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December 12, 2006
SWAC WORLD: Quarterback Quandary
Nick Deriso, CSN columnist
Both Alabama A&M and Arkansas-Pine Bluff arrive for this week's Southwestern Athletic Conference Championship Game having never won it. Both sit at 8-3, and have had three weeks to prepare.
Still, these teams finished the 2006 regular season in much different places.
A&M lost to Western Division cellar-dweller Prairie View in its finale 13-7, breaking the Panthers' seven-game losing streak. Meanwhile, UAPB was extending its own winning streak to seven with a 42-31 victory over Texas Southern.
"UAPB is the hottest team in black college football," A&M coach Anthony Jones has said. "It's going to be a heck of a matchup. It's not going to be an easy task and it shouldn't be to win a championship."
Kickoff is at 1 p.m. Saturday at Legion Field in Birmingham, Ala.
This is Pine Bluff's first-ever appearance in the title match, while A&M has advanced three times since 2000. A&M has never won the SWAC, while UAPB shared a title in the 1960s -- before the creation of this game.
Then, there's the quarterback issue. More on that in a moment.
CHECK THIS OUT: Look for more than a little urgency to win from Alabama A&M, which is losing seven starters on offense -- including its two best rushers and its top receiver. There's also the matter of its 0-3 record in the SWAC title game, with each lost since 2000 to Grambling.
IN THE HUDDLE: Junior A&M quarterback Kelcy Luke likely has a chip on his shoulder when it comes to his team's regular loss to Pine Bluff earlier this year. The Golden Lions slipped past Luke and the Bulldogs with a two-point win -- but only after Luke was stopped on a two-point conversion that allowed UAPB to run down the game clock. A&M had rallied from 23-7.
Luke was also ruled short on a touchdown try early in the game that would have put the Bulldogs up by two touchdowns.
QUOTABLE QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "What the SWAC has been able to accomplish is become a partner with the city. I don't know many conferences our size, or even bigger, that have a relationship with a municipality that we have. We'd have to think long and hard before we do something." -- League commissioner Robert Vowels, discussing recent bids by both Shreveport and Jackson, Miss., to lure the league offices away from Birmingham.
THE SWAC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: This one might just come down to quarterback play, and A&M has the edge.
Mostly because UAPB won't have its starter -- at least early on.
Quarterback Chris Wallace, who led Pine Bluff to its first Western Division title, has been suspended for the first half of the SWAC title match after being ejected from the Golden Lions' season finale. Vowels upheld the suspension despite the league's struggles with attendance recently.
The inaugural SWAC Championship Game, pitting Southern vs. Jackson State in 1999, drew a record 47,621 fans. But crowds have thinned ever since, falling to 20,612 last season as GSU beat Alabama A&M.
SWAC officials are reporting 50 percent more tickets sales so far for Saturday's game, which has been bolstered by a favorable weather forecast and some related city-sponsored events.
A shame, then, that these two teams couldn't square off at full strength -- especially since the conference presumably could have deferred Wallace's punishment in order to bolster its own contest.
The bitter irony? A week after learning his suspension would stand, Wallace was named SWAC Offensive Player of the Year.
Oh, well.
Look for Pine Bluff to return to the one-dimensional look that Wallace broke them out of.
