Southwestern Athletic Conference

The Jaguars and the Delta Devils meet in their Southwestern Athletic Conference opener at Rice-Totten Stadium at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, just five days after they both were whipped by Football Bowl Subdivision teams in their respective season openers.

Southern lost at Louisiana Tech 62-15 and Valley lost at New Mexico (66-0).

This game features two conference rivals who are on more equal footing with each other than they were with their opening opponents, although the Jaguars are two-time defending SWAC West division champions and the Delta Devils finished last in the East the past two seasons.

Southern expects its offense to be as good as any in the SWAC, but its performance in the opener didn’t suggest that. The offense managed just one scoring drive the other touchdown came on Willie Quinn’s 100-yard kickoff return.

Austin Howard, the SWAC Freshman of the Year last season, completed just 12 of 20 passes for 95 yards and he threw two interceptions.

This will be the Delta Devils’ second consecutive SWAC game against the Jaguars, who beat them 44-13 in Mumford Stadium in Valley’s season finale last year. Southern went on to play in the Bayou Classic and the SWAC championship game.

MVSU led last year’s game 13-0 after one quarter before Southern outscored them 30-0 in the second quarter on its way to a 44-13 victory.

The Delta Devils have a lot of new names on its roster but a familiar one is quarterback Quantavius Peterson, who played the majority of the snaps among the three quarterbacks they used in its season opener.

Peterson passed for one of MVSU’s touchdowns and ran for the other in last year’s meeting. He had the most rushes (nine) among his teammates.

Thursday night’s kickoff is set for 6:00 p.m. live on ESPNU from Itta  Bena, Miss.