By T. SCOTT BOATRIGHT, Lincoln Parish Journal

LORMAN, Miss. — A Grambling State football team facing personnel questions while having plenty to play for to keep potential playoff hopes alive takes the field Saturday at 2 as Alcorn State plays host to the Tigers at Jack Spinks-Marino Casem Stadium.

Grambling enters the game at 7-3 overall and 4-2 in the Southwestern Athletic Conference West Division while Alcorn State stands at 4-6 and 3-3 in the SWAC West while riding a three-game win streak.

The Tigers have won four straight and stand one game behind Prairie View in the SWAC West. But the Panthers defeated Grambling earlier this season and therefore hold the tiebreaker in the race for the division’s SWAC Championship playoff berth, meaning Grambling needs to win out and have the Panthers lose their final two games — against SWAC West cellar dwellers Arkansas Pine Bluff and Mississippi Valley State — to earn a trip to the conference title game.

But the Tigers are facing bigger questions than the outcomes of the final two games of Prairie View’s season.

On Monday, the SWAC office announced that 18 Tigers have been suspended following a halftime brawl marring last week’s win over Bethune Cookman.

The names of those players have yet to be announced by the SWAC or by GSU’s Athletics Department. But sources indicate some starters are among the Tigers not traveling to Alcorn.

True freshman Hayden Benoit, the 17-year-old who began the season as Grambling’s fourth-string quarterback, certainly will be making his second start of the season after leading the Tigers to a 31-23 win last week.

Benoit was named the SWAC Offensive Player of the Week for his performance against Bethune Cookman when he went 12-of-20 passing for 220 yards with four touchdowns and an interception.

“He’s going to get better week-to-week-to-week,” GSU coach Mickey Joseph said. “He had about 65-70 percent of the playbook in reps (going into the Bethune Cookman game). He’s QB 4, but he hasn’t blinked. (GSU quarterbacks coach Shyrone Carey) has done a great job with him and continues to coach him and get him ready to play.

“Benoit was a great leader. He led the team and that’s what we need him to do. We did a great job on defense after we settled down. We played good on special teams and we were able to run the football. We’ve got to just continue to get better as a football team, and we will.”

Joseph said Benoit’s mentality reminds him of GSU’s No. 1 quarterback C’zavian Teasett, who remains hospitalized in Las Vegas nearly three weeks after being injured during Grambling’s win over Jackson State.

“He reminds me a lot of C’za in that aspect,” Joseph said. “He spent a lot of time with C’za in that he’s even-keeled. If you don’t know him, you wouldn’t know that he’s in the room. He still sits in the QB 4 chair (during meetings). He doesn’t sit in the QB 1 chair. He doesn’t get too high, he doesn’t get too low. 

“But, he’s a competitor. He likes to compete. That’s one reason I love Louisiana high school football, because they play against tough competition. And also, they’re built a little different. We talked and I told him, ‘This is not too big for you.’ And he understood it. He came out and said, ‘Coach, I’m going to play. I’m OK.’ And when he told me he was OK, I was OK.”

Joseph said his G-Men won’t be distracted by everything they’ve been through since the start of last week’s game.

“Now we’re going on the road, the toughest thing to do in college football,” Joseph said. “Now we’re going into a hostile environment at ‘The Reservation’ at Alcorn, and they’re going to be ready to go. 

“I told the kids they’re going to love the gameday atmosphere. I had the opportunity to coach there in 2013. The game atmosphere is really good there. When Grambling comes to town, they’re going to pack the house. We expect a rocky crowd. I told them the only way they can quiet the crowd down was to make plays. So we’re looking forward to the test.”

Joseph said he feels his Tigers match up well against the Braves.

“They’re on a (win) streak, and I know because I worked there, but once they get confident, they really get confident and don’t think they can get beat,” Joseph said. “They’ve got a lot of confidence right now but we match up well with them in the run game. On offense, they have one of the best backs in the conference, so we’re going to have to have gap integrity.

“On paper we match up well. But sometimes when you match up on paper, it doesn’t leak into the game. Hopefully that leaks into the game this time.”

Contact Scott at tscottboatright@gmail.com