Football | 10/3/2018 5:00:00 AM

Goodwell, Okla.— This weekend the Aggies will head to their second road game of a three-week away stint and travel to Grambling, La., to face the Grambling State University Tigers.

The Aggies were steeped in turnover turmoil this past weekend in a difficult loss to the Lyon College Scots on the road. Head Coach Russell Gaskamp was hard-pressed to ignore the unanticipated defeat, expressing, "Saturday was a bad loss. We should not have lost, but we did." A grueling six turnovers with two fumbled kicks by special teams resulting in excellent field position for the Scots were at the root of the loss to Lyon. Gaskamp asserted, "We need our reserve players to do better at understanding their roles and contribute to the success of this team."

A silver lining through the game was the start for true freshman QB Martez Vrana. "Like a true freshman he did some good things and some bad things," said Gaskamp, "but we saw a lot of promise for him." Trusting in his potential, Vrana will see another start this weekend against Grambling and the coaching staff will continue to evaluate the quarterback position throughout the season as they have been in previous games.

The match-up at Grambling, whose football team held a 26-game winning streak in the Southwestern Atlantic Conference, will pose a true challenge for the Aggies, but Gaskamp has set forth guidelines for a chance at victory for his athletes. "I told my team it will take three things for us to have a chance to win this weekend," affirmed Gaskamp, "As simple as it sounds, first we need to just play well, we need to be able to win the turnover battle, and we need to outplay them on special teams. If we do those simple things we will have a chance, and if we don't we will get blown out."

Throughout his seven years of coaching at OPSU, Gaskamp notes he has had to take several of these types of games, and although it poses a fun opportunity for the athletes, he assures his team will show up to be competitive, and will look to give themselves a shot in the fourth quarter for a victory.

This exciting game will kick off at 6 p.m. in Grambling, La. Live stats and video streaming links will be available on opsuaggies.com for those wanting to follow along at home. The Aggies will travel to Fort Worth, Texas to face the Texas Wesleyan Rams on Oct. 13 before returning home to take on the Arizona Christian University Firestorm in Anchor D Stadium on Oct. 20.