By T. SCOTT BOATRIGHT, Lincoln Parish Journal
NEW ORLEANS — The Grambling State Tigers close out their season this weekend with the king of HBCU classics — the annual Bayou Classic game in New Orleans.
Kickoff is set for 1 p.m. Saturday inside the Superdome in New Orleans.
Grambling enters the game at 7-4 while Southern stands at 1-10, but Grambling coach Mickey Joseph knows that records don’t count in this showdown.
“It’s a big-time game,” Joseph said Monday morning in his hometown, New Orleans. “You’ve got to throw the records out the door. Southern’s got a very good football team. I know the record doesn’t indicate that, but the records go out the door when you play this game.
“And the kids understand the magnitude of this game. We’re looking to come down here and put on a good show. So, we’re prepared. I think we’re healthy now, you know, for the most part, so I think we can put on a good show.”
Joseph likes his team’s position heading into the game.
“I want to make sure I take my hat off to my coaches and my players and my administration because we’ve all been on the same page this year,” Joseph said. “We lost some close ones, but to finish 8-4 and finish with the first winning season, in a game of this magnitude, it’s big.
“So, we’ve got to focus, and we’re got to finish. That’s what we’ve been talking about to the kids. You’ve got to focus when you come to this game. I break it down into two parts. You’ve got the event, and you’ve got the game. See, we can’t get and get involved with the event. So, we did one thing involving the living situation that I won’t get into, that makes me think we’re headed in the right direction.”
Joseph admits the relationship between the two schools is a love/hate situation, at least for three hours a year.
“I think the thing is, it’s family, and the family is divided for three hours,” Joseph said. “And then we come back and you’re family again. So, it’s the darnest thing in that it’s really not a hate rivalry. It’s a rivalry where, ‘This is where I went to school to, and this is my team and the same the other way,
“But at the end of the game, I watch my players, and my coaches, hug the Southern players and it’s unbelievable. It’s a beautiful sight being able to see that. We both share traditions, we both have legacy, but we’re both in the state of Louisiana. So, other than anybody else, we’ve got to pull for each other when you’re not playing against each other. So, we’re excited to have the opportunity to play a game of this magnitude. We’re going to come down and put on a good show.”
Relationships also caused Joseph to change the way his team is handling this year’s Bayou Classic.
“I have to do a better job with the players — with the outside things,” Joseph said. “Like what time we’re going to eat on Thursday and everything else. Just do things a little different so we don’t distract them. This team’s a little different. When you come to Thanksgiving, they don’t want a Thanksgiving meal. They want fried catfish and fried shrimp, so I had to fix that.
“So, we have half Thanksgiving and half Louisiana-style food. With the living situation, I don’t think it’s healthy for us to live in the middle of the Bayou Classic like we stayed at last year in the middle of downtown. And it was a distraction because so many people were in there, and the team doesn’t get that with usual road games. So I’m trying to make it like a normal road game where nobody is in the hotel with us and if they do come over, they’re invited. So, we take them away from the event so that they can focus on the game.”
Southern made news Wednesday evening when word leaked that Pro Football Hall of Fame running back Marshall Faulk, a New Orleans native, had agreed to become the Jaguars’ new coach. He spent this season on Deion Sanders’ staff at Colorado, his first coaching stint.
Southern athletics director Roman Banks, a Shreveport native, reportedly made the hire.
Contact Scott at tscottboatright@gmail.com