Call it The Doug Williams effect.
Just months after his return for a second stint as head coach at his alma mater, Grambling has become the preseason selection to win the Southwestern Athletic Conference’s Western Division during yesterday’s SWAC Football Media Day. It’s a position Williams was familiar with the first time around, when he led Grambling to a trio of league championships in 2000-02 and was just one game away from return visits to the title match in both 1999 and 2003.
But this isn’t the same squad, something that’s borne out in the individual voting elsewhere. The Tigers boast just six first-team preseason All-SWAC selections — none of whom are skill players, and only one of whom (junior lineman Sanford Banks) plays on offense. The other first-teamers included junior defensive lineman Jomarcus Javage, senior linebacker Cliff Exama and senior placekicker Zoltan Riazzo. Grambling earned two second-team nods, but both (junior Julian Wyndon and senior Antoine Rogers) are also linemen.
No quarterbacks. (That would be Jackson State’s Casey Therriault on the first team, and Alcorn State’s Brandon Bridge on the second team.) No running backs. (Texas Southern filled both first-team slots, with Marcus Wright and Martin Gilbert.) No wide receivers. (That would be Alabama State’s Nick Andrews and Jackson’s Marcellos Wilder on the first team.)
Not even any defensive backs. Or tight ends. Or kick returners.
Yet, there Grambling sits — having garnered a startling 103 overall votes and 12 first-place votes in the pre-season polling. Only Jackson State received more first-place nods, on itse way to preseason honors on the other side of the bracket for the SWAC Eastern Division, and no SWAC squad earned more total points.
These are the same Tigers who failed to make the league title game for a second year in a row before their coach bolted while the signatures were still drying on National Signing Day letters of intent. The preseason voters, on the one hand, also seemed to recognize that the team is rebuilding at a number of key positions, having lost school-record smashing running back Frank Warren, among others.
Yet, on the other hand … Grambling becomes a run-away first-place preseason favorite?
The Doug Williams Effect.
[...] The DeRiso Report brings us The Doug Williams Effect. [...]