LORMAN &8212; If you watch the plays and know how they&8217;re supposed to unfold, you can&8217;t put last week&8217;s two sacks of Alcorn quarterback Tony Hobson on his offensive line.

But most folks don&8217;t know all that.

Still, Alcorn gave up two sacks in last week&8217;s win over Mississippi Valley, the first time an opponent has registered more than one in a game in six games. For an offensive line that&8217;s become the stingiest in the SWAC with only nine sacks allowed in eight games, they don&8217;t take defenders getting by them lightly.

That&8217;s why they may be excited for today&8217;s showdown with sack-happy Alabama A&M.; Kickoff is at 2 p.m. at Jack Spinks Stadium.

&8220;It&8217;s always our fault,&8221; tackle Jonathan Lowe said. &8220;Nobody knows our plays and our assignments. When the ball is snapped and the quarterback is sacked, somebody on the offensive line wasn&8217;t blocking. It gets a little frustrating. You think you&8217;re doing your job, but you look at the quarterback on the ground. You wonder who&8217;s man it was.&8221;

The two breakdowns, offensive coordinator John McKenzie noted, can&8217;t be pegged on the line. Breakdowns in other parts of the play caused for Hobson to get hit behind the line of scrimmage, including once when he took a helmet to the elbow and missed the final possession of the first half.

This offensive line, McKenzie said, takes its job very seriously. They&8217;re big in stature with 300-pounders all the way across and a big reason why the offense has executed so well the last four games.

&8220;Both of those sacks were Tony&8217;s fault,&8221; McKenzie said. &8220;The line was still able to protect their guy. Our line is still doing a heck of a job as far as picking up blitzes. People are still doing a lot of things to get Tony out of rhythm. He just should have gotten rid of the ball a little sooner.&8221;

The line will have a challenge today with the Bulldogs, who lead the conference with 33 sacks for minus-230 yards in nine games so far. It&8217;s the biggest storyline in today&8217;s contest outside of the fact that the winner will have an inside track at challenging Alabama State for the Eastern Division title of the SWAC.

A&M needs to win today and next week at Prairie View. The Braves need to win their final three games and hope Valley beats Alabama State today in Itta Bena.

&8220;My offensive line has done a tremendous job,&8221; Alcorn head coach Johnny Thomas said. &8220;That&8217;s another thing that&8217;s enabled Tony to feel good about throwing the football. He&8217;s had pretty good pass protection. Coach (Michael) Ellis has done a great job with those guys in teaching them the technical things about blocking.&8221;

Today&8217;s contest will be a sizeable challenge, but it&8217;s nothing the Braves&8217; front is wary about. Teams have tried to come with the blitz this season in the hopes of pressuring the freshman quarterback but with limited results.

From the third game of the season up until the Valley game, the line allowed just three sacks in a five-game span.

&8220;Our offensive line, they&8217;ve got a different mentality this year,&8221; McKenzie said. &8220;They always want to test the waters. They want that challenge. You know how football is if they&8217;ve got more people on the line than you can block? You&8217;ve got to throw the football. Southern did that, and our offensive line stood up and said, &8216;No, let&8217;s challenge them.&8217;&8221;

The Braves&8217; offensive unit may not get it that much today if the Bulldogs want to take wide receiver Charlie Spiller into account.

The explosive junior from Woodville had his best day of the season last week with five catches for 163 yards against Valley, and he&8217;s facing the team that was on the opposite side of his career day last year when he caught eight passes for 223 yards.

Then there&8217;s the ground game factor. The Bulldogs are the best at stopping the run. Alcorn&8217;s Jeremy McCoy is the league&8217;s top rusher at 105 yards per game.

It&8217;s motivation for the Braves&8217; front five. Last week the ground game fell from its perch as the SWAC&8217;s top running game after A&M ran for almost 400 yards on Jackson State.

Now it&8217;s personal.

&8220;Our motivation this week is we want our rushing title back,&8221; Lowe said. &8220;Every time we run the ball, we&8217;re running 8 or 9 yards a pop. That&8217;s our pride. A blitz is not a problem with us this week. I don&8217;t think A&M is going to blitz us. They&8217;re going to gave to sit back and play a little zone.&8221;