For the first time since 1984, Prairie View A&M and Texas Southern did not open the season against each other. ESPN wanted the game somewhere else.
The Labor Day Classic has a name that describes when it happens. That was the point of it.
This year the two programs opened their seasons apart — Prairie View traveling to Stephenville to play fifth-ranked Tarleton State, Texas Southern hosting North Carolina Central at Thorne Stadium. They meet today instead, Sunday morning, on ESPN2.
It is the 41st Labor Day Classic and the first since 2019 not played on a Saturday night. It is also, by the count in the Houston coverage, the first time since 1984 the two schools have not shared a field to start their seasons.
The rivalry got a national window. What it paid was the date.
A Sunday morning kickoff in the first full week of the college season sits in mostly empty air. No NFL yet at that hour, no crowded Saturday slate, nothing else competing for a live audience on cable. That is the whole logic of the slot, and it is why a network wanted it.
Prairie View head coach Tremaine Jackson has been unsentimental about the trade. Asked about traditionalists who wanted the season to open with the rivalry, he pointed at the opportunity in front of his program instead — playing a top-five FCS opponent on national television, which he framed as exactly what the staff said it wanted to do when it arrived.
Texas Southern fans were not uniformly pleased. The Defender reported straightforwardly that they were upset the tradition moved to accommodate the network.
Both things can be true. The exposure is real and so is the loss.
Jackson has said plainly that the winner takes an early grip on the SWAC West — one team goes to 1–0 in the division and lets the rest of the field sort itself out.
That is not rhetoric this season. Prairie View won the SWAC West and then the conference championship last year, beating Jackson State 23–21 in the title game, and reached the Celebration Bowl for the first time in program history. The Panthers lost it 40–38 to South Carolina State in four overtimes.
Texas Southern finished 6–5 overall and 5–3 in the SWAC — the program's first winning season in twenty-five years.
Two programs rising at the same time is the condition a rivalry needs and does not always get. For long stretches this one had the emotion without both teams being good.
Texas Southern beat North Carolina Central 42–30 after trailing 14–0 in the first quarter and 24–14 at halftime. Cam'Ron McCoy threw for 185 yards and three touchdowns. Athean Renfro Jr. ran for 163 yards and a score. Jordan Thompson returned a blocked punt 34 yards in the third quarter.
Prairie View lost at Tarleton State 49–30. Quarterback Tevin Carter went 25 of 40 for 309 yards and added 130 on the ground on 14 carries.
The Tigers arrive 1–0, the Panthers 0–1, and the team that lost is the defending conference champion.
Prairie View won 22–21 on the final play of the game — Cam Peters to Rodny Ojo, a touchdown pass at Shell Energy Stadium that ended it.
The Panthers have taken ten of the previous eleven meetings.
The two schools first played on October 31, 1947. Texas Southern won 13–7. The annual Labor Day Classic itself dates to 1985. The winner takes the Durley-Nicks Trophy.
The rivalry has been moved before, and always by force rather than choice: Hurricane Katrina relief pushed the 2005 game to Thanksgiving, Hurricane Harvey rescheduled 2017, and the pandemic moved the 2020 edition to the spring of 2021.
This is the first time the reason was television.
Kickoff is 11 a.m. Central, noon Eastern, at Panther Stadium at Blackshear Field in Prairie View, on ESPN2. Scheduling and record details as reported by HBCU Sports, the Defender, Sports Illustrated and Yahoo Sports; game status verified against the Sportradar match record.