Grambling's Resurgence Like Old Times for SWAC

Rod Broadway needed no time at all to restore Grambling State to the lofty level the Tigers' followers expect the team to reach - well, outside of Grambling's last three games.

An 0-3 finish, including a loss to Jackson State's Tigers in the Southwestern Athletic Conference Championship Game, after an 8-1 start has Grambling and Broadway, entering his second year as head coach, aching to start the 2008 season and take the next step.

It was still a complete reversal of the previous season, when the Tigers seemed to implode and its proud tradition was left in the dust of a very un-Grambling-like season.

The trouble these days, as big-time Bowl Championship Series programs such as Notre Dame have found, with scholarship and practice-time limitations, it's a fast fall for even the biggest of names in football - recall that before hundreds of games were televised weekly, Notre Dame and Grambling were like America's college teams, both with their own nationally syndicated game-replay shows. Just the same, it's also made for a dispersal of talent that has made past also-rans now as good or better than the big names.

In the SWAC, Jackson State and Grambling were the best in each division in 2007. The year before, Alabama A&M and Arkansas-Pine Bluff, which had never before been in the SWAC title game, much less ever won the SWAC, played for the title in Birmingham.

Even Prairie View A&M, which not long ago was sporting the country's longest losing streak, went 7-4 in 2007.

These days, Texas Southern and Alcorn State bring up the rear of the league, but who's to say a couple of recruiting classes can't change all that.

Jackson State again should be favored to win the East Division, but the talent in the league is well-dispersed among five other teams, any of which could find their way to Birmingham in December. Grambling will have to fight off Southern, which was up-and-down last year, in the West. Arkansas-Pine Bluff, with Monte Coleman taking over as head coach, has the running game and the defense to contend.