HBCU Football: 3 bold predictions for Grambling State vs. Southern

This Saturday is the 47th Annual Bayou Classic between the Grambling State Tigers and the Southern University Jaguars. It is one of the iconic HBCU “classics”. HBCU football teams play many classics throughout the season. What HBCUs have done with these games is take the concept of bowl week and turned the volume up.

There is something for everyone during the weekly festivities. You can find a party, fraternity/sorority reunion, and even networking and career workshops. Schools, current students, and alumni descend on a given city in the name of HBCU culture, tradition, and history.

Unfortunately, this season, the centerpiece of the classic, the bands, are not allowed to travel with the teams; there will be a video tribute of each band at halftime. The classic origins go back to 1924 when Tuskegee Institute played Alabama State in the inaugural Turkey Day Classic.

Since 1924, there have been a plethora of classics played from Labor Day until before Christmas. What makes the Bayou Classic unique from the other is it is one of a handful of classics that is an actual interstate rivalry game.  It is also the only nationally televised game every year (NBC began televising the game in 1991).

This edition of the Bayou Classic features two teams headed in entirely different directions. The Tigers are winless this spring in search of a new starting quarterback and offensive coordinator.

The Jaguars, on the other hand, are ranked nationally in FCS and have an outside shot at the SWAC West title (the Jags lost to APBU early in the spring). As they say about rivalries: “Throw out the record books.”

Here are three bold predictions about this Saturday’s game.