ULM Warhawks

ULM received the opening kickoff and drove the ball 37 yards in nine plays, but Kolton Browning's third-and-seven pass attempt in the direction of Luther Ambrose was overthrown.  Kicker Justin Manton's 40-yard field goal attempt sailed wide right to keep the game scoreless.

The Warhawk defense forced Grambling State into a three-and-out on its first offensive drive.  With the Tigers in punt formation, gunner Tim Taylor rushed untouched from the left side to block Fabian Carter's attempt.  Khairi Usher recovered the ball at the Tigers' 6-yard line.  Two plays later, Browning connected with wideout Tavarese Maye on a 7-yard scoring toss.

Grambling State (1-1) was again forced into a three-and-out its next possession, but recovered a muffed punt return by Tyler Cain in ULM territory.  Williams moved the Tigers 46 yards in five plays, hooking up with Damia Jefferson on a 20-yard post route to tie the game at seven-all.

After taking over at their own 37, the Warhawks drove 49 yards in 12 plays, highlighted by a 22-yard Donald romp through the middle of the Tigers' secondary for a key first down.  The drive stalled at the Grambling State 14, and Manton was called upon to attempt a 31-yard field goal, but the kick again missed wide to the right.

Usher then made his second big play of the half, stepping in front of a Williams pass for his first career interception.  His 32-yard return gave ULM the ball at the Grambling State 3-yard line.

Cody Wells entered the game at quarterback to begin the next drive, and after two rushing attempts netted a total of two yards, connected with tight end Keavon Milton on a one-yard touchdown toss to push ULM in front 14-7.  The reception was the fourth of Milton's career, all of which accounted for touchdowns.  Milton later added his first non-touchdown catch during the third quarter.

Both teams traded punts on their first two possessions of the second quarter.  After the third drive of the frame came to a halt, the Warhawks received a second chance when Grambling State was flagged for running into punter Aaron Munoz.

The Warhawk offense made the most of the good fortune, as Browning hooked up with Maye on a 42-yard strike down the seam two plays later to set up first-and-goal at the five.  Edwards barreled his way over left tackle on second-and-goal to extend the ULM lead to 14, 21-7.

Darius Prelow intercepted a Williams pass on third-and-eight on the Tigers' next possession, returning the ball 20 yards to the Grambling State 45.  The takeaway was the second of the game for the Warhawks, and the 45th in 23 games under defensive coordinator Troy Reffett.

Donald then broke the game open for ULM, scampering up the middle 55 yards to pay dirt for his first career rushing touchdown, capping a three-play drive to extend the lead to 28-7 in favor of the home squad.

The Warhawks concluded the scoring with a 13-play, 77-yard drive that took up 5:47 of game clock, as Mitchell Bailey carried the ball four yards off the left side for his first rushing touchdown, stretching the lead to 35-7. 

Browning finished the game 15-of-31 through the air for 161 yards, while Wells was 4-of-5 for 44 yards in limited duty.  Maye led all receivers with a career-high eight receptions for 125 yards.   

For Grambling State, Williams completed 10-of-21 passes for 118 yards.  Kenneth Batiste gained 32 yards on 11 carries to pace the running game.

ULM returns to action on Sept. 17, when the Warhawks travel to Fort Worth, Texas to play nationally-ranked TCU.  Kickoff is scheduled for 1 p.m. and the game will be televised live on The Mtn.

Scoring Summary
ULM - Browning 7-yard pass to Maye (Manton kick), 9:12, 1st                 7-0
GSU - Williams 20-yard pass to Jefferson (Riazzo kick), 6:47, 1st            7-7
ULM - Wells 1-yard pass to Milton (Manton kick), 0:19, 1st                      14-7
ULM - Edwards 5-yard run (Manton kick), 4:00, 2nd                                 21-7
ULM - Donald 55-yard run (Manton kick), 1:27, 2nd                                 28-7
ULM - Bailey 4-yard run (Jabour kick), 9:13, 4th                                      35-7

ULM Team Notes
- ULM team captains: Ryan McCaul, Tim Taylor, Darius Prelow
- Grambling State won the toss and ULM received the opening kick for the second time this season
- Hawk Darius Prelow extended his team-leading (offense & defense) starting streak to 16 games
- ULM's blocked punt in the first quarter was the first time the Warhawks had blocked a punt since Nov. 8, 2008, vs. Middle Tennessee
- Tavarese Maye's 7-yard touchdown reception in the first quarter was the fourth of his career
- Khairi Usher's interception in the first quarter was the first of his career
- ULM has forced a turnover in 23-of-26 games under defensive coordinator Troy Reffett
- ULM has an interception in 19-of-26 games under defensive coordinator Troy Reffett and in 13 of the past 15 games
- Keavon Milton's touchdown reception in the first quarter was the fourth of his career; it was also his four career receptions
- Cody Wells' touchdown pass in the first quarter was the seventh of his career and first of the season
- Kolton Browning's 42-yard pass to Tavarese Maye was the longest play of the season for ULM
- Jyruss Edwards' 5-yard touchdown in the second quarter was the fifth of his career
- Darius Prelow's interception in the second quarter was his second of the season and fourth of his career
- The 10 tackles for loss by the ULM defense were the most in the Troy Reffett era as defensive coordinator
- ULM finished the game with seven sacks -- the most in the ULM Sun Belt era
- Centarius Donald rushed for a career-high 144 yards on 12 carries
- Centarius Donald became the first ULM player to rush for over 100 yards since Frank Goodin (11/21/09 vs. ULL, 108)
- Centarius Donald's touchdown run in the second quarter was the first of his career
- Mitchell Bailey's rushing touchdown in the fourth quarter was the first of his career at ULM
- Kolton Browning moved into ninth place on the ULM career pass attempts list with 412
- Luther Ambrose moved into 10^th place on the ULM career receptions list with 114
- Jyruss Edwards moved into 10^th place on the ULM career kick return yards list with 795

ULM Head Coach Todd Berry on the Warhawk's win
Every win is a good win.  I want to applaud Grambling for their efforts.  I thought our defense played well the majority of the game.  Offensively though we look out of sync.     

On Troy Evans and his performance on defense.  
I don't doubt that Troy Evans has set himself up for a great year.  Ken (Dorsey) helps him on the other side, but his motor is running full speed the whole time and he's finding out that when you do that you will have a productive night; and he had a very productive night tonight.  

On Centarius Donald and his rushing performance  
I'm very pleased with Centarius.  He's a guy that comes to work everyday.  When he had the fumble tonight he was upset and broken hearted.  When it does happen it should break your heart and it does him and he cares.  He ran hard and ran physical tonight.  

Head coach Doug Williams:
Definitely. We'll definitely learn from it. We'll go back and watch the film tomorrow and we're going to get better from this. We're going to improve from this. It hurts right now but we'll get back at it on Monday and get ready to fix those mistakes.

Opening statement:

The scoreboard reads 35-7 in favor of ULM. They obviously played a pretty good football game and we didn't. We made a lot of mistakes and they took advantage of it. Early we had two interceptions and running into the kicker. Every time we made a bonehead play they took advantage of it and they scored at least 21 points off of some of the things we did that we need to go home and correct.

Are the little things magnified when you are playing up (competition-wise)?

Well I think they're magnified wherever you play. But I think tonight it gives us something to work with and gives us something to let them (the players) know what we've been talking about all week. It's just the little things and we got a couple of penalties that I call "individual penalties", personal penalties where you go after a guy when the play is over and stuff like that. Those kind of things hurt a football team, when you think you're going to get away with it and you're not.

The mistakes that aren't as apparent and how they hurt the game:

I always say that I treat football like baseball. Nine out of 10 times you make an error a run is going to score, and basically that's what happened. That happened to us last week when we missed out on the sack on the quarterback from Alcorn State; we missed him and they went in to score. The same thing happened tonight, we missed that interception and they went in to score.

Linebacker Jacarde Carter:

Little things add up. Did it seem like an avalanche out there with the little things adding up?

You could say that, but they're correctable things that are the positive about it. It's all correctable. You can't really point the finger at one thing, we just couldn't put it all together today.

Winded at any point out there?

No not that I can tell. We are in pretty good shape. I didn't feel that we were winded at all.

Defense get frustrated?

Probably so, but you can't blame it on that. It's just spur of the moment, just playing the game and stuff like that happens.

Linebacker Cliff Exama:

Little things add up to big things. When you made mistakes it seemed to turn into big plays.

You know, when you make little mistakes it kills you. You have got to be mistake free. You have got to play harder and just come to work. Work on Monday and take care of the conference.

Quarterback being young, is he pressing you down a little bit?

He didn't get down, he just kept trying to play with what he had going. We don't blame it on anybody but ourselves. We should've just held it down on defense. We don't take it take it upon the offense or anything, it's just us as a defense. Even if we went 1,000 plays, we're supposed to hold it down no matter what.

Quarterback D.J. Williams

Biggest difference from week one?

Nothing honestly. A lot of mistakes. A lot more mistakes, that was it. Just turnovers. Turnovers and penalties.

Did you feel like you started to press in your mind when you guys got down?

Maybe a little bit, but still no excuse. Still no excuse. We had too many turnovers and too many penalties.