Future looks bright for Prairie View football program

Look how far they’ve come: No longer a football laughingstock, these Panthers are stalking a SWAC championship

PRAIRIE VIEW — Mark Spivey wanted to savor the moment, his last chance to celebrate homecoming as a member of the Prairie View A&M football team. Almost 30 minutes had passed since the Panthers defeated Alabama State 27-6 at Blackshear Stadium in front of 9,257 people, most of whom sported purple and gold while watching Spivey throw for 270 yards and two touchdowns. “It’s an unbelievable feeling to have so many fans here,” he said. “This is much, much different from the first homecoming I played in.”

The sixth-year senior epitomizes the change in attitude and expectations for the Panthers, who enter Saturday’s game at winless Arkansas-Pine Bluff with a 5-1 mark and in the hunt for the school’s first trip to the Southwestern Athletic Conference Championship Game. Winning is no longer treated like the pleasant surprise it brought for most of the 31 seasons before last’s year’s team finished 7-3. Saturday’s victory assured the program of consecutive non-losing seasons, a feat that hasn’t been seen at Prairie View since the 1967 squad finished the last of 22 straight campaigns of at least .500 ball.

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Prairie View celebrates first winning season in 31 years at JSU expense

by beepbeep

Prairie View A&M University Panthers are no longer terrible in football. Just ask Coach Rick Comegy and the Jackson State University Tigers who were defeated by the Panthers 30-27 yesterday. The win gives Coach Henry Frazier III and PVAMU (6-3, 5-3 SWAC) its first winning season in three decades which is cause for celebration. The Panthers have one game remaining with a home contest with Alabama A&M next week.

The 39 year old head coach who has become the beacon of change for the Panthers was in third grade in Washington, D.C., when PVAMU had its last winning season way back in 1976. Frazier came to Prairie View from CIAA Division II Bowie State University, his alma mater, where he resurrected the Bulldogs program from a 21 consecutive loss string before his arrival to having the best record in school history. Frazier was the Bulldogs quarterback and led them to the 1989 CIAA championship.

So, Prairie View was the right fit for an extraordinary head coach who saw this gig as the greatest opportunity in college sports. What was he thinking? With no expectations of winning and being reminded daily by the press of Prairie View's history of having the Division I record of 80 consecutive losses in the 1990's, he was viewed like all fifteen other coaches that had tried. All had come and gone with an accumulated record of 74-295-4, since 1965.

Photo: PVAMU Head Coach Henry Frazier III has led the 2007 Panthers to a winning season, where 15 other former Prairie View coaches failed since 1965.

Back to JSU. If you think Jackson State was looking past PVAMU after their big win last week over last season SWAC champions Alabama A&M University, guess again. With this loss, JSU and AAMU are now tied for first place in the East Division with identical 6-2 records, but with JSU holding the important tie breaker in head-to-head competition. The Panthers are now tied with Southern for second place behind West division leader Grambling (8-2, 8-0 SWAC) which is an amazing accomplishment considering that Prairie View has the 9th lowest football budget in the SWAC conference, which consists of 10 programs.

Frazier deserves a lot of credit, but you have to give the team more credit for executing the plans of their coaches by digging deep to win. Quarterback Mark Spivey was able to torch Jackson State with four touchdown passes (8-19/4 TD/0 Int, 180 yards), when the Panther ground game was held to a total of 43 rushing yards. Prairie View junior wide-receiver Joe Townsend (5-10,160 lbs) from Jacksonville, Florida had a career day catching two passes for touchdowns for a total of 99 yards. The Panthers defense held JSU to only 79 yards rushing on the day, but quarterback Jimmy Oliver of the Tigers was able to complete 21/31 for 296 yards and three touchdowns and no interceptions. Jaymar Johnson, WR was able to score on a 16 yard pass and 38 yard strike from Oliver in the first half.

PVAMU defense was led by senior linebacker Zach East from Houston, Texas who had a monster game with a career high 19 tackles (seven solo), a forced fumble and a blocked field goal to keep JSU offense under control.

Senior Quarterback Mark Spivey, 6-5/180, Houston, Texas Westfield H.S., had a career day with four TDs against Jackson State.

Spivey was not to be outdone by Jackson State, hitting receivers on touchdowns from 32, 35, 20 and 64 yards giving the Panthers an explosiveness not seen at Prairie View in over 40 years. The win was reserved by a fourth quarter interception with 1:11 left by free safety Chris Adingupu at the JSU 45 yard line and Prairie View ran out the clock on the Tigers. The Panthers (6-3, 5-3 SWAC) will end their 10 game schedule next week at home with Alabama A&M. A win by the Panthers not only will improve their winning record but will put Jackson State University in the SWAC championship game (against Grambling State) if JSU defeats next week's foe, Alcorn State. Guess who JSU Coach Rick Comegy will be cheer leading for next week other than for his team to win?

A second or third place finish for the Panthers in the SWAC West Division goes beyond expectations for a program that has traveled a very long road back to respectability. Henry Frazier III in his fourth season is writing a new chapter in Prairie View history, but he is not nearly finished with the final product--SWAC championships in the modern era for the Panthers. This program is digging deep and setting an example for all universities on what it takes to build a winning football program.

PVAMU Football Photo and Audio Show: The Meaning of the Shovel http://homecoming.pantherconnect.com/ss/PVAMUFtBl07Shove/index.html

Prairie View offense grounded

By CHARLES SALZER, Special to The Advocate

Photo: PVAMU Head Coach Henry Frazier

Throughout its 3-7 campaign last season, Prairie View had a stalwart defense that seldom let it down.

Saturday night at Southern, the defense was there once again keeping the Panthers in the hunt throughout the game. But an improved Prairie View offense found the going tough against an equally improved Southern defense in a 12-2 loss at A.W. Mumford stadium.

In a game dominated by defense, Prairie View was able to move inside the SU 30 three times, but came away empty on each drive.

“You move the ball down the field, but you’ve still got to execute,” PVAM quarterback Chris Gibson said. “We’ve got to go over the X and O’s because when it came down to it we didn’t execute.”

Gibson finished the game with only 8 yards rushing, and completed 11 of 26 passes for 69 yards with two interceptions. In three games against Southern, Gibson was 15 for 42 for 110 yards with four interceptions and no touchdowns.

Prairie View coach Henry Frazier was frustrated with the lack of offensive production, and the fact the Panthers’ headsets were non-operational. It didn’t keep Frazier from praising the Southern defense.

“We didn’t have the answers, and our headphones didn’t work for whatever reason,” Frazier said. “When you take the coordinator out of the booth, its hard to see some of the things they’re doing from the sideline.

“I don’t want to make excuses because Southern was flying around, and they got turnovers. Throwing three interceptions doesn’t have anything to do with headsets.”

One of Prairie View’s best scoring chances came on the game’s opening possession. From the PVAM 37, Gibson directed the Panthers to a first at the SU 26. Three plays later, Gibson was stopped short on a fourth-and-2 quarterback sneak.

“(Gibson) was supposed to pull that back so we could kick a field goal,” Frazier said. “He said he saw a gap, and he thought he could get it. When you’ve got a senior quarterback that likes to run the ball you’re going to hang your hat on that.”

Prairie View only crossed midfield once more before halftime, initially gaining a first at the SU 34 before stalling. After a penalty, the Panthers gained just 1 yard on three downs and were forced to punt.

The third quarter began with promise as Prairie View used a field position advantage to force Southern to punt from its own end zone. With a drive that began at the SU 35, Prairie View eventually faced a fourth-and-3, but Gibson’s fourth down pass off a roll out fell incomplete.

“We wanted to get (Gibson) on the edge so he’d have a run-pass option,” Frazier said. “Southern did a good job of bringing the strong safety up to stop the run. They took that away so we had the tight end dragging across the backside and tried to lob it over. They were in a perfect defense, once again.”

The lack of offense eventually began to add pressure to the Panthers defense, but the most it could muster was a safety when Southern was flagged for holding in the end zone on a fourth-quarter punt.

“We played as hard as we could,” senior linebacker Zach East said. “As a defense I think we should have gotten more turnovers, and scored for our offense. Anytime our offense doesn’t score I feel like our defense should. We should score once in any game.

“We had a lot of pressure on us to score, get turnovers or give our offense good field position.”

It was pressure created by an opportunistic Southern team that made all the plays it had to.