Jackson State, Mississippi Valley State and Texas Southern have all had to cancel their season finale games this week due to Covid issues.
The Prairie View A&M at Jackson State game had nothing on the line after PVAMU was eliminated last weekend in a 36-31 loss at Pine Bluff. But winless MVSU (0-3) was scheduled to host undefeated Alabama A&M (3-0), and winless Texas Southern (0-2) was slated to visit undefeated Pine Bluff (4-0). An upset in either of those games would have sent the SWAC championship to the campus of the team that finished the season unscathed. Now with both teams undefeated, and no games left to play, the SWAC opted to make its championship game a neutral affair and designated Jackson, Mississippi as the host site.
“The canceled games would have ultimately assisted the Conference Office in determining a host institution for the championship game using our existing hosting tiebreaker policy. Without having the ability to thoroughly evaluate both teams using that policy we reached the conclusion that the only fair and equitable decision that could be made was to move the game to a neutral site location,” said conference commissioner Dr. Charles McClelland.
The game will take place at 3 p.m. EDT on Saturday, May 1 and will be broadcast on ESPN2.