Blue Bears Football to end regular season in Commemorative Classic
Livingstone College football will close out its regular season when they host the Golden Bulls of Johnson C. Smith in the Commemorative Classic.
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The Classic honors the first football meeting of two historically black colleges in the nation. JCSU was known as Biddle College when the two schools met in Salisbury on Livingstone's front lawn, to play football on a snowy Dec. 27, 1892. Biddle won that first game, 5-0.
The two schools do not agree on how many games there have been in the series, probably due to different record-keeping methods in the early years. The Salistury Post's research results show 80 previous meetings, including Livingstone's 20-9 victory last year. The Golden Bulls lead the series, 47-32-3.
The Blue Bears' win in 2017 snapped a six-game JCSU winning streak in the series. Livingstone also had a six-game winning streak in the series, 1994-1999. The longest streak belongs to JCSU, which did not lose to
Livingstone from 1928-1967, though the schools did not play every year back then. That period saw 16 wins by the Bulls (10 in a row) and three ties —1929 (0-0), 1957 (19-19) and 1966 (13-13).
Livingstone dominated the series during the Biddle College years, winning eight of the 10 games. The Charlotte college's name was changed to Johnson C. Smith in 1922.
The Commemorative Classic will be on Saturday, November 9 in Salisbury. Game time is set for 1:30 p.m. at Alumni Memorial Stadium on the LC campus.
