With Morgan State winless after five games and 0-1 in Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference play, Florida A&M; seemingly would be favored to win Saturday’s game at Hughes Stadium in Baltimore.

That, however, is not the approach Rattlers coach Earl Holmes is taking. After all, Florida A&M; is only 1-3 and has dropped its past three games, most recently a 76-0 loss to then-No. 4 Ohio State on Sept. 21.

So the idea that the Rattlers are catching the Bears at the right time was preposterous to Holmes.

“I don’t necessarily think there is a right or wrong time to catch a team, because anything can happen on any given Saturday,” he said Tuesday. “You practice throughout the week and you work on the things you didn’t do so well the past week. Look, we expect their best. You can’t depend on people making mistakes or turning the ball over. You’ve got to go out and practice what you preach. We want to create turnovers and we want to be physical and we want to be disciplined. It’s all about preparation. I’m sure they’re going to be prepared as well as us.”

The two sides haven’t met since 2010, but Florida A&M; has won 19 of 23 meetings all time. The Rattlers would prefer to avoid being Morgan State’s first win of the season, but Holmes said that is not the team’s primary motivation.

“I think the motivation is about us,” he said. “It’s not about Morgan State or anybody who we play. It’s about playing Rattler football. It’s about us lining up in our assignments, playing execution football and having fun doing what we do. As long as we take care of the things we can control — and that’s our play for 60 minutes for four quarters — everything else will take care of itself. We have to play Rattler football. We can’t be concerned with Morgan or whoever is on our schedule. We’ve got to be concerned with what we need to do to be successful.”