camel that will have nothing to do with how they will play on Saturday.
“In football any given week, against any given team you can get beat,” says Camel, “It’s not about what they can do, and it’s about what we can do.”
The Rattler game will undergo a few changes in hopes to put another W in the win column and according to Coach Rubin Carter it will mostly likely be a change in the offensive.
“We’re going to change the tempo and pace of the ball, especially on the offensive side of the ball,” says Carter.
Back-up quarterback Leon Camel will now lead that tempo and pace change in the offense. The senior quarterback will now have to step up and start in the number one spot after quarterback Albert Chester II made a decision to leave the team. Running back Phillip Sylvester says that Camel is a “good runner and has lots of energy.”
The defense that has improved since the beginning of the season still has more to do. Defensive Back Jason Beach says that now that the rest of the defense is putting pressure on the quarterback and stopping the run, it’s his turn to handle things. He notes that the defense still has not “put that perfect game together yet.”
Currently the team tied up with wins and losses and Coach Carter says it doesn’t matter what kind of win it was as long as it was a win.
“Call it what you want, luck, good grace, anyway you look at it, the Rattlers are 2-2.”
Carter want the team in one accord as they were in the Howard game where he says that all three areas of the team, defense, offense and special teams were at the top of their game.
The team will take the field in the RCA Dome in hopes to bring their record to 3-2 for the season overall and 3-1 in the MEAC, which would be a great turnaround from losing the first two games of the season.
“It’s good we got out the hole, now we have seven more to go,” says Wilder. “We have to take this game by game, anything can happen.”
So the Rattlers are taking each game of the season one at a time and moving on towards a MEAC championship one day at a time.