1975 Grambling State Tigers football team

1975 Grambling State Tigers football
Black national co-champion
SWAC co-champion (vacated)
ConferenceSouthwestern Athletic Conference
Record10–2 (4–2 SWAC)
Head coach
Home stadiumGrambling Stadium
Seasons
← 1974
1976 →
1975 Southwestern Athletic Conference football standings
Conf Overall
Team W   L   T W   L   T
No. 4 Grambling State * 4 – 2 – 0 10 – 2 – 0
No. 9 Southern + 4 – 2 – 0 9 – 3 – 0
No. 7 Jackson State + 4 – 2 – 0 7 – 3 – 0
No. T–19 Alcorn State 3 – 3 – 0 6 – 3 – 1
Mississippi Valley State 3 – 3 – 0 6 – 4 – 0
Texas Southern 2 – 4 – 0 4 – 6 – 0
Prairie View A&M 1 – 5 – 0 3 – 7 – 0
  • $ – Conference champion
  • * – Grambling State vacated a share of the conference championship.
Rankings from NCAA Division II AP poll for Grambling State and NAIA Division I poll for Southern and Jackson State

The 1975 Grambling Tigers football team represented Grambling State University as a member of the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) during the 1975 NCAA Division II football season. In its 33rd season under head coach Eddie Robinson, Grambling compiled a 10–2 record (4–2 against conference opponents), initially tied for the SWAC championship, and outscored opponents by a total of 324 to 153 on the field. The team was recognized as the 1975 black college football national co-champion and was ranked No. 4 by the Associated Press and No. 2 by the United Press International in the final 1975 NCAA Division II football rankings.

Key players included sophomore quarterback Doug Williams, receivers Dwight Scales, Carlos Pennywell, and Sammie White, and running backs Fallon Bush and Cliff Martin.[1] Williams later played nine seasons in the National Football League. Dwight Scales went on to play eight seasons in the National Football League .

Grambling inadvertently double-scheduled games on October 4 against Prairie View A&M and Oregon State and opted to play Oregon State, leaving Prairie View idle. Grambling told Prairie View of the scheduling problem in the spring and tried to reschedule the game with Prairie View for November 22, but the negotiations fell through. On November 26, the Southwestern Athletic Conference assessed a loss against Grambling's conference record, declaring the October 4 game against Prairie View to be a forfeit.[2] On December 12, the SWAC commissioner stripped Grambling of its share of the conference co-championship, and then almost to add insult to injury, the athletic directors voted unanimously to send Southern as the SWAC's representative to the Pelican Bowl (over the other remaining co-champ, Jackson State);[3] Grambling had just defeated Southern soundly only two weeks before in the first Bayou Classic to be played in the new Louisiana Superdome,[4] and now the Jaguars could participate in a bowl game being billed as the black national championship.[5][6] Grambling-produced publications intended for the mass media make no reference to their brief hold on the 1975 co-championship.[7][8]

  1. ^ "Merritt Says Grambling Has Best Team Ever". The Tennessean. October 8, 1975. p. 13 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference PV75 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ "Jags in Pelican Bowl". Baton Rouge StateTimes (sec. B, p. 2). December 13, 1975.
  4. ^ "Southern Out of Tune, 33 To 17". Daily World. November 30, 1975. p. 9 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ Joyce Davis Robinson (December 28, 1975). "Pelican Fans: Sugar Bowl Sign an Insult". New Orleans Times–Picayune (sec. 1, p. 34).
  6. ^ Tom Aswell (December 29, 1975). "Jaguars Rally To Win Pelican Bowl By 15–12". Baton Rouge State–Times (sec. D, p. 2).
  7. ^ "2010 Tigers Football" (PDF). GSU Sports Information Office (p. 94). 2010.
  8. ^ Brian Howard; Karen M. Carty; Jonathan Wallace; Jovan Hackley, eds. (2018). "Tigers 2018 Football Media Guide" (PDF). Grambling State University Sports Information Department (p. 124).