Grambling, LA – With a week of turmoil behind Grambling State's struggling football team, the Tigers hope to get on track Saturday in interim coach George Ragsdale's second game.
Grambling fired head coach Doug Williams on Sept. 11 - just three days before the Tigers' third game of the season. Ragsdale, who had been the team's running backs coach, took over the program's lead, but the Tigers fell to Division III Lincoln (Mo.), 47-34, in Kansas City, Mo.
A mere 1-13 over the last two seasons, and 0-3 this year, Grambling State faces a tough Alabama State team on the road Saturday in Montgomery.
Ragsdale said his Southwestern Athletic Conference team needs to be ready for the powerful Hornets' run game, featuring Isaiah Crowell.
"Against Alabama State, I'm looking for us to come up with a game plan that will stop Crowell, I guess," Ragsdale said. "Crowell is their main offensive focus, and he's a great athlete, and I think we're going to have to do a much better job defensively holding them down."
Ragsdale has been in the Grambling program for the last two years, and he said being an assistant helped him build a rapport with his players before he took over as interim head coach, adding that it will take time to turn the program into a contender again.
"I think the guys will respond a little better and stay a little closer together with me at the interim job," Ragsdale said. "It's tough any time you make a change like this. This ain't my first rodeo. I've been an interim at my alma mater before, two times. So it's just a matter of letting the guys know that you're going to be in the boat for them and they can trust you. That's the number one thing: their trust that they have in you."
Ragsdale, 62, has served various coaching duties at North Carolina A&T - his alma mater - as well as Morris Brown University, Norfolk State, Arkansas-Pine Bluff and now at Grambling State. He played running back for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and in the USFL during his playing career.
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