On to title game
The University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff football team can turn to next week’s Southwestern Athletic Conference title game after Saturday’s regular-season finale against Texas Southern was called off Wednesday.
“You take your covid tests on Monday, and they thought they were good. But then, you get the test results back a day or two later. So that factored into it.”
UAPB Coach Doc Gamble on not playing Texas Southern on Saturday
The University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff football team officially can turn its attention to next week’s Southwestern Athletic Conference title game after Saturday’s regular-season finale against Texas Southern was called off Wednesday because of ongoing covid-19 issues for the Tigers.
The news wasn’t a complete shock, considering Texas Southern’s previous two games were nixed for reasons related to the pandemic. Still, UAPB Coach Doc Gamble was focusing on Saturday, not the title game.
“We were told on Monday that it was a go,” he said. “You take your covid tests on Monday, and they thought they were good. But then, you get the test results back a day or two later. So that factored into it.”
The teams were supposed to open the season against one another on Feb. 27, but water-pressure issues in Pine Bluff caused by a winter storm forced the postponement until Saturday.
The UAPB-Texas Southern matchup wasn’t the only one scrubbed from Saturday’s SWAC schedule.
Alabama A&M had its meeting at Mississippi Valley State canceled because of covid-19 issues with the Delta Devils.
Those two outcomes mean the two teams set to face off May 1 for the league championship will have a few extra days to prepare.
“We’ll still have our normal meeting times, though,” Gamble said. “But we’ll have to figure out the schedule for the rest of the week. What we’ll probably plan on doing is practice [today], have another lift and weight-room session on Friday, and then give them the weekend off.
“We’ll then get them back in here ready to go when we get started on Alabama A&M on Monday.”
Gamble said his team was eager to play again, especially after the Golden Lions gutted out a 36-31 victory over Prairie View A&M last week. He also noted that his team could benefit from a bit of a break.
“The guys are doing well, but last week was a really, really tough game,” he said. “To be honest, this will kind of allow us to get healthy and finish up school strong because we’ve got exams coming up, too. But as for the health of our guys, Prairie View was tough.
“So this will give us a chance to heal up and head into this next game full speed ahead.”
The SWAC made the decision late Wednesday afternoon to play the championship game at Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium in Jackson, Miss.
The game previously was set to be played on the campus of the team that was rated the highest in the conference at the end of the regular season. According to SWAC Commissioner Charles McClelland, the canceled games made it difficult for the league to use the tiebreaker system the league had in place to separate the undefeated squads.
“We’ve made the decision to relocate the upcoming SWAC Championship game to a neutral site location due to the covid-19-related game cancellations that directly impacted Alabama A&M and Arkansas-Pine Bluff,” McClelland said in a news release. “The canceled games would have ultimately assisted the conference office in determining a host institution for the championship game using our existing hosting tiebreaker policy. Without having the ability to thoroughly evaluate both teams using that policy, we felt the only fair and equitable decision that could be made was to move the game to a neutral site location.”
The game had been held at a neutral site from 19992017 before it was moved to campus locations beginning in 2018.
If UAPB (4-0, 4-0) had beaten Texas Southern and Alabama A&M (4-0, 3-0) had lost to Mississippi Valley State, then the championship game would have been played at Simmons Bank Field in Pine Bluff.
Had Alabama A&M won and UAPB lost, then the Bulldogs would have hosted the game at Louis Crews Stadium in Huntsville, Ala.
If both UAPB and Alabama A&M had won their respective games, then the league’s tiebreaker scenarios would have come into play, which included a number of determining factors such as overall conference record versus common divisional and non-divisional opponents, and FCS coaches poll rankings.
Gamble isn’t concerned about the game’s location.
“Anyone, any time, any place,” he said. “They put the ball down, we want to play.”