The SWAC West Division leaders have a chance to clinch their spot in the championship this week, but both coaches involved in Saturday’s game are downplaying it.
The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff will face Prairie View A&M at 2 p.m. at Panther Stadium in Prairie View, Texas, on SWAC TV.
Prairie View (7-3, 5-1 SWAC) can clinch the West Division title with a win. The Panthers have already beaten the other four members of the division this season, with their lone conference loss coming against East Division foe Alabama State.
Head Coach Tremaine Jackson said the Panthers are too focused on preparing for the game to worry about what a win would mean.
“We got a really good football team coming to town, and we gotta get ready for it,” Jackson said. “Hopefully, we’ll achieve our goals in the end, but if we don’t play well, as we haven’t, we’ve still not played a complete football game yet. I’m still waiting on us to play a complete football game. We’re still coaching it. We got a lot of little things we got to clean up.”
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
A UAPB (4-6, 2-4) win could delay Prairie View’s celebrations for another week, though the Panthers would still clinch on Saturday with a Grambling State loss at Alcorn State. Grambling is the only other team still alive in the title race, but the Tigers need to beat both Alcorn and Southern, and they need Prairie View to lose to both UAPB and Mississippi Valley State.
Last season, Southern clinched the West with a home victory against UAPB, something the Panthers could do this season. The Golden Lions have another chance to spoil someone’s party this year, but head Coach Alonzo Hampton said UAPB isn’t thinking about playing spoiler.
“We’re all competitors,” Hampton said. “I’m not trying to be a spoiler. I’m trying to win the game. They’re gonna have a nice crowd. They’ve invested a lot into their program. Coach is a winning coach. He’s brought a dog mentality there.”
If the Panthers win the division, they will make their third appearance in the SWAC Championship Game in the past five years. They lost 27-10 at Jackson State in 2021 and 35-14 at Florida A&M in 2023. It would be their fourth appearance overall in the game since its inception in 1999. Jackson would be the fourth coach to lead Prairie View to the title game.
UAPB hasn’t played for a conference championship since the Spring 2021 season, which was the last time a team other than Prairie View or Southern represented the West. That won’t change this year, but Hampton said the Golden Lions are preparing for this game as if it were a championship game.
“This is our conference championship game,” Hampton said. “The Western Division title is on the line. They’re the top dog. Let’s measure ourselves and see where we’re at as a program against a really, really good football team, a team that was in the SWAC championship game just two years ago. So, it’ll be a great test for us, and we’re looking forward to it.”
UAPB has slipped to fifth in the West Division over the past month, thanks in part to Grambling’s four-game winning streak and Alcorn’s three-game winning streak. The Golden Lions are one game out of a tie for third but need a win to catch up.
Regardless, UAPB is two games ahead of last-placed Southern with two games remaining. The Golden Lions haven’t finished above another team in the West standings since winning the division in the Spring 2021 season.
“We gotta continue to earn the right to win,” Hampton said. “We’re close, but close doesn’t get you anything in this world. So, we gotta continue to fight and continue to trust each other. If we do that, we’ll have an opportunity to win.”