Bayou Classic 2017 live stream: Time, TV schedule, how to watch Grambling State vs. Southern online

The Bayou Classic is one of the more notable games in college football. Since 1932, the Grambling State Tigers and the Southern Jaguars collided in this matchup, and the Jaguars hold the all-time lead at 36-32. This year, Grambling State and Southern are scheduled to do battle on Saturday at the Eddie Robinson Stadium. This game begins at 5 p.m. ET, and NBCSN (live stream) will broadcast the action.

The winner of the game will advance to the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) Football Championship, which takes place in Houston on Dec. 2.

Grambling State (9-1) has won the Bayou Classic two years in a row. This year, the Tigers will look to extend their win streak and continue to slice into the Jaguars’ series lead. The Tigers sit in first place the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) West. Grambling State has won nine games in a row, knocking off its opponents by a combined score of 308-149 over that span.

The Jaguars (7-2) are in second place in the SWAC West and average 28 points per game this season. They are on a six-game win streak. The Jaguars and Tigers are both capable of going on offensive barrages, so this game will depend on which team can outscore the other.

For much of the 20th century, the world of black college football ran parallel to -- and was overshadowed by -- that of “big-time” gridiron institutions like LSU and Tulane. But in 1974, the Crescent City was introduced to the illustrious, historic and vibrant football tradition of the nation’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities when teams from Grambling and Southern universities -- squads that shared arguably the greatest black college football rivalry in the nation -- clashed in Tulane Stadium for the first annual Bayou Classic.

The city didn’t just get treated to the best of HBCU football, either. The lead-up to the game included a week of beauty pageants, luncheons, dinners, lectures and, of course, the incomparable Grambling and Southern marching bands. Wrote Louisiana Weekly reporter Bobby Hall, “The Bayou Classic is a Bowl Game by itself.”

To avoid an abrupt end to their season at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans and to extend it to at least include a return trip to Houston for the conference championship, the Tigers coming off a bye week have approached this weekend’s showdown just like a playoff. Or as senior running back Martez Carter put it, a war with much more at stake.

These schools feature some of the best known marching bands, worth the price of admission all by themselves.