DALLAS – The month of September ends with a State Fair Classic SWAC West Showdown as the Prairie View A&M Panthers and Grambling State Tigers renew their rivalry in the Cotton Bowl.
The Panther Sports Network pregame show begins with Panthers Countdown To Kickoff at 3:30 p.m. on pvpanthers.com/sportsnetwork with interviews with PVAMU QB
Jalen Morton and HC
Eric Dooley, along with key stats and notables leading into the 4 p.m. kickoff.
Since 2009, Prairie View A&M has won four of the last nine meetings on the gridiron and will look to even the series mark at 5-5 over the past 10 years while staying undefeated conference play.
Prairie View A&M (2-3 overall, 1-0 SWAC) and Grambling (1-2, 1-0) are each coming off of dominant conference opening victories. Led by a record-setting performance by Morton and an explosive offense, the Panthers won 62-13 at Arkansas-Pine Bluff.
Morton accounted for 511 yards and six touchdowns as he set a single-game school record with 255 rushing yards, and tied a school record with four rushing touchdowns. Morton broke John Payton's 64-year old school record of 253 rushing yards set in 1953. It was the fourth time in school history a Panther player rushed for four touchdowns (Ed Price 1952; Payton 1954; Archie Seals 1958).
Morton rushed eight times for 255 yards and four touchdowns, on scoring runs of a career-high 89, 37, 1, and 21 yards. He completed 16 of 24 passes for 256 yards and two touchdown passes (career-high 75 yards, 6 yards).
Morton's totals led to a school-record 815 yards total offense, the third-highest total in the FCS this season. The Panthers scored 35 first-quarter points and the 62 total points scored was the most by a PVAMU football team since scoring 67 points in 1959.
"Once Sunday came, we put the win against UAPB behind us," Dooley said. "Now we were focused on another conference game (Grambling). I thought practice went well. Guys showed a lot of effort and a lot of energy and understanding the magnitude of each ball game we are playing."
Grambling shutout Alabama State 34-0 with a dominant defense which scored two touchdowns, and added a third TD on special teams while forcing four turnovers (three INTs, one FR) and yielding just four of 19 third down conversions.
The Tigers have won the last three SWAC Western Division championships and two straight SWAC crowns. With a lot of talk about Dooley and several members of his coaching staff facing their former team, Dooley has kept things focused on the task at hand with a similar approach each week.
"We have to play our brand of football," Dooley said. "Do what we do, which is play for 60 minutes and make sure we minimize the mistakes, and execute in all three phases of the game. We don't do anything differently. We're going to prepare for each opponent the same way that we do. We know we have opponents that are very good. We know that they are a championship football team. We've prepared like we do any other week. We'll go in and try to make sure we can execute in all three phases of the game."
