The next time Grambling State participates in a game this season could be during the annual rivalry matchup versus Southern at the Bayou Classic.
Or maybe not.
When asked when his team could return to the field following positive COVID-19 cases, head coach Broderick Fobbs admitted he wasn’t sure.
Grambling currently has suspended all football operations for the next two weeks that forced the program to canceled its next two games against Texas Southern and Alabama A&M, respectively.
“Right now everything — football — is shut down,” Fobbs told the Lincoln Parish Journal. “We don’t really know what will happen. All we can do is keep testing, evaluating, and seeing if this thing will spread any further. It’s tough. I’d like to have an answer, but it’s been hard to find an answer for this thing over the past year now. All I can try to do is take care of this team, see what happens and decide on where to go from there.
The cancelations leave the Bayou Classic scheduled for April 17 in Shreveport as the only game remaining for Grambling this spring.
Grambling athletic director David Ponton said Thursday he anticipated that the game will be played. Organizers of Bayou Classic in a statement reiterated the game “is moving forward as planned” despite the state of Grambling’s football team.
The Bayou Classic scheduled for April 17th at Independence Stadium in Shreveport is moving forward as planned. The safety of our student-athletes from both SU & GSU are top priority, but no COVID concerns have changed the plans for the Bayou Classic to be played next month.
— 47th Annual Bayou Classic (@BayouClassic74) March 25, 2021
“The safety of our student-athletes from both Southern and Grambling are always top priority, but no COVID concerns have changed the plans for the Bayou Classic to be played next month,” according to the statement.
Fobbs, on the other hand, just doesn’t know at this point whether the case count within the team will increase as affected position groups are under quarantine.
“At this point, I can’t say whether the Southern game will or won’t be played. We’ll just have to wait and see,” he said.
