Football To Face Southern In Arlington, Texas On Saturday

Football 10/8/2021 11:35:00 AM TSU Sports Information

• Texas Southern returns to SWAC play for the first time since Sept. 4 as they’ll face Southern in the inaugural Arlington Showdown at Choctaw Stadium.

• TSU is looking for its first SWAC win of 2021 and first win over Southern since 2011.

• Saturday’s contest will feature live audio on KTSU 90.9 FM with no TV broadcast.

• The SWAC opted for a spring schedule due to uncertainties surrounding COVID-19 last fall. TSU could only get two games in due to COVID-19 protocols surrounding the opposing team or at TSU. The contest against Baylor marked the first time TSU played back-to-back weekends since the final two weekends of November 2019. 

• The Tigers dropped their season opener and first league contest against Prairie View A&M on Sept. 4. The next opportunity to redeem itself in terms of SWAC play won’t happen until Oct. 9 against Southern in Arlington, Texas.

• Southern is the designated home team for Saturday’s game. The Jaguars are led by interim head coach Jason Rollins and are off to a 2-2 start with wins over Miles College and Mississippi Valley State.

• TSU’s roster is a full of youth in key areas as 58 players are either true or redshirt freshmen.

• TSU picked up its first true win since 2018 last weekend as they defeated North American University 69-0 for homecoming.

• The Tigers feature a third-year head coach in Clarence McKinney. A Houston native, McKinney attended high school across the street at Jack Yates High School and played collegiately at Montana State and the University of Mary. He also served as head coach at Yates before joining the staffs at Houston, Texas A&M and Arizona.

• Clarence McKinney is the 17th head coach in the history of Texas Southern Football. McKinney has a task ahead as the program has only had 28 winning seasons in 75 years of existence and hasn’t recorded a winning season since 2000. 

• McKinney won as a student at Yates High School and helped the University of Mary post three winning seasons as a student-athlete in college which made school history. As head coach at Yates, McKinney posted a mark of 30-8 over three years before moving on to the collegiate ranks as an assistant. As an assistant at Houston, Texas A&M and Arizona, McKinney has only experienced three losing seasons in his 11 years of collegiate coaching. 

• Due to Alcorn State opting out the 2021 spring season, TSU was awarded a win via forfeit by the SWAC. TSU’s last SWAC and NCAA Division I win on the field occurred on Oct. 27, 2018 against Mississippi Valley State