JACKSON STATE

5 most difficult schedules in the SWAC in 2016

Antonio Morales

The Clarion-Ledger

SWAC teams face their share of challenging road games every season.

That's no different this year as conference teams will travel to play strong programs such as Arizona, Auburn, Arkansas and Texas A&M.

Those games highlight some pretty tough schedules, which led The Clarion-Ledger to examine the five most difficult schedules in the SWAC for the 2016 season.

5. Prairie View A&M: The Panthers aren't ducking anyone with their non-conference schedule. They'll face Texas A&M and Rice this season. Much like Alabama A&M's schedule, the rest of the road games aren't too tough, but Prairie View A&M's non-conference opponents are enough to place it on this list.

4. Grambling: The first game of the season should be an easy win for Grambling, which will face Virginia-Lynchburg (a non-NCAA team that is a member of the United States Collegiate Athletic Association). The following four weeks will be a gauntlet. The Tigers will play at Arizona, travel to Jackson State, host Alcorn State and then play Prairie View A&M at the State Fair Classic in Dallas. Those could potentially be Grambling's four toughest games of the season. A 3-1 record in that stretch would be quite a statement. The Tigers end the season with a road trip to Texas Southern and the Bayou Classic against Southern.

3. Alabama A&M: The Bulldogs finished 3-8 in 2015 and have arguably the toughest pair of non-conference games in the SWAC this season. Alabama A&M will travel to Middle Tennessee State in the season opener, and the Bulldogs' season ends with a trip to Auburn on Nov. 19. The rest of the schedule is pretty favorable. Prairie View A&M, Southern, Alcorn State and Grambling are all home games. Other than the two FBS games, the toughest road game may be at Jackson State, which is a week before the Auburn game.

2. Alcorn State: The two-time defending SWAC champion Braves open the season against Bethune-Cookman, which finished in a three-way tie for first in the MEAC with North Carolina A&T and North Carolina Central at the MEAC/SWAC Challenge in Daytona Beach, Florida. That's a solid opponent to have on the non-conference slate, which only gets tougher with a game against Arkansas in Little Rock on Oct. 1. A week before the matchup with the Razorbacks is a date with Grambling, which is a rematch of last season's SWAC title game. There's also a matchup at Prairie View A&M, which will be playing in a new stadium, on Nov. 5. Alcorn State's schedule is helped by the fact it gets Alabama State, Southern and Jackson State at home.

1. Southern: The Jaguars, which went 6-5 and finished third in the West Division, open the season with back-to-back road games against Louisiana-Monroe and Tulane. Those two programs certainly aren't the toughest pair of non-conference games, but they're still FBS programs nonetheless. The conference schedule will be a grind, though. Southern opens SWAC play with a home game against Alabama State, and it's uphill the rest of the way. There's three road games in the span of a month against Jackson State, Alcorn State and Prairie View A&M. Once that is over, the Jaguars get a bit of a breather against Mississippi Valley State before meeting Grambling in the Bayou Classic.

Contact Antonio Morales at amorales2@jackson.gannett.com. Follow @AntonioCMorales on Twitter.