Bayou Classic
The Bayou Classic is the annual college football game between the Grambling State University Tigers and the Southern University Jaguars, first held under that name in 1974 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, although the series itself actually began in 1932. A trophy is awarded to the winning school.
Background
Since 1990 the game has been held the final Saturday in November at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. Following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, organizers moved the 2005 event from the Superdome to Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas, where many of New Orleans' evacuees were living. This was the only time that the Bayou Classic was held outside of Louisiana. The 2006 Bayou Classic returned to the Superdome.It is the best known annual game and rivalry in historically black college or university football and was nationally televised in the U.S. by NBC from 1991 to 2014. Since 2015 it has aired on the NBC Sports Network. The Bayou Classic was the only National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Football Championship Subdivision game to be shown regularly on broadcast television. Fans have been known to refer to it as the "Black Super Bowl", although that name is not used in any official capacity by either school due to the National Football League's restrictions on the use of the "Super Bowl" name. Both schools typically forgo FCS playoff eligibility to participate in the Bayou Classic. The game is one of two black college football classics to be associated with Thanksgiving weekend; the other is the older Turkey Day Classic.
The game had State Farm Insurance as its title sponsor from 1996 to 2011.
Other activities
Of the many activities held in conjunction with the game, the most well-known and well-attended is the two-part Battle of the Bands, where both universities' marching bands—Grambling's "World Famed" Tiger Marching Band and Southern's Human Jukebox—perform. Following the Greek show, the two renowned bands stage elaborately choreographed performances on the Friday night before the game. The final part is held during the football game's halftime show. There is no official judge for the band battle.Since 1992, members of South Louisiana's Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps run with the game ball from Southern's campus in North Baton Rouge to the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in downtown New Orleans for the annual "Bayou Classic Motivation Run." The event happens the day before the game begins and is an approximately 100 mile run that takes between 8 and 10 hours to complete. Members of the NROTC take turns running with the ball while a police escort follow them along the way.
Other activities include a golf tournament, coaches luncheon, a concert/festival, tailgating, fashion show, pep rally, alumni functions, college recruitment fair, a Thanksgiving Day Parade, and a job fair for graduating students of both schools. An annual Grambling vs. Southern "Miss Bayou Classic" beauty pageant was also held from 1976 to 2002.
Impact
The Bayou Classic is a major source of revenue to the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana. 250,000 visitors descend upon New Orleans over the course of the events leading up to the game, and the national television audience has attracted between four and five million viewers. The success of the game has inspired the promotion of numerous other HBCU rivalries and "classics". In the past the stadium attendance had averaged between 50,000–70,000 annually. Hurricane Katrina brought some challenges, first with a one-year move to Houston, then with a slight drop-off in attendance upon the classic's return to New Orleans—all while the Florida Classic and Magic City Classic gained significantly in prominence over that same time period. Though the Bayou Classic also lost its title sponsor in 2011 and GSU faced numerous issues during its 2013 season, officials in 2014 rejected suggestions to remove GSU as a participant and instead resolved to quickly rejuvenate the classic. Attendance has now climbed significantly each year since 2011 and is again near pre-Katrina levels. The game also remains nationally televised, although NBC did move the game broadcast over to its sister sports-only network in 2015.Series history
Historically, Grambling State and Southern have arguably had the two most successful football teams in the Southwestern Athletic Conference. Through the 2018 season Grambling has more SWAC football titles than any other school ; Southern has the second most with 19. Grambling and SU also have more black national titles than any other SWAC schools; as of 2017 Grambling has the second most in the entire country with 15 total, while SU has the fourth most at the FCS-level. The two schools have also represented the SWAC in 13 of the 15 Pelican, Heritage, and Celebration bowls that have been held. Through 2015 Florida A&M of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference was the only FCS-level HBCU school with more football wins than Southern or Grambling. However both Grambling and Southern were ordered by the NCAA to vacate wins in multiple sports due to the questionable eligibility of hundreds of their student athletes between 2010 and 2015. It is not immediately clear just which Grambling football games are effected by these rulings, but the NCAA did make a special point to specify that Grambling's 2011 season record and championships remain fully intact; games played between 2012 and 2015, however, appear to remain possible candidates for being vacated. Southern, meanwhile, had to vacate all of its 2013 and 2014 wins, at the very least.Through now, Southern leads the overall series with Grambling, begun in 1932, by a 36–33 margin. This total does not include two vacated wins but includes one forfeited loss.) Both teams have 23 overall victories, and Grambling State claims the longest winning streak in the all-time series, nine games from 1970 to 1978. Southern claims the longest winning streak in the Bayou Classic era, eight games from 1993 to 2000. Grambling's 43–6 victory in 1980 ranks as the largest margin of victory in the Bayou Classic, while SU's 1935 victory is the largest margin in the all-time series. Multiple trophies have been awarded to the winner of the Bayou Classic over the years. The most recent trophy, consisting of Waterford Crystal, was retired after the 2014 game after more than 25 years of service and presented to the Smithsonian Institution for its National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. A newly designed trophy has been showcased since the 2015 game.
People prominently involved in the series include Ace Mumford, Eddie Robinson, Doug Williams, Marino Casem, Pete Richardson, and Rod Broadway. Mumford once had the third most wins among all college football coaches, and Robinson later had the most. Today Robinson still has the third most wins and also has the most wins among all who coached at HBCU schools; Mumford now has the fourth most wins among HBCU coaches behind Robinson, Billy Joe, and John Merritt. Broadway holds the distinction of being the only coach to have ever won a black national title at three different schools, one of which was Grambling.
Prior to 1974, though the game was viewed as a big in-state rivalry between the two schools, it was not nearly the media spectacle that it is today. After it was re-branded as the Bayou Classic and moved to New Orleans, a trophy was added and numerous events were also scheduled to be held throughout the week leading up to the game itself. Games in the series played before 1974 are generally not included within the context of the Bayou Classic's historical lineage. SU led the series 15–10 up until that point. The annual game was known to be touted as a "classic" as early as the 1948 meeting, a game that the Jaguars won in an 18–0 upset before 10,000 fans. A brawl during that game led to a suspension of the series for the next decade and delayed GSU's admittance to SWAC membership until 1958, shortly before the rivalry was resumed. With the renewal of the series in 1959, the game was again billed as a "classic" but proved a bittersweet return as five fans were killed in a vehicular accident on their way to the game. The series was again interrupted in 1972, this time due to political unrest on host Southern's campus—which resulted in a forfeiture by SU. The game was then permanently moved to off-campus neutral sites the following year, drawing a large crowd of 40,000 in Shreveport, Louisiana, and influencing the decision to create the Bayou Classic.