Two Field Goals Decided It. Tennessee State Never Got to Attempt the Second One.
Two field goals settled the John A. Merritt Classic on Saturday night. Jackson State made one. Tennessee State never got the other one off the ground.
The final was Jackson State 26, Tennessee State 24, and until the closing minutes Tennessee State was live for the upset.
Jackson State's winning points came from Andrew Ivaniciuc, from 21 yards, with 2:31 left. The situation is worth pausing on, because it was a decision as much as a kick: fourth and goal at the Tennessee State three, close enough that a touchdown would have put the game away and a failure would have handed the Tigers the ball and the lead. Jackson State took the two points and the one-score margin.
That left Tennessee State a final possession and a chance to win it the same way. The Tigers got into position. The snap came back, the hold never came down cleanly, and kicker Preston Hurless never got a swing at it. The attempt died on the ground, and with it the night.
Played at Vanderbilt, and not by accident
The Classic is Tennessee State's showcase, and this year it was staged at FirstBank Stadium on Vanderbilt's campus, kicking off at 7:30 p.m. — a venue change with a straightforward cause. The Titans were closing out their preseason against the Bears the same weekend, at a stadium spending its final season on the river. In a city with this much scheduled into it, even a marquee HBCU football weekend has to work around the NFL calendar.
Who John Merritt was, and why the game carries his name
It is possible to attend this game every year and never learn why it is called what it is called, which is a shame, because the answer is one of the more remarkable records in American college football.
John A. Merritt coached Tennessee State from 1963 until 1983, when declining health ended his tenure. Over those twenty seasons he went 172-33-7. He won six national championships. He had four undefeated seasons. And he never had a losing one — not once, in twenty years.
He was twice named National Coach of the Year. Twenty-three of his players went on to the NFL. In 1994 he was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame, only the third person from a historically Black college or university to be chosen.
Those numbers describe a program that was, for a stretch of the 1960s and 1970s, simply one of the best in the country — at a moment when the sport's official structures were not especially interested in saying so. The Classic is the annual argument that this history belongs to Nashville as much as anything else that happens here.
A two-point loss is its own kind of season opener
For Tennessee State, a two-point defeat in the season's marquee game is the sort of result that reads differently depending on when you look at it. In August it stings. In November, if the Tigers are in the hunt, it becomes evidence that they were close from the first night.
The difference on the night was not scheme or talent. It was a hold that did not sit down. Football has always been willing to decide things that way, which is part of why people keep showing up to find out.
The Classic will be back next year. In the meantime, the NFL season starts here in two weeks — the Titans open at home on September 13.
