FCS Kickoff Classic moving on, ending a 10-year run at Cramton Bowl
Southeast Missouri State celebrates the 2024 FCS Kickoff Classic win at Cramton Bowl. The annual game will not be played in Montgomery in 2026. (File Photo)
By TIM GAYLE
Salute to Veterans Bowl officials confirmed recently that the FCS Kickoff, a preseason college football staple at Cramton Bowl since 2017, has ended its run in the Capital City.
“They’re still going to play the game because Mercer had a contract, but I don’t know where or whether it’s going to be under the FCS Kickoff logo,” said Salute to Veterans Bowl executive director Clay Norrell, who ran the event. “But it has run its course in Montgomery.”
The annual college football game, launched in 2014, was conceived by ESPN officials as a vehicle to showcase a top-tier FCS matchup a week before the start of FBS games. The first three games were played on campus sites before then-bowl executive director Johnny Williams offered to put on the event at Cramton Bowl as ESPN Events took over direction of the game.
The first three games, under the direction of Williams and sponsored by Guardian Credit Union, drew approximately 13,000 fans each year as Jacksonville State played Chattanooga in 2017 and North Carolina A&T in 2018, followed by Samford and Youngstown State in 2019.
The first football game played after the Covid break came with the 2020 Guardians Classic FCS Kickoff as Central Arkansas played Austin Peay, but the event never again matched the attraction or attendance of the first three games.
There was no game in 2021 because of Covid and three of the final four games were halted or interrupted by inclement weather, a fact that certainly had an effect on ESPN programmers and cable television advertisers.
The 2022 game between Jacksonville State and Stephen F. Austin was stopped with 13:18 remaining in the fourth quarter and the game was eventually ended at that point. The 2023 game between Mercer and North Alabama had a 76-minute delay for lightning in the third quarter and the 2025 game was halted in the fourth quarter with UC Davis leading Mercer 23-17 and eventually declared a no-contest.
The championship trophy for that game, never awarded, remains in a corner of the Salute to Veterans Bowl office.
“(The weather interruptions) is a part of it,” Norrell said. “Week Zero is no longer Week Zero in that anybody can play on Week Zero, so it had lost its uniqueness. Originally, there was us and maybe one or two other games. And coming here in 2017, the first year was Jax State and Chattanooga traveled well when they played here. I think we just kind of ran out of local FCS teams who could bring a big crowd.”
The 2026 game, featuring Mercer and East Texas A&M University, likely will be played at some other location, Norrell added, because Mercer has a contract with ESPN to play the game, but the future of the contest remains shaky at best in an ever-changing college football world.
For city and bowl officials, the addition of the Red Tails Classic in 2021 gives bowl officials another game to promote.
“It was confusing for us when we went out and tried to sell sponsorships (to two games a week apart),” Norrell said. “Now, for us to focus on the Red Tails Classic and the Salute to Veterans Bowl, we have really two great avenues -- supporting not just an HBCU but a Division II HBCU with a legacy name and also tying in the veterans with the Tuskegee Airmen and the Salute to Veterans Bowl. That makes things easier for us.
“And now that we have the Red Tails Classic, it’s not like we don’t have a preseason event. Now we have a preseason event that has replaced (the FCS Kickoff) that matches the market better.”
The sixth annual Red Tails Classic featuring Tuskegee and West Alabama, Norrell added, has been moved off of its Labor Day weekend slot this year because of scheduling conflicts and will be played on Sunday, Aug. 30.
“It’s going really, really well in year six,” he said. “The three-year extension (of the original contract) with Tuskegee ends this year but we’re looking to extend that with them. There is actually an extension in front of the mayor to extend the (Salute to Veterans) Bowl and the Red Tails Classic with the city.”
Mayor Steven Reed and city officials, Norrell said, have been supportive of both the Red Tails Classic and the IS4S Salute to Veterans Bowl.
“There’s not another bowl in the country that has a deal like we do, that has the civic support and partnership that we do,” Norrell said, “from a sponsor level, a financial standpoint and just from a manpower and effort standpoint.”