| Jackson State held on for a 19-14 win against Southern on Saturday. (Advocate photo) |
There haven’t been many shining moments in the SWAC this season, but Saturday was a different story. Not only did the Boombox Classic live up to the hype, but the conference also got its first out of conference win.
Southern and Jackson State is always a treat, and Saturday’s matchup was no exception. These two teams treated the 30,000-plus fans at Mumford Stadium to a great one. In our preview, we billed the game as offense (Southern) against defense (Jackson State). Well, as it turns out, both teams showed they could do a little of both. Jackson State racked up 355 yards against Southern, but the SU defense held its own for most of the game until a fumble in the third quarter helped JSU take the lead with touchdown runs by Rakeem Sims and Clayton Moore. Southern would answer back with a 19 yard touchdown pass from Dray Joseph to Lee Doss, but JSU’s defense held tight the rest of the way to preserve the 19-14 win.
With the win, Jackson State (3-2) ties the all-time series at 29 games each. More importantly, it stays undefeated in the SWAC (3-0). Southern drops to 2-3, and moves into a tie with Prairie View at 2-1 in the SWAC West.
It’s been well documented that the SWAC has struggled against non-conference competition, as the SWAC had yet to beat an out-of-conference Division I opponent heading into Saturday. Praire View finally broke that streak with a 56-48 win over Stephen F. Austin.
It was the Jerry Lovelock Show that powered Prairie View to the win as the junior accounted for seven total touchdowns. The Baltimore native threw for four touchdowns and ran for three more. Prairie View’s defense still has some work to do as it allowed SFA over 800 yards of total offense, but it did come up with four turnovers to preserve the win.
The rest of the day went pretty much as predicted for the SWAC.
-Alabama State rolled past Alcorn State 49-30. Isaiah Crowell finished with 133 yards and four touchdowns.
-Grambling jumped out to a 16-0 lead against Lamar…then remembered it was Grambling. Lamar scored 27 unanswered points to keep Grambling winless…
-Alabama A&M came up with 12-10 win over Texas Southern.