by Donal Ware

The Grambling State football team is on top of the world.

GSU won its 25th SWAC championship on Saturday in come-from-behind fashion, defeating at the time two-time defending champion Alcorn State 27-20.  The Tigers will face off against North Carolina Central in Atlanta on December 17 in a game that will ultimately decide the Black college national champion.

During the postgame interview, when asked if this was like how Grambling football used to be, Grambling head coach Broderick Fobbs said something to the effect that it will be like the Grambling of old if we are playing over in Japan, in reference to when Grambling and Morgan became the first teams to play a college football game in Japan in 1976 and the Tigers followed that up by playing Temple in 1977 because of how popular Grambling was.

It will never be like that again.  When Grambling was playing those game and drawing like that, that was a different time.  A special time.  Grambling had international name recognition.  It had Eddie Robinson and Collie J. Nicholson.  It was sending future Pro Football Hall of Famers and great impact players to the National Football League.  That’s Grambling’s past.

More recently, the Tigers hadn’t experienced the success winning championships as it once had which brings us back to 2013.

Two games into the 2013 season, Grambling inexplicably fired its football coach Doug Williams.  Yes, that Doug Williams, perhaps the schools most universally known person.  Later on during that season, the players decided to boycott a game against Jackson State protesting poor conditions on campus, a lot of which resulted from severe budget cuts by the state of Louisiana.  The boycott received national attention.  Ultimately, the players returned after the one game and went on to win just one game that season against Mississippi Valley State.  One of the losses came against Division II Lincoln (Mo.).

Some of the ramifications from that season are still being felt today.  This year, Grambling was supposed to host Jackson State.  Part of Grambling’s punishment from the SWAC was that the Tigers would have to play at Jackson State for three-straight seasons.  There are quite a few players from the 2013 team that are on the current roster including stars Chad Williams, Dominique Leak, Jestin Kelly and Arkez Cooper to name a few.

On December 4, 2013, enter former GSU player Fobbs as the new head coach.  Fobbs was certainly the right man for the job.  He had played for Coach Robinson.  He understands Grambling.  Along the way he had some coaching stops at other places.

Fobbs’ mantra was to not dwell on the past and what had happened in 2013, but to look to what Grambling could be and to establish his own identity as head coach.

He has done just that from day one.  Fobbs took a bulk of those players from the 2013 team that went 1-10 and even some from the 2012 team that also went 1-10 and went 7-5 in his first season, falling eight points short of playing in the SWAC championship game.  Last season, he took some of those same guys and went 9-2, winning the Eastern Division, losing to Alcorn State in the SWAC championship.

And on Saturday, he took some of those same players and won the SWAC championship.

The storybook ending would be if Grambling defeats NCCU in the Celebration Bowl.  Whether that happens or not the program is moving in the right direction.  SWAC Offensive Player of the Year quarterback DeVante Kincade is one of the big reasons.  Kincade, who last week was named SWAC Player of the Year and transferred from the University of Mississippi, was the piece that was missing from the Tigers offense after BOXTOROW Offensive Player of the Year quarterback Johnathan Williams, who was also part of the 2013 team, was lost to graduation.

“Coach Fobbs and the offensive staff,” said Kincade when I asked him why he chose Grambling.  “It was a perfect fit.  They needed me because their quarterback had just left.  Their up tempo offense reminded me of my high school offense.  I asked coach do I have a scholarship and when he offered it to me, I took it.”

Kincade could have gone anywhere.  He chose Fobbs.  He chose Grambling.

Fobbs has got this program on such footing that it seems as though 2013 was in fact many more than three years ago.

But that 2013 team has helped take Grambling back to the future.