SWAC dropping title game after 2017

This football season’s Southwestern Athletic Conference championship game will be the last for now.

The conference announced Tuesday it will forgo its football championship game following the 2017 version Dec. 2 at NRG Stadium.

Originally introduced in 1999, the SWAC championship game was played at Legion Field in Birmingham, Ala., for 14 years before moving to Houston in 2013.

The move is in an effort to save funds and redirect focus to help grow the Air Force Reserve Celebration Bowl, which pits the SWAC champion against the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference champion for black college football’s “national championship.”

That game, in just its third year of existence, is scheduled to be played Dec. 16 at the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

“By focusing on the Celebration Bowl, we can continue to grow the AFRCB as an HBCU (historically black colleges and universities) classic for the teams and fans of both conferences and for HBCU football nationally,” SWAC commissioner Duer Sharp said.

The MEAC does not have a championship game.

Beginning in 2018, the SWAC football championship will go to the team with the best regularseason conference record, but scheduling and a tiebreaking procedure are still being ironed out.

The SWAC currently has a seven-game conference schedule and split divisions, but in switching to the new format, there could be some desire for a nine-game conference schedule so each team plays each other.

“Personally … I think if you play nine, it works itself out,” Prairie View A&M coach Willie Simmons said. “Everyone plays everyone and the best team eventually comes out on top. If you decrease it to seven like with our current format, then you run into, ‘Well, we didn’t play this team and this team that won a championship didn’t have to play a tougher schedule.’

“So, I think there are some discussions that have to be had moving forward.”