KEYS: A leader emerges at Southern

Baton Rouge, LA - Stunned beyond belief.

That’s how the Southern football coaches felt. It was Friday night, some eight days before the Jaguars’ season opener Saturday in Nashville, Tenn., against Tennessee State. The campus had emptied out. Most students were headed home, fast asleep or out on the town.

At 10 p.m., SU coaches were milling about the A.W. Mumford Field House, preparing for a scrimmage. There, they stumbled upon Jamie Payton and 10 of his fellow linebackers, who’d stayed late to watch more film.

“Unbelievable,” defensive coordinator O’Neill Gilbert said. “Friday night, after a hard practice, most guys want to go eat pizza and do whatever college kids do. Friday night, they were up here with Jamie Payton.”

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Grambling, Alcorn State coaches have long history

Shreveport, LA - You know all the old favorite sayings, don’t you? Life has a funny way of coming full-circle. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Stuff along those lines. Sometimes, they’re overused. Sometimes, they’re right on the money.

Clearly, Saturday’s game in Shreveport is a case of the latter.

At Independence Stadium, Grambling and Alcorn State will square off in the latest chapter a long-running, old-fashioned football rivalry. They’ll kick off the season in a game that will give the winner an early leg up in the Southwestern Athletic Conference standings.



In other words, this meeting feels like old times.

“Even back in the good old days, Alcorn was always that first game for Grambling,” Grambling coach Doug Williams said. “I think that’s the way it should be.”

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TSU RB running by foes

Nashville, TN - Following a summer practice in 2007, TSU’s freshman running back Danté Thomas left an unforgettable first impression with position coach Kevin Mashack.

Thomas, who just transferred from the Naval Academy Prep school, joined the rest of the TSU team for summer camp, but Mashack noticed Thomas looked slow and questioned why the program offered him scholarship to begin with.

It wasn’t until the second week of camp, according to Mashack, until he discovered the main cause for Thomas’ struggles. His cleats.

“I see him on the table taking off his cleats with skin hanging off his feet,” Mashack recalled. “But he didn’t complain. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t want us to think that he just got here and that he was already hurt.”

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DSU opens new era of high expectations

DOVER -- The Delaware State football team hopes it will be able to begin to erase the stigma of three consecutive losing seasons when it begins a new era under coach Kermit Blount in its season-opener at Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Va., today.

(L) Coach Kermit Blount and (R) Derek Carter, Athletic Director

Blount, who spent 17 years as the coach of Winston-Salem State, is certainly ready to see if his Hornets are ready to respond to all of the changes in their football program since last winter.

"I'm really, really excited right now, probably a little bit of butterflies, but it's a good thing that [today] is here," Blount said. "We've been tackling each other for the past three-and-a-half weeks and I think it's time now for our guys to actually get on the field and compete against somebody else."

Delaware State and VMI are both coming off 3-8 seasons in 2010, but both have high expectations heading into a new season that kicks off at 1:30 this afternoon at Foster Stadium. This will be the first meeting between the schools.

2011 VMI Football Virtual Guide

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Georgia State hammers Clark Atlanta

Atlanta, GA - Georgia State hoped to see good things from its new quarterback, revamped rushing attack and rebuilt defense in its season opener against Clark Atlanta.

Bo Schlechter threw three touchdown passes in his first start, including two to Albert Wilson, with nary a turnover. Donald Russell led a rushing attack with two touchdowns, and the defense intercepted two passes in a 41-7 victory Friday night at the Georgia Dome.



Russell, a transfer from Kentucky, scored the first two times he touched the ball on runs of 20 and 3 yards to lead the offense. Coach Bill Curry wanted to see improvement in the area because the Panthers averaged a meager 123.3 yards per game last season.

"Donald makes a difference when he carries the ball," Curry said of Russell, who had 56 of the team's 146 rushing yards. And that difference? "I believe it's downhill running," Russell said. "Ive been taught at my previous school to get the yards I can get, that's good enough."

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Attendance: 26,273 @Georgia Dome

Chicago Classic is homecoming of sorts for AAMU's Jackson

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - Tony Jackson thought his football career was over. After Alabama A&M completed spring practice, Jackson, who has longed for a career in acting, received a call about becoming an extra in "Good Deeds," one of Tyler Perry's upcoming movies also starring Gabrielle Union.

"I jumped all over it and decided I was done with football," he said. "I was going to pursue an acting career."

After completing the project in late July, Jackson, who graduated in May with a degree in exercise science, got a chance to talk with Perry. He encouraged him to finish his football career.

"He told me if I had a year left to play, I should go ahead and play," Jackson said. "He told me acting would always be there."

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CMU opens season with a victory over South Carolina State

Mount Pleasant, MI - There are plenty of labels or mottos that can be used to describe the 2011 season opener for the Central Michigan football team. But, really, all of that is just sugarcoating what can be labeled an ugly win.

Still, for a team looking to separate itself from its 3-9 record in 2010, the Chippewas will take a win any way they can. On Thursday, it came in the form of a 21-6 win over Football Championship Subdivision opponent, South Carolina State, at Kelly/Shorts Stadium.

“It was a win,” CMU coach Dan Enos said. “We didn’t play that well at times but we did what we had to do to win.” Coming into the season, Enos was hopeful to see the Chippewas (1-0) improve on their rushing offense and turnover margin.

Neither of those made a drastic step forward as CMU amassed just 88 rushing yards and lost the turnover battle 2-0, on a pair of Ryan Radcliff interceptions.The game lacked many big plays, as 20 punts were kicked in the contest and 15 possessions lasted just three plays or less.

Things started quickly for CMU, as the Chippewas scored on the opening possession, just four plays into the game. Radcliff used a play action fake and then hit junior Cody Wilson on a 45-yard touchdown pass that put CMU up 7-0 less than two minutes into the game.

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