Schiefelbein: Painful loss for Jaguars, Richardson

• By JOSEPH SCHIEFELBEIN
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Oct 24, 2009

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Pete Richardson, at a spry 64 years of age, has been around a lot of football.

Yet for a guy who has had only one losing season as a head coach at any level, losing is never easy.

And losing when the loss — 16-14 to Prairie View on Thursday night — pretty much ends his team’s championship hopes this season is crushing.

Worst of all, though, is losing when his team is so close to victory — done in by a fumble recovered a mere 6 yards away from the end zone in the final 18 seconds.

“That’s one of the toughest ones I’ve had to deal with in a long time,” Richardson said.

Here’s another tough part.

After this year, his 17th at Southern, Richardson has one more season left on his current contract. So, there may be only one more chance for another Southwestern Athletic Conference title under Richardson, who has redefined the program after revitalizing it in 1993.

The 1990s had runaway success: Four SWAC titles, three black college national titles, four 11-win seasons.

This decade has been tougher: A 12-1 run in 2003 produced the only SWAC and black college national title of the decade for SU.

What’s happened is, the SWAC has changed.

Jackson State and SU, who dominated the 1990s, have found this decade difficult. Each has one title: SU in 2003, J-State in ’07.

Meanwhile, Grambling returned to glory, Alabama A&M has been consistent since joining the conference and Alabama State won a title in ’04 behind a future NFL starting quarterback.

Plus, as Thursday night proved, Prairie View has improved to a level previously inconceivable.