Grambling State football pauses spring ball, starting QB enters portal

Grambling State football has paused spring ball amid positive COVID tests. Starting quarterback Geremy Hickbottom has entered the transfer portal as well.

On Wednesday, Grambling University Athletics decided to suspend spring football activities due to positive COVID-19 tests discovered through routine screenings. As a result, their games against Alabama A&M (March 27) and Texas Southern (April 3) have been canceled. Grambling State will not make up those games.

Grambling State is the second SWAC team to pause spring football due to positive COVID tests. The Prairie View A&M Panthers also suspended team activities last week amid positive tests. The Panthers set new dates for their games against Alabama A&M and Jackson State.

One of Grambling’s opponents, Alabama A&M, has to wait another week to play their second game of the season. The Bulldogs don’t play until they travel to Prairie View to take on the Panthers. The game against Grambling was also supposed to be their second home game of the spring season. Because of the cancellation, the Bulldogs play the rest of the season on the road.

Grambling’s only remaining game is the Bayou Classic scheduled for April 17.

Geremy Hickbottom enters the transfer portal

In addition to canceling games against Alabama A&M and Texas Southern, Tigers starting quarterback Geremy Hickbottom announced that he is entering the transfer portal on his Twitter Wednesday night.

“As I go into the next chapter of my football career, I feel it is best to go in another direction. I will be entering the portal as a grad student and taking my talents to another institution,” Hickbottom wrote. “I want to say thank you again for all who have been in my corner, invested and who have made a difference in my time here. Forever a G-Man.”

This is the third offensive loss Grambling and head coach Broderick Fobbs has suffered this spring. First offensive coordinator Mark Orlando resigned as offensive coordinator after the Prairie View game, then quarterbacks coach Kendrick Nord left the program after one game as offensive coordinator.

Now starting quarterback, Hickbottom has decided to put his name in the transfer portal days after Nord left the team. It seems as if the Tigers are not only looking for wins, but they are also searching for answers.