From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The State Farm Bayou Classic is the annual college football game between the Grambling State University Tigers and the Southern University Jaguars, first held in 1974 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana. Since 1978 the game has been held the final Saturday in November at the Louisiana Superdome. A Waterford crystal trophy is awarded to the winning school. The game has had State Farm Insurance as its primary sponsor since 1996.

Southern leads the series 17-16, and claims the longest winning streak, 8 games from 1993-2000.

It is the best known game and rivalry in historically black college football and is televised in the USA by NBC. The Bayou Classic is the only NCAA Division I - Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) game to be shown nationally on broadcast television.

Both schools typically forego Division I-AA playoff elegibility to participate in the lucrative Bayou Classic.

Of the many festivities, the most well-known and well-attended is the Battle Of The Bands, where both school's marching bands (the Grambling State University Tiger Marching Band and the Southern University Marching Band, also known as the Human Jukebox) stage elaborately choreographed performances at halftime and before and following the game.

The success of the Bayou Classic is a major source of tourism revenue to the city of New Orleans, and has inspired the promotion of numerous other HBCU rivalries as "Classics", often played at neutral sites in distant cities.

Following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, organizers moved the 2005 event from the Superdome to Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas, where many of New Orleans' evacuees are currently living.

The 2006 Bayou Classic returned to the Superdome in New Orleans.

Southern (17)

1979, 1981, 1982, 1987, 1988, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2006

Grambling (16)

1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1989, 1990, 1992, 2001, 2004, 2005

• Bayou Classic official site
• Ebony Magazine article about the game