With star quarterback K. J. Black out of the lineup for the second consecutive game due to a sprained left knee, the Prairie View A&M University football team tallied their first loss of the season with a 34-7 loss to Southern Mississippi on Saturday night.
The Panthers came into the game with a 1-0 record with their win against SWAC rival Texas Southern University at the Labor Classic on Sept.5.
This was a game of polar halves with the first half being dominated by the Golden Eagles, with a blowout score of 31-0 leading into halftime.
PVAMU’s tight end coach Roy Jones said, “We played very well in the second half. We were very aggressive and executed well. It would have been a different story if we played like that in the first half.”
The Golden Eagles showed no mercy gaining 299 total offensive yards in the first and second quarter. On the other end the Panthers gained only 49 yards of total offense.
In the second half, the Panthers held the Golden Eagles to only three points which came at the 3:04 minute mark in the third quarter, which was registered by kicker Danny Hrapmann with a 25-yard field goal. The Panther defense stepped up by holding the Golden Eagles to only 167 yards of total offense. As for the offense, the Panthers improved their production by gaining 172 yards of total offense in the second half.
Prairie View’s lone score came in the 8:50 minute mark in the third quarter with a 32-yard touchdown pass from third string quarterback Andrew McGlory to Shaun Stephens. McGlory finished the game 8-18 for a total of 141 yards along with one touchdown and one interception in the fourth quarter.
Star senior running back Donald Babers led the team in rushing with 47 total yards on 16 carries. Last week’s SWAC Player of the Week linebacker Marcus White, led the team in tackles with five. Prairie View wasn’t the only school in SWAC who played a Football Bowl Subdivision school. Rival TSU lost to Big East Conference school, the University of Connecticut, in a 62-3 blowout on Saturday.
The Panthers look to bounce back on the winning side with their first home game against Alabama State on Saturday, Sept. 18 at 4 p.m. at Blackshear Stadium.