Operated 1911–1917, 1919–1989, 1999, 2001–2003, 2010–2013, 2015–Present | ||
The Red River State Fair Classic (formerly the State Fair Classic and, more recently, the Shreveport Classic) is an American college football game played annually in Shreveport, Louisiana, at Independence Stadium (formerly State Fair Stadium) during the State Fair of Louisiana. It traces its historical lineage from a series of 160 games played over the 106 football seasons between 1911 and 2016. By having first paired historically black colleges and universities in 1922, the contest holds the distinction of being the oldest annual black college football classic, edging out the Turkey Day Classic by two years and the similar Texas State Fair Classic by three years. Also, so far, the earliest documented use of the term "classic" as part of an annual black college football game's formal name has been dated to the 1927 Louisiana State Fair Classic.
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State Fair Classic history
The fair began in 1906, and attempts were made immediately to schedule a football game as a draw, specifically a game between Louisiana State University and the Shreveport Athletic Club. Although plans for that game fell through, the fair did begin hosting college football games regularly starting in 1911. The annual Arkansas–LSU game was made its main draw two years later, much like the Red River Showdown game had begun headlining the State Fair of Texas in Dallas in 1912. The 1924 game featured a silver football trophy as part of the dedication ceremonies for the new State Fair Stadium. After LSU won for the seventh straight time in 1936, that series was discontinued, and nearby schools Louisiana Tech and Northwestern State began playing in the featured game. When Louisiana Tech began efforts in the late 1980s to move into the NCAA's Division I-A, NSU began playing Louisiana–Monroe in the game.
In the past sometimes as many as four college games were played over the course of a single fair, although the "Louisiana State Fair Classic" moniker was used interchangeably to describe any of the games, not just the featured game. These games tended to include schools from the Ark-La-Tex area. The hometown school, Centenary, hosted numerous games over the years. Southwestern Athletic Conference schools (usually Southern or Grambling and Bishop or Wiley) often played on Mondays, in conjunction with the fair's "Negro Day"—although the 1961 Grambling–Prairie View A&M game was overshadowed by a boycott by the Congress of Racial Equality in an effort to encourage improved integration at the fair (despite a modern source that lists the 1962 game as also having been played in Shreveport, the October 21, 1962 issue of the Shreveport Times confirms that the game was indeed moved back to an on-campus venue, this time in Prairie View, Texas). Through the years there was considerable cross-over between SWAC teams that played in Louisiana's State Fair Classic and Texas' own State Fair Classic, and the Grambling–Prairie View series itself is now held at the Texas fair. College freshman and high school teams were also known to compete at the fair in its earlier years, including some pre-Louisiana High School Athletic Association era state championship games. In 1934 and 1945 military teams were extended invitations to play; during World War II many colleges—including each of the classic's regular hosts, Centenary, Louisiana Tech, NSU, and Southern—had to discontinue football, while the service teams that appeared in their place helped fill in the gaps on active college teams' schedules and were even included in the Associated Press' college football rankings and bowl games as well.
With the NSU–ULM series returning to on-campus stadiums in 1990, the fair was left without regular tenants and, at times, had to reinvent itself. The Red River Classic—which had long served as an annual, early-season SWAC game for Grambling at Independence Stadium—was moved, in conjunction with the fair, for the 1999 campaign. In 2001 a contest billed as the "Port City Classic–State Fair Game" was hosted by Southern during the fair, but in 2002 the Port City Classic was spun-off separately from the fair and became an early September game instead; the Red River Classic returned to the fair in its place. Louisiana College's newly-revived football program also saw a return to the fair that season, as well as in 2003. Prairie View and Grambling, in addition to competing annually at the Texas state fair, have hosted the most recent Louisiana fair games too. Prairie View hosted a series of four annual games dubbed the "Shreveport Classic" starting in 2010, and Grambling began hosting the newly-named "Red River State Fair Classic" during the 2015 season. The City of Shreveport's government actively worked to revive the classic in 2010 and, as of 2016, remains a sponsor despite the fact that the classic's new name drops its reference to the city and adds back its reference to the state fair (as well as to the old Red River Classic).
Appearances by team
Note: *—Tie games were eliminated as a possibility with the introduction of overtime in 1996