Alabama State and Tuskegee’s rivalry goes back even further, as the two teams met for the Turkey Day Classic for nearly 90 years uninterrupted. That all came to an end in 2013 when Tuskegee announced it would no longer play the game in order to remain eligible for the D2 playoffs.
The two teams eventually brought the game back in 2017 as the “Labor Day Classic.” (Coincidently, this was the same day that NSU and VSU brought their LDC back.) Tuskegee, like VSU in the CIAA, went into enemy territory and came out with a win over its higher-division rival.
Both FCS teams have won the last two matchups, but the games continue to do well at the gate. ASU AD Jennifer L. Williams told us in 2018 she was hoping for a $1 million gate for that year’s game, based on how well the first classic did.
Labor Day Classic = Family Reunion
The HBCU Gameday Crew traveled down for the 2018 game, which turned out to be an overtime thriller. Before the game, throngs of people turned up and out to represent their schools in a friendly manner while they shared music, food and good times.
Those days seem long and far away now. And we don’t know if we’ll ever get them back. What we do know is that these missed games will represent a significant amount of missed revenue for the schools. And if their teams do suit up at all, a big part of the pageantry and tradition that make HBCU football great will be sitting out as well.
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