Jacksonville State is back in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs for the 10^th time while first-round opponent Davidson is making its FCS playoff debut.

The Wildcats bring a measure of the unknown – or at least unfamiliar – to the 1 p.m. Saturday meeting on Burgess-Snow Field at JSU Stadium as they feature a triple option offense.

Coach John Grass and his Jacksonville State Gamecocks will be starting the FCS playoffs at home vs. the Davidson Wildcats. (Brandon Phillips/JSU Athletics)

Coach John Grass said getting ready for the triple option in just a couple of days is challenging.

“They are well-coached and a very disciplined team,” Grass said. “We have our work cut out for us with a really good first-round opponent.”

Grass compared Davidson to Kennesaw State, which beat the Gamecocks 60-52 in 2018 and hosts JSU this fall.

“Having to take dive-quarterback-pitch – yes, they are similar,” he said. “It is a little bit different because they do it out of a gun formation instead of (under) center. Any time you have to play dive-quarterback-pitch and the ball is snapped, it is the equalizer. I think what they do offensively fits what they are doing with the success that they have had in the program.

“Anytime you have to play that, it makes you nervous defensively because it puts you in one-on-one tackling situations defensively and it will make you play assignment football every time it is snapped,” Grass continued. “That will slow you down a little bit. We have to get a lot of folks around the ball and get the ball on the ground.”

Grass is glad his team is playing at home this week. It’s a lot easier to play at home in a normal year, he said, but even more so in a COVID-19 year.

“Playing on the road poses some problems,” Grass said. “We are making it as good as we can for both teams and just glad we are able to play. Some people thought there would not be a spring season, much less a playoff season, so I think it is good that the NCAA is allowing us to do this.”

The Gamecocks moved up one spot to No. 8 in the latest STATS Perform FCS Top 25. Davidson was among the other teams receiving votes, with 13.

JSU (9-2, 6-1 Ohio Valley Conference) was off last weekend after finishing with its ninth Ohio Valley Conference title and its sixth in the past seven years to earn an automatic bid to the playoffs.

Alabama A&M (idle): A&M went through a six-week stretch this spring when it couldn’t take the field. After winning its opener via forfeit by Alcorn State, three games were postponed and a fourth one – the lone contest scheduled at Milton Frank Stadium – was canceled.

The Bulldogs punched their ticket for the championship game of the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) last Saturday with a 38-14 victory over rival Alabama State in the 79^th McDonald’s Magic City Classic presented by Coca-Cola.

A canceled game with Mississippi Valley State this week sends Alabama A&M undefeated into next week’s SWAC championship game vs. Arkansas-Pine Bluff. (Alabama A&M Athletics)

A&M (4-0, 3-0 SWAC) has thus completed the first undefeated regular season since its legendary 1966 campaign. This week’s scheduled game vs. Mississippi Valley State was called off due to ongoing COVID-19 protocols within the MVSU program.

In addition to the first undefeated regular season in 54 years, the Bulldogs have now registered just the fourth unbeaten conference slate in program history. The last came in the NCAA Division II era with a 7-0 (8-3 overall) mark in the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC) in 1989. Prior to that it was the 1979 season at 4-0 (7-2) and 1972 at 6-0-1 (7-1-1), with the latter seeing them go undefeated in their last eight games following a narrow 7-6 loss to Mississippi Valley State in the opener.

With the cancellation, and the subsequent canceling of the Arkansas-Pine Bluff/Texas Southern game scheduled for Saturday, A&M and the Golden Lions will make the SWAC Championship Game an undefeated affair on Saturday, May 1.

The SWAC has relocated the upcoming 2021 Cricket Wireless SWAC Football Championship presented by Pepsi Zero Sugar, initially scheduled to be on the campus of the highest-ranked team at the conclusion of regular season play. The title game is now at Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium in Jackson.

“We’ve made the decision to relocate the upcoming SWAC Championship game to a neutral site location due to the COVID-19-related game cancellations that directly impacted Alabama A&M and Arkansas-Pine Bluff,” said SWAC Commissioner Charles McClelland.

“The canceled games would have ultimately assisted the conference office in determining a host institution for the championship game using our existing hosting tiebreaker policy. Without having the ability to thoroughly evaluate both teams using that policy, we reached the conclusion that the only fair and equitable decision that could be made was to move the game to a neutral site location,” McClelland said.

The Bulldogs are just outside the STATS Perform FCS Top 25; they would be No. 28 with the votes they received. Arkansas-Pine Bluff is ranked No. 24.