Rattlers slither away from Morgan State, 31-28

The Florida A&M Rattlers stopped Morgan State quarterback Carlton Jackson on fourth and inches at the 15 in overtime of a 31-28 victory at Baltimore’s Hughes Stadium on Halloween evening.

The Rattlers started off the scoring rather quickly as 1:50 into the game, Curtis Pulley threw a 16-yard touchdown pass to Kevin Elliott to give Florida A&M a 7-0 lead.

The Rattlers then fired some more. This time, with Philip Sylvester running the football into the end zone from 19 yards out to help extend the Florida A&M advantage to 14-0 with 6:43 left in the first quarter.

Florida A&M (6-2, 4-1 MEAC) could’ve made it 21-0 when the Rattlers’ Gregory Boler nearly picked off a Jackson pass and would have ran it into the end zone. However, the drive was kept alive and Jackson ended up throwing a 27-yard touchdown pass with Edward Morton-Green with 2:18 left in the first quarter to cut the deficit to 14-7.

In the second quarter, Morgan State (5-3, 3-2 MEAC) tied the game at 14 on a Domanick West 2 yard touchdown scamper with 14:03 left.

Morgan State hardly had answers for Florida A&M quarterback Curtis Pulley as he found the end zone on a six yard run with 10:12 remaining in the third quarter. Pulley ran 20 times for 231 yards and two touchdowns in the game. Hill-Eley said, “Pulley had a good day of escaping a couple of times and was able to get that under control. I think overall, our guys played a good game.”

The Bears answered back on Jackson’s one yard run when he did a crossover on a Rattler defender and then ran it into the end zone with 1:29 left to help tie the game at 21. The Rattlers struck again in the fourth quarter off the feet of Pulley as he used the fake handoff to his advantage and ran 36 yards for the touchdown with 14:14 left, putting FAMU back on top 28-21.

Morgan State answered back on the next drive when Jackson hit Edwin Baptiste for a 53 yard touchdown pass to help tie the game at 28 with 8:33 left.

A few plays before that, MSU’s Lamont Bryant was thrown out of the game by the officials for illegal use of equipment. The officials stated that he was swinging his helmet towards a FAMU player.

FAMU had a real chance to end the game in regulation. But a key unsportsmanlike conduct call pushed the Rattlers away from field goal range with 12 seconds left in regulation. The Bears’ Gary Albury intercepted a Hail Mary pass from Pulley with no time left to force overtime.

In overtime, Trevor Scott converted a 35-yard field goal to give FAMU the lead. Then on Morgan State’s possession, Jackson was sacked by LeRoy Vann for a nine yard loss. Jackson then completed a 15 yard pass to Terrell White at the FAMU 19. Jackson ran the ball 3 yards to the 16 and was looking at fourth down and inches.

The Bears went for it and Jackson looked to have fallen forward, which seemed to be enough for the first down. However, the ball was placed close to the 15 yard line with the nose of the ball touching the line. The sticks were brought out and the measurement turned up a couple inches short, ending the game in heartbreaking fashion for the Bears.