Centenary College Football Returns Saturday!

The third largest city in Louisiana has been without a college football team since before World War II.  That is going to change for the city of Shreveport beginning this Saturday afternoon. At the end of the 2022 college football season, New Orleans’ Tulane Green Wave finished the year ranked #9.  The LSU Tigers of Baton Rouge rolled to a #16 final AP ranking last year. As the 2023 football season begins soon, the oddsmakers believe that LSU may be good enough to compete for the national championship.  Tulane lost several key players from last year’s 12-2 team, but the Greenies will not be underestimated after taking down USC in last year’s thrilling Rose Bowl game. Up north in Shreveport, a two-year work in progress is about to be unveiled this Saturday at 5PM in Jackson, Mississippi. Centenary College will hit I-20 East to play an exhibition football game against Millsaps College. The Majors (who, like Centenary, have a long history of being affiliated with the United Methodist Church) started playing college football about one hundred years ago in the early 1920’s. Then again, so did Centenary! A brief history of Centenary College football In the early 1920’s, Centenary’s football team was nicknamed the “Ironsides” (the ship – not the TV character played by Raymond Burr).  The team was considered to be as tough as their steely nickname. Centenary College football rose to prominence after the school signed Coach Bo McMillin back in 1922.  With his arrival in Shreveport, a future Hall-of-Fame defensive tackle from Missouri named Robert “Cal” Hubbard came to Centenary along with him. Cal Hubbard was considered a giant football player a century ago.  He stood 6’3” and weighed a stout 225 pounds.  Hubbard became a one-man wrecking crew on defense for Centenary in the early 1920’s.  He became the school’s first All-American athlete.  Centenary lost just one football game per season during his years at the Shreveport school. Hubbard went on to play in the NFL for the New York Giants and Green Bay Packers.  NFL quarterback legend Red Grange said that Cal Hubbard was “the greatest tackle I ever played against—or got clobbered by.” To make additional money (most pro athletes had to work side jobs to make ends meet), the big