The Bayou Classic Turns 53 This Thanksgiving, and It Began as Eddie Robinson's Long-Shot Idea

Every Thanksgiving weekend, a good share of Louisiana points the car toward New Orleans for a rivalry game that comes with a parade and a battle of the bands attached. The 53rd Bayou Classic between Southern University and Grambling State kicks off at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 28, at the Caesars Superdome. The weekend around it now starts with a Thanksgiving Day parade downtown on Thursday and builds to the Battle of the Bands and Greek Show on Friday night.

The rivalry is much older than its name. Southern and Grambling first met on Armistice Day in 1932, and for years the game was played on the two campuses, in Baton Rouge and in Grambling. The idea of taking it to a big city belonged to Eddie Robinson, Grambling's coach, who retired in 1997 with 408 wins, every one of them at Grambling.

Robinson's dream took a long time to come true. According to a 2009 history published by the Southwestern Athletic Conference, he came home from the 1955 Orange Blossom Classic in Miami, where his team played in front of 48,000 people, dreaming of the day Grambling and other historically Black colleges would play in packed stadiums in major cities. In 1956 he wrote to the Sugar Bowl Committee proposing a game at Tulane Stadium. The committee turned him down. A later attempt at a New Orleans high school field was played in a downpour before perhaps 2,000 fans.

What finally changed minds was the crowd. When Southern last played at Grambling in 1972, longtime Grambling administrator Wilbert Ellis recalled, fans who could not get in watched from trees and rooftops. Robinson persuaded Southern to move the 1973 game to Independence Stadium in Shreveport, and it set the stadium's attendance record. A year later the game moved to Tulane Stadium under a new name. The first Bayou Classic drew 76,753 people, and a young Grambling quarterback named Doug Williams led the Tigers to a 21-0 win.

"You walk out the tunnel for pre-game warm-ups and there's nothing but people," Williams told SWAC.org in 2009. "That's what they dreamed of."

The game moved into the Superdome in 1975 and has stayed in New Orleans with two exceptions. In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina, it was played in Houston, and in April 2021, after the pandemic scrambled the college calendar, it was played in Shreveport.

Grambling won the first five Bayou Classics. Southern's breakthrough came in 1979, when senior nose tackle Kenny Times made 10 tackles and two sacks in a 14-7 win. In 1991 the Bayou Classic became the first game between historically Black colleges shown nationally on network television, and NBC's audience got a 31-30 Southern win, still the closest finish in the series.

Last year's game came close to matching it. Grambling led from late in the first quarter until 7:16 remained in the fourth, when Cam'Ron McCoy hit Khalil Harris on a 34-yard touchdown pass that put Southern ahead 28-27 before a crowd of 59,007. Grambling missed a 43-yard field goal with 2:18 left and lost a fumble at the Southern 38 with 32 seconds to go. The win gave Southern's seniors their fourth straight Bayou Classic and moved the Jaguars to a 28-24 lead in the series since 1974.

This year brings a new face to the Southern sideline. Marshall Faulk, the New Orleans native and 2000 NFL MVP, is in his first season as the Jaguars' head coach. Southern is the designated home team and its fans will sit mostly on the west side of the dome, with Grambling's crowd across the field on the east side, according to the game's ticket announcement.

For a lot of families the Friday night show is the main event. Southern's Human Jukebox and Grambling's World Famed Tiger Marching Band set up in opposite end zones for the Battle of the Bands, with doors at 5 p.m. and the show at 6. The official ticket release in May listed game seats from $20 to $199 and Battle of the Bands general admission from $25, with band battle prices rising $10 on event day.

Not everything costs a ticket. The Bayou Classic Fan Festival at Champions Square is free from 9 a.m. to noon on game day, and Special Olympics Louisiana holds a free unified flag football game between the rivals that morning at Pan American Stadium in City Park. By kickoff, both schools' fans will be under one roof, split down the middle by school colors.