The ultimate challenge is followed by the ultimate cupcake.
Grambling State
Tigers
Ohio State knocked off the No. 1 team in college football on Saturday, Texas, and now faces a squad that isn't in the same league as itself or the Longhorns – literally. FCS Grambling State awaits the Buckeyes this weekend. It's the first FCS opponent they've played since Youngstown State on Sept. 9, 2023.
The Tigers themselves are fresh off their own version of a cupcake victory, and even as FCS foes go, they are not a strong one based on their recent history. But speaking of history, there is a rich one for Grambling State, one that dates back to 1926 in its hometown of Grambling, Louisiana. One of the premier HBCUs, Grambling State has two traditional rivalries with fun histories and a former coach so legendary that a museum is dedicated to him.
Middling in the FCS
It's been six years since Grambling State had a winning season on the football field, the last one being a 6-5 campaign in 2019. The Tigers fired Hue Jackson (yes, the Hue Jackson of Browns infamy) in 2023, following a combined 8-14 record across two seasons, which led to the hiring of current head coach Mickey Joseph.
Joseph started his tenure with a 5-7 campaign in 2024. Grambling State finished 62nd in the FCS in scoring offense and 54th in scoring defense. The Tigers faced one FBS opponent, the UL-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns, and lost 40-10. They went 2-6 in their conference, the SWAC.
This year for Grambling State is about building to a place to be competitive in said conference. Ohio State will be cutting them a nice check to show up for a tune-up game and fund those efforts.
A Strong Start
The G-Men, as Grambling State players are affectionately called, opened their season with their own cupcake competition in the NAIA squad Langston. The Tigers committed some big cat-on-big cat violence by trouncing the Lions 55-7.
Grambling State scored 55 unanswered points to start the contest and got its backups plenty of reps in the second half. Quarterback Czavian Teasett finished 20-of-25 for 210 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions, while five different running backs carried the ball at least six times, four of them scoring a touchdown.
Langston managed less than 100 yards of total offense in a comprehensive team effort from the Tigers' defense. No single Grambling State defender exceeded four tackles.
State Fairs and Bayous
While recent years have borne them out as a mediocre FCS squad, one of the signifiers of the Tigers' strong football tradition are their two rivalries, the Bayou Classic against Southern and the State Fair Classic against Prairie View A&M.
The Bayou Classic began in 1974 and is held annually in New Orleans, played in the Saints' Superdome. The series between Grambling State and Southern traces its roots all the way back to 1932, but the 50 games played since 1974 in the Superdome have turned into a weekend-long event in The Big Easy.
Of the festivities, the climax comes on Friday night in the heavily choreographed Battle of the Bands between the "World Famed" Tiger Marching Band and Southern University's "Human Jukebox." They battle again during halftime of the actual game on Saturday.
More on the Grambling State band later, but the Bayou Classic is one of two rivalries the Tigers play at national football landmarks every year. The State Fair Classic is held at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. The State Fair Classic itself has been played each year since 1925, though the original two teams were Langston and Wiley College. Prairie View A&M replaced Langston in 1929, then faced a rotation of opponents until rival Grambling State became a permanent fixture in 1985.
The original version of the State Fair Classic was among the first football contests to regularly be played on Monday nights, as it was held on the first day of the week for the first four decades of the rivalry.
The Legend of Coach Rob
For more than five decades, a coaching legend roamed the sidelines at Grambling State.
Eddie G. Robinson, affectionately known by many as "Coach Rob," was head coach of the Tigers from 1941 through 1997. He won 408 total games in that timeframe, guiding Grambling State to its first nine Black college football national championships, which are still decided today between 43 teams across the country. He won 17 SWAC conference titles.
Those 408 victories were an NCAA record at the time of his retirement, later broken by John Gagliardi of St. John's (489) and Joe Paterno of Penn State (409).
Joe Rudis / The Tennessean / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images.
Robinson earned a College Football Hall of Fame induction immediately following his retirement in 1997. Some of his teams during the 1950s and 1960s could have been national championship contenders if not for the era of segregation. He coached three future Pro Football Hall of Famers at Grambling State: Buck Buchanan, Willie Brown and Charlie Joiner.
Three separate trophies are named after Robinson, who passed away in 2007 from complications of Alzheimer's disease at age 88. The Black College All-Star Bowl award for outstanding NFL rookies, the Los Angeles Football Classic Foundation's HBCU championship award, and the Football Writers Association of America's Eddie Robinson Award all bear his name.
Robinson left an impact on so many young lives that an entire museum is dedicated to him on Grambling State's campus, built in 2010, three years after his death.
A “World Famed” Marching Band
It's hard to imagine two marching ensembles with a longer list of achievements than the two who will be in Ohio Stadium on Saturday.
Grambling State's marching band provided the entertainment at halftime of both Super Bowl I and Super Bowl II. They returned for Super Bowl XXXII as part of a Motown lineup featuring Boyz II Men, Smokey Robinson and Martha Reeves. They've played in the inauguration parade of three United States Presidents, George W. Bush, Barack Obama (who they appeared for in both 2009 and 2013) and Joe Biden, plus the inauguration of Liberian President William R. Tolbert in 1972.
The “World Famed” Tiger Marching Band has appeared in Coca-Cola commercials, provided Cartoon Network with multiple theme songs for its shows and appeared in multiple major motion pictures. That's just a brief rundown of their achievements and appearances.
The band introduced another famous feature, its all-female dance line Orchesis, in 1978.
With the Tiger Marching Band and The Best Damn Band in the Land both performing in Ohio Stadium on Saturday, the bands will be the day’s top attraction on what will likely be a blowout between the football teams.
