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July 20, 1997
Tuskegee, Alabama -- The Tuskegee University football game originally scheduled for November 15 against the Savannah State Tigers at Cleve L. Abbott Memorial Alumni Stadium on the TU campus has been moved to October 18 and will be staged at Texas Stadium in Dallas, Texas. The two teams will meet at the 73,855-seat stadium at Irving, Texas, home of the Dallas Cowboys, in the Mobil Football Classic.The Golden Tigers will fly to the Lone Star State while the Tuskegee Marching Crimson Pipers and student spectators will make the journey by buses. The band will perform at halftime on Sunday for the Dallas Cowboys as they entertain the Jacksonville Jaguars in a 1:00 p.m. NFL confrontation.
This will mark the second-time in five years that Tuskegee and Savannah State have met at neutral sites to participate in classic showdowns. The two teams met in 1992 outside of Detroit, Michigan at Ryearson Stadium on the campus of Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti in the Operation Education Classic.
Fifty-one (51) years have gone by since legendary Tuskegee coach Cleve Abbott led his 10-1 Golden Tigers crossed the Texas state line to play football. Tuskegee faced the Jaguars of Southern University in 1946 in the Yam Bowl in Dallas, Texas. Tuskegee faced another Texas team in 1945 - Prairie View A&M.
Tuskegee finished the 1996 season with a 5-6 record while Savannah State was 6-5. Savannah State edged the Golden Tigers 20-12 in Savannah last year. Tuskegee holds the edge in the overall series 10-6. The series started in 1934 with TU smashing the Tigers of SSU, 26-6. Tuskegee's last victory over SSU was a 22-21 victory in Savannah in 1994.
Tuskegee needs seven wins to become the first historically black college program to win 500 football games.
The Golden Tigers will be led by second-year head coach Rick Comegy and the Tigers of SSU will be at the helm of first-year coach Darryl McNeill. Comegy is a 1976 graduate of Millersville University (Pa.) and McNeill a 1982 graduate of South Carolina State University.
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