An exciting day turned into a long night with a thrilling outcome as the Prairie View A&M University football team won the 32^nd Labor Day Classic with a hard-fought 29-25 win over rival Texas Southern in a twice-weather delayed game that ended more than six hours after the original scheduled start time.
 
While it's always good to be your rival, just as importantly the Panthers are 1-0 in Southwestern Athletic Conference play. Last year, Prairie View's one conference loss kept them out of the SWAC Championship game in the highly competitive Western Division.
 
Head Coach Willie Simmons addressed the media on Monday's SWAC Head Coaches Conference Call, with a review of Sunday's win and a look ahead to Saturday's game at Texas A&M.
 
On Win vs. Texas Southern: "It was definitely a pressure-packed game. I'm proud of the young men and how they handled adversity in a lot of different facets. Opening a brand new stadium, first game of the season against your in-state rival, then two long weather delays because of lightning, then to come back from a 17-6 deficit, I tip my hat to the guys. That's something we talk about all the time – overcoming adversity, whatever form it may come in. I tell them that I can't tell you what form adversity is going to come in, but all I can tell you is that we're going to overcome it. I'm proud of the young men, and proud of their resilience in bouncing back, because they easily could have fallen apart."
 
On playing in the new stadium: "It's been a long time coming. People have made a lot of sacrifices to make this possible. We're extremely thankful and grateful for the opportunity to play in this brand new stadium we have. Thankfully, we were able to let the fans feel great in that we got a win in our very first game."
 
On playing in the difficult environment at Texas A&M: "This is probably the biggest environment I've been in. At Alcorn (as offensive coordinator), we went to Mississippi State and played there; same type of environment. Of course, Kyle Field is probably twice as large as Mississippi State's stadium. There'll be 100,000 fans there, and of course they have the 12^th Man there. It is one of the most intimidating places to play in all of college football. It will definitely be a tough challenge for our guys. This week (in practice) we'll have to work a ton of crowd noise, make sure that we're able to communicate, get our quarterback-center exchange with the snaps, and all the little things it takes to have a chance to be successful against a team such as Texas A&M."
 

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