The Southwestern Athletic Conference’s two longest-tenured members lock horns at Shreveport’s Independence Stadium as the Shreveport Football Classic, with kickoff at 4 p.m.
The Jaguars (2-4, 1-3) hold a considerable edge in the series. However, momentum has shifted to the side of the defending SWAC champions. The Panthers (4-3, 3-2) won three of the last four meetings — all three wins the grand total of six points. PVAM escaped Mumford Stadium last season with a last-second 16-14 win.
Both teams enter Saturday’s game looking to avoid let downs after having opposite results last week. Southern suffered a heartbreaking 49-45 loss at Jackson State while PV reeled off its third-straight win with a 45-12 homecoming win over Lincoln.
“Well, we’re not going to have no let downs,” PVAM head coach Henry Frazier III said during Monday’s weekly conference call. “We lost three in a row (earlier in the season), so we’re looking for guys with character and guys who are self-motivated. When you lose three in a row, not a whole lot a coach can say. Those things have to come from within and we won three in a row.”
On the other side, penalties continue to be the bane of Southern’s existence this season. The Jags were flagged 16 times for 195 yards against JSU, a season high for penalties called and penalty yardage.
“For the most part, we shot ourselves in the foot,” head coach Stump Mitchell said. “Again, we had too many penalties. Playing these teams, you cannot have as many penalties as we had in our games.”
When asked about looking forward to playing PV, Mitchell answered, “it’s definitely going to be a challenge.”
“They won it all last year. They have a great running back (in Donald Babers, the SWAC’s second-leading rusher) that they’re going to look to get the ball to as well. Defensively, I like these guys. They have team speed and they’ll bring the hat.”
Indeed.
Still, the Jaguars struggle to wrap up when engaged against ball carriers.
Defensive coordinator O’Neill Gilbert emphasized that the defensive unit must tackle for this week’s contest.
“They have a running back that’s extremely talented. I haven’t seen a running back like that this season. We have to tackle, and this will be the game where if we can’t tackle it will all show.”
Freshman kicker William Griswold earned conference special teams player of the week honors for his performance against JSU. Griswold scored 13 points and is 19-for-19 on PATs on the season.