There were a lot of important college football games on Saturday. Ohio State beat Michigan 30-27 in overtime, creating a situation where lower-ranked Penn State will play Wisconsin in the Big Ten title game with College Football Playoff implications. Alabama and Western Michigan will finish the season as the only undefeated teams, with the Crimson Tide of Tuscaloosa essentially locked-in to the four-team national title field, and the Broncos of Kalamazoo waiting to hear whether they're invited to the Cotton Bowl. But in New Orleans there was more pressing news. Yes, LSU decided to retain Coach Ed Orgeron after going 5-2 as the interim head coach. But closer to the heart of the city, the Bayou Classic was going on.

I've been to the Bayou Classic each of the last three years, and four of the last five. It's an annual tradition in my family, which has alumni from both participating schools – Grambling State University of Grambling, Louisiana and Southern University of Baton Rouge. My favorite result so far was the 52-45 Southern win two years ago, which ended on a defensive stop on fourth-and-goal. The 2012 game was also terrific, with Southern winning 38-33. The Bayou Classic is an incredibly storied rivalry, and an annual New Orleans event. Thanksgiving Day marks the annual Bayou Classic Parade, followed by the Battle of the Bands on Black Friday, and what has been referred to as the “Black Super Bowl” on Saturday. If there were some non-arbitrary way to measure quality, I might argue that the Battle of the Bands provides the best bang for your buck.

Southern's “Human Jukebox” band has been ranked #1 by USA today in the past and generally is regarding as prolific, and their signature song “(Talking out the side of your) Neck” is a wonder worth beholding. I only went to the Battle of the Bands one time, but the crowd went wild when the Human Jukebox performed “Before I Let Go” by Frankie Beverly and Maze, which seems to be an annual tradition . Grambling's “World Famed” Tiger Marching Band is no slouch either, and they actually won the competition this year.

The Grambling Tigers football team also won the football game for the second year running, after Southern just won three-straight. It's a streaky rivalry, with sixteen series of two-or-more consecutive wins by one team or the other. Grambling's got the longest streak at nine wins from 1970 to 1978, under NCAA Hall of Fame coach Eddie Robinson, who led the program from 1941-42 and 1945-1997. Eddie Robinson held the NCAA Division 1 record of all-time wins, going 408-165-5 in his career, before Penn State's Joe Paterno won it away. The NCAA forced the Penn State Nittany Lions to vacate 111 wins from 1998 to 2011 as partial recompense for the Jerry Sandusky rape scandal, but the wins have since been restored to PSU's record. The all-time series is 36-32 in favor of Southern, with the Jaguars leading 15-10 between 1932 and 1974, and the Tigers leading 22-21 since the game moved to the Super Dome – including when it was played in Houston in 2005. It was televised on NBC from 1991 to 2014 and began broadcast on NBC Sports last year.

Despite being played at what is universally accepted as the second-highest division of college football, the rivalry continues to produce the occasional NFL baller, with Jason Hatcher (2006, Grambling) playing for Washington this year and Jordan Miller (2011, Southern) playing as recently as 2013. In the past, both universities have produced amazing NFL talent, like NFL Hall of Famer's Willie Brown (Grambling, 1963), who played on one Raider Super Bowl team and coached on two others; Mel Blount (Southern, 1970), who won four Super Bowls with the Steelers; and Doug Williams (Grambling, 1978), who was the MVP of Super Bowl XXII with Washington.

From 1996 to 2011, the game was sponsored by State Farm but, since losing that official sponsor, they get a variety of donations from corporations. A young man wearing Timberlands boots hit a 25 yard field goal for a thousand dollars from All State during a TV time-out in the third quarter. The United States Army gave a little over $109,000 in scholarships to Ian Fisher of Southeastern Louisiana University and Christian Capers of Grambling, who are each in Army ROTC at their respective schools, and will graduate with no student loan debt, as the intercom speaker announced. The United States Marine Corps had a pull up challenge. The Southern fan won, but I have no idea what he won.

Not the game. Grambling was up 17-13 at halftime, but, Southern couldn't rally. Both bands played great (including Choppa performing “ Choppa Style ” with Grambling), but Southern's football team fell flat while Grambling rose. The score was 38-13 deep in the third quarter after Southern completely refused to play defense on three consecutive drives, scoring themselves before the quarter ended to pull it to 38-20, but losing in the end 52-30.

The Southern Jaguars and the Grambling State Tigers came into the game with identical undefeated conference records of 8 wins and 0 losses, with Southern's only losses before Saturday coming at the beginning of the regular season to Division-1A/FBS squads Louisiana-Lafayette 38-21 in Lafayette and Tulane 66-21 at Yulman Stadium here in New Orleans. Grambling's only loss was similarly to a higher-echelon squad, losing to the University of Arizona Wildcats 31-21 in Tuscon, Arizona.

Southern runningback Lenard Tillery entered the game leading the SWAC in rushing yards and finishes his season with 1670 yards and thirteen touchdowns after a 245-yard game which included an 85 yard touchdown run. I feel like I've seen fifth-year senior 150-lb slot receiver Willie Quinn's whole career, and he had 6 catches for 60 yards to give him 960 yards and eleven touchdowns on 63 this season. The SWAC's top passer this year has been Grambling quarterback Devante Kincaid, a former-transfer from Ole Miss, and he did well on the game, completing 24 of 33 passes for 283 yards, rushing for 56 yards (79 before sacks), and scoring both ways. Grambling's big surprise for the game was running back Martez Carter, who ran for 118 yards and two touchdowns on ten carries, as well as returning a kick 88 yards for a score in the fourth quarter.

The Bayou Classic champion is going to the South Western Athletic Conference championship against Alcorn State, who beat Southern 38-24 in 2014 and beat Grambling 49-21 last year, but lost to Southern 49-33 on October 29 of this year and lost to Grambling 43-18 on September 24. The winner of that game will play against the champion of the Mid-East American Conference in the new unofficial HBCU National Football Championship game, the Celebration Bowl, which began last year with a 41-37 win by North Carolina A&T over Alcorn State. Prior to last year's game, the MEAC's champion had accepted an automatic bid to the Division 1-Football Championship Series (formerly known as 1-AA) playoffs, which the SWAC long-ago forewent so as to allow the Bayou Classic and Turkey Day Classic to be played Thanksgiving weekend, with the SWAC title game the following weekend. The Turkey Day Classic has traditionally been played between Alabama State and Tuskegee, with Alabama State playing Mississippi Valley State, Clark Atlanta, Johnson C. Smith, Fayetteville State, and Stillman at various times between 1971 and 2014. Alabama State played Miles College this and last year.

The MEAC and SWAC also play a Labor Day weekend game, the MEAC/SWAC Challenge. It was played at Birmingham, Alabama's Legion Field from 2005 to 2007; Orlando, Florida's Camping World Stadium (formerly the Citrus Bowl) from 2008 to 2013 and 2015; and Orlando's “Bounce House” Bright House Networks Stadium (home of the University of Central Florida Golden Knights) in 2014. The next two matchups are to take place on college campuses, with Bethune-Cookman hosting Alcorn State in September of this year and Southern hosting South Carolina State next year. The SWAC has led 1-AA/FCS conferences in home attendance 37 of the 38 years since their separation from the larger schools, and in 1994 fell 40,000 fans (about one game) short of becoming the first non-FBS conference to have one million fans at home games over the course of the season.

According to a NOLA.com article from June 2014, the game is a source of $50 million in tourism revenue. Poydras is locked-up all weekend, and Downtown is locked-up all weekend. Unfortunately, much as was reported earlier this year during the Essence Festival , many restaurants close their doors because of not wanting to deal with the influx of Black tourists. I don't know if this is related or not, but plastic bottles and paper cups were served without lids, allegedly to keep trash off of the field. I don't remember if this was a rule when I saw the Raiders play in September, becase I didn't buy any concessions. It just seemed odd. And as was reported in 2014 and last year , people were shot in the French Quarter this year.

I seldom hear the heritage of Historically Black Colleges and Universities called controversial, but perhaps that is because of a lack of exposure. I certainly never learned anything about any of them in school. As you might imagine, their existence has been impacted by racism. In 1862, the first Morrill Act was passed, creating the landgrant universities in the midwest by providing land and funding for schools like Ohio State, Michigan State, and most of who makes-up the Big Ten Athletic Conference. After the Civil War, it was extended to the southern states as part of Reconstruction. Of course, the Alabama's and Arkansas's of the time had no interest in admitting African Americans, so in 1890 a second Morrill Act was passed declaring that the states either had to remove race as a criteria for admission to these public institutions, or build schools specifically for the Black population. So the post-Confederacy chose the more difficult option, and that's why Alabama A&M, Alcorn State, Florida A&M, Southern University, Grambling University, and their colleague institutions exist.

The Bayou Classic is an incredible phenomenon, an annual Thanksgiving ritual for thousands of families across the south, celebrating the hard-earned heritage and athletic tradition of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Every year, a bunch of us have a great time, but unfortunately we also attract trouble and risk being blackballed at restaurants. Over the course of this election season, racism in this country has been normalized, or rather revealed to those that would claim to deny its contemporary existence. Experiences like these have to be respected and retained, as they mark an irreplaceable part of the history of the city. It's an excellent opportunity for us all to grow and learn, and to take-in some football.