Jackson State was picked to finish second in the SWAC East behind Florida A&M, a position the program hasn’t been in two seasons.
Also, JSU only featured one player — tight end DJ Stevens — on the All-SWAC team.
After rolling through the SWAC in 2021 and 2022 to a pair of conference championships during the brief Deion Sanders era, there is now a sense that the guard is changing in the league.
Gone is Black College Football Hall of Fame Player of the Year Shedeur Sanders. So is five-star two-way talent Travis Hunter. Aubrey Miller Jr., the heart and soul of one of the top defensive units in the FCS, is in the NFL. Not to mention more than a dozen other players entered the transfer portal and found a home in Colorado, where Sanders now resides, or elsewhere.
Despite the roster overhaul and coaching change, first-year head coach T.C. Taylor isn’t yielding to the notion that the championship window for Jackson State has sealed.
“I feel like as a head coach and as a staff, we brought in the right players,” said Taylor at SWAC Media Day. “We do have quite a bit of turnover right now for our football team, but these players still want to win. They understand that we want to dominate each and every weekend.
“And they want to win championships.”
Though the Tigers lost 19 transfers to the FBS and nine transfers to other FCS programs, the program did get commitments from 16 FBS transfers and 13 from the FCS.
That haul was good enough for Jackson State to rank No. 2 among all FCS recruiting classes.
Alabama A&M was the last team to win the SWAC East and the conference before Jackson State.
Bulldogs head coach Connell Maynor, who has been involved in memorable on and off-the-field battles with JSU over the years and understands the competitive nature of the conference, is under no impression that the Tigers won’t still be a tough challenge.
“Jackson State is still going to be good,” he said Tuesday. They still have some players, and TC (Taylor) is a great football coach. He’s going to do a great job.
“They’re not going to just fall off the face of the Earth because Deion Sanders left. They still have a lot of good football players over there. I don’t know why they’re still not favored.”
Taylor knows the cupboard is not bare in terms of talent. And after all, Jackson State still did get the third most points among the 12 teams in the SWAC preseason poll.
The respect is still there even if the Tigers aren’t considered the team to beat in July.
“They just don’t know,” Taylor said about those who believe JSU is on a downturn. “We have a lot of unknowns, but I see these guys at practice every day and see how hard they work. I know what we have going into the season.”
