Challenge accepted: Grambling succeeds in going after Southern's stingy secondary in Bayou Classic victory

NEW ORLEANS -- Grambling could have taken the easy way out Saturday in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.

The Tigers could have attacked Southern’s young defensive line — a line that has allowed the fourth-most yards rushing of any team in the conference.

Keeping the ball on the ground would have allowed Grambling to wear down the Jaguars defense while avoiding their hawkish secondary, which entered the Bayou Classic with 19 interceptions and had allowed only 205 yards passing per game.



Challenge accepted.

Instead of using the running game to set up the passing game, Grambling went right at the heart of the Jaguars defense.

By the end of the night, Grambling threw for 315 yards on a 75 percent completion rate, the second-most Southern allowed all season.

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Bayou Classic: Turnovers pivotal as Southern stumbles, Grambling pulls ahead

NEW ORLEANS -- Southern's defense has produced a plethora of turnovers this season, but a relentless Grambling offense helped turn the tables Saturday in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.

The Jaguars, who had feasted on turnovers to the tune of a plus-17 turnover margin, were thrown off by an early pair of their own unforced mistakes. The turnovers helped morph a game expected to be a memorable Bayou Classic into one Southern would prefer to forget.

Southern had a chance to go into halftime with the lead, but a fumble and an interception set the table for Grambling to run up a 52-30 win. It was the most points Grambling has scored on Southern since a 55-20 win in 1977.

“It's one or two plays in the football game (that make the difference), the momentum swung from that moment forward,” Southern coach Dawson Odums said. “We talked about that all week: You’ve got to protect the football.”

The first turnover came with five minutes left in the first quarter and Southern trailing 7-6. The Jaguars were in the process of finishing a 12-play, 88-yard drive that could have given them the lead, but ball-handling problems changed that.

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Bayou Classic notebook: No safety nets, Willie Quinn falls short of 1,000 and the Lenard Tillery era comes to a close

NEW ORLEANS -- Southern’s tight ends had been one of quarterback Austin Howard’s favorite targets all season.

Whenever Howard needed a quick outlet under pressure, Dillon Beard or Austin Opara or even freshman Jeremias Houston were always a safe option to dump the ball off.

Not Saturday.

Grambling clamped down on Howard’s safety nets all night in the Bayou Classic, limiting his targeting of tight ends to just five of his 44 attempts.

All of the targets went to Beard, who reeled in three receptions for 36 yards, all of which came in the second half.

Quinn falls short
One of Southern’s most prolific careers ended without a 1,000-yard season.

Senior receiver Willie Quinn fell 45 yards short of one of the few milestones to elude him the past four years after gaining 60 yards on six receptions Saturday.

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2016 Bayou Classic: Grambling's 'dominant' offensive performance sinks Southern, 52-30

NEW ORLEANS -- Grambling went into Saturday's 43rd annual Bayou Classic with the reputation as the best offense in the Southwestern Athletic Conference, and it did everything it needed to to live up to that title.

The Tigers clinched a spot in next week's SWAC title game against two-time defending conference champion Alcorn State by racking up 571 yards of total offense on the way to a 52-30 win over Southern. But what made their performance so special was how they went about doing it.



Grambling came in with the reputation as an explosive passing offense, but it took over Saturday's game by pounding Southern's defense with the running game and it eventually paid off in the second half.

"We did a really good job of running the football," said Grambling coach Broderick Fobbs. "We saw some things from the way they were lining up in the first half and we were able to take advantage of it. We did a good job of running the football with (running backs) Martez Carter and Jestin Kelly and all those guys did an exceptional job of getting the ball into the endzone.

"We have a lot of exceptional athletes and they were on display tonight."

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Darrell Walker brings NBA experience and new attitude to Clark Atlanta University

ATLANTA, Georgia -- There’s a wind of change coming to Clark Atlanta University, a historically black university in the heart of Atlanta — change coming by way of the school’s Division II men’s basketball program and its new head basketball coach, Darrell Walker.

“Just because you’re in Division II doesn’t mean you have to act like it,” said Walker during a recent interview. The former NBA assistant and head coach (Toronto Raptors, Washington Wizards, New Orleans Hornets, Detroit Pistons, New York Knicks), Continental Basketball Association head coach (Rockford Lightning) and WNBA head coach (Washington Mystics) took what many might have thought was an easy opportunity for him — to coach the college game — as a direct challenge.

“I’ve been trying to get into college coaching for a while,” said Walker as he prepared for the inaugural Darrell Walker Art and Basketball Fundraiser at the Thomas W. Cole Research Center for Science and Technology on the Clark Atlanta campus on Nov. 3. “When this opportunity came open, I applied, and here I am.”

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Scoring droughts doom Northern Kentucky in loss to NC Central

HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Kentucky – The Northern Kentucky University men's basketball team used a 19-5 run to come within five points of North Carolina Central with 21 seconds to play on Saturday, but fell to the Eagles, 82-74, at BB&T Arena despite 20-point performances from both Drew McDonald and Lavone Holland II.

With the loss, NKU moves to 3-3 overall while the Eagles improve to 3-2.

BOX SCORE

STAT LEADERS

• McDonald turned in his third double-double in the last four games and posted his fourth-straight game with 20 or more points. He brought down 11 rebounds including seven on the offensive end and tied Holland with a team-best 20 points.
• Holland reached the 20-point mark with a 6-for-12 showing from the field including a 3-for-7 performance from behind the arc.
• Freshman Blake Spellman dished out a career-high and team-best five assists in 19 minutes of action.

TURNING POINT

• The Norse led throughout the first portion of the game until North Carolina Central closed the first half on an 18-0 run. The Eagles claimed their first lead of the game amid the run when they jumped ahead 30-29 with 5:04 left in the half.
• McDonald and Holland combined for 11 points across a two-minute span to bring the Norse within four of NCC at 53-49 with 10:50 on the clock, the closest they would get to the Eagles throughout the remainder of the game.

FIRST-HALF SUMMARY

• The Norse claimed their largest lead of the game as they rode an 8-0 run to lead it 17-8 at the midway point of the first period. The run featured a pair of triples from Cole Murray and Spellman as the Norse held NC Central without a field goal for over three and a half minutes.
• The Eagles chipped away at the deficit using 9-for-12 shooting across the final seven minutes as they put together their 18-0 run. The Eagles' Patrick Cole – the game's leading scorer – contributed eight points to the run as he closed the half with a game-high 15 points.
• North Carolina held a 23-18 edge in first-half rebounds, with the Norse bringing down nine offensive boards to NCC's six.

SECOND-HALF SUMMARY

• Spellman broke NKU's scoring drought with a triple at the 17:35 mark to spark eight uninterrupted points from the Norse that also included a three from McDonald and a Williams layup.
• The run helped bring the Norse within seven as they cut the NCC lead to 44-37 with 16:17 remaining.
• McDonald and Holland then chipped in for 11 combined points to come within four of NCC at 53-49 with 10:50 on the clock.
• The Eagles responded 11 uninterrupted points to get back out to a 66-51 lead with just under seven minutes to play.
• NKU out-scored NC Central, 19-5, over a five minute span to come within five with 21 seconds left to play but the Eagles would close out the victory with four points in the final stretch.

GAME NOTES

• While McDonald has posted four-straight games with 20 or more points, Holland has turned in back-to-back 20-point performances. The junior has 45 points across the last two games.
• Despite being narrowly out-rebounded 41-39, the Norse brought down 16 offensive boards to NCC's seven. NKU has out-rebounded its opponents 65-40 on the offensive glass this season. The only game in which the Norse did not win the offensive rebounding battle was against Miami (Ohio) when the teams were tied with eight offensive rebounds apiece.
• Northern Kentucky shot 51.3 percent in the second half on 16-for-31 shooting, including an 8-for-15 (53.3 percent) showing from three. The Norse out-scored NCC, 45-40, in the second period.

NEXT UP

• The Norse open a two-game road swing on Wednesday, Nov. 30 when they travel to take on in-state foe Morehead State at 7 p.m.  NCCU travels on Nov. 28 to University of Missouri - Columbia.  The game will be a televised on the SEC Network.

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Walker: Another big day for Southern's Lenard Tillery, but this Bayou Classic didn't end how he was hoping

NEW ORLEANS -- The walk-on walked off the field for the final time Saturday.

This wasn’t quite the way Lenard Tillery envisioned his college career ending.

He surely would have traded every last one of the 230 yards he rushed for Saturday for a win that would have extended his college career another week and sent Southern traveling west down Interstate 10 to Houston for the SWAC championship game next Saturday.

Instead, the Jaguars were on the wrong end of a 52-30 loss, far more lopsided than anyone expected in this battle of SWAC unbeatens for the 43rd installment of the Bayou Classic.

Tillery, whose goal was to go out with a SWAC title, will have to settle for the SWAC ring he won in 2013. He took his No. 21 jersey off for the final time, finishing his career with more yards than any other player in SWAC history.

And, yes, that includes the late Walter Payton, the Jackson State star who went on to a career that earned him a gold blazer and a bust in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Not bad for a guy who just five years ago wasn’t considered good enough for a scholarship when he graduated from McKinley High School. He ended up walking on at his hometown school.

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