Red River State Fair Classic

The fair began in 1906,^[18] and efforts were made immediately to schedule a football game as a draw, specifically a game between Louisiana State University and the Shreveport Athletic Club.^[19] Although plans for that game fell through, personnel from the fair persisted and even made a notable, but unsuccessful, attempt to revive the suspended LSU–Tulane rivalry game for the 1910 fair.^[20] The fair was finally able to host college football games regularly starting in 1911, on the infield of the race track at the fairgrounds.^[3] Nearby schools Louisiana Tech and Northwestern State played in that first game, a 39–0 Bulldog victory. However, even that game was almost not played when NSU initially refused to take the field on game day, instead issuing last-minute challenges to the proposed game rules as well as to the eligibility of several of Tech's players.^[21] The annual Arkansas–LSU game was made the main draw two years later.^[5] By 1914, $900 of the fair's $35,039 budget was earmarked specifically for "football."^[22] The 1924 Arkansas–LSU game featured a silver football trophy as part of the dedication ceremonies for the new host field, State Fair Stadium.^[2] After LSU won for the seventh straight time in 1936, that series was discontinued, and Louisiana Tech and NSU returned to playing in the featured game. When Louisiana Tech began efforts in the late 1980s to move into the NCAA's Division I-A,^[23] NSU began playing Louisiana–Monroe in the game.^[24]

In the past, as many as four college games were played over the course of a single fair,^[25] although the "State Fair Classic" moniker was used interchangeably to describe any of the games, not just the featured game.^[26][27][28] These games tended to include schools from the Ark-La-Tex area. The hometown school, Centenary, hosted numerous games over the years. Southwestern Athletic Conference schools (usually Southern or Grambling State and Bishop or Wiley colleges) were known to play on Monday, in conjunction with the fair's "Negro Day"^[29]—although the 1961 Grambling–Prairie View A&M game was overshadowed by a fan boycott, staged by the Congress of Racial Equality in an effort to encourage improved integration of the fair.^[30] When Texas College withdrew from the SWAC several months later and left the Panthers with only two home games, Prairie View decided to invoke SWAC scheduling rules to move the Grambling series back to on-campus venues, ending its Shreveport fair phase.^[31] Through the years there was considerable cross-over between SWAC teams that played in Louisiana's State Fair Classic and Texas' own State Fair Classic, and the Grambling–Prairie View series itself is now held at the Texas fair. With the Negro Day game played on Mondays and the featured game and Centenary game usually confined to two of the three weekends that the fair extended through, occasionally another game would be played on the third weekend—college varsity-level or otherwise. College freshman and high school teams were known to compete at the fair in its earlier years,^[32][25][33] including some pre-Louisiana High School Athletic Association era state championship games.^[34][35] In 1934, 1942, and 1945 military service teams were extended invitations to play; during World War II many colleges—including each of the classic's regular hosts, Centenary, Louisiana Tech, NSU, and Southern—had to discontinue football, while the service teams that appeared in their place helped fill in the gaps on active college teams' schedules and were even included in the Associated Press' college football rankings and bowl games as well.

With the Centenary game ceasing after the 1947 campaign (Centenary had disbanded its football program^[36]) and Negro Day no longer being observed following the 1961 fair,^[37] only the featured game remained as an annual contest at the fair. Once the annual Louisiana Tech–NSU series had ended, Tech was initially still willing to continue hosting a game at the fair with a new opponent but then at mid-season in 1988 unexpectedly moved its fair appearance with Arkansas State to its home stadium in a last-minute attempt to boost lagging ticket sales.^[38] The NSU–ULM series also returned to on-campus stadiums in 1990.^[24] The fair was now without regular tenants and, at times, had to reinvent itself. The Red River Classic—a pre-existing game that had long served as an annual, early-season game for Grambling and Arkansas–Pine Bluff at Independence Stadium^[39]—was moved to late October, in conjunction with the fair, for the 1999 campaign. In 2001 a contest billed as the "Port City Classic–State Fair Game" was hosted by Southern during the fair,^[12] but in 2002 the Port City Classic was spun-off separately from the fair and became an early September game instead;^[40] the Red River Classic then returned to the fair in its place. Louisiana Christian's newly-revived football program also saw a return to the fair that season, as well as in 2003. Prairie View and Grambling, in addition to competing annually at the Texas state fair, have hosted the most recent Louisiana fair games too. Prairie View hosted a series of four annual games dubbed the "Shreveport Classic" starting in 2010,^[41][13] and Grambling began hosting the newly-named "Red River State Fair Classic" during the 2015 season. The City of Shreveport's government actively worked to revive the classic in 2010^[41] and, through 2016, remained a sponsor^[42] despite the fact that the classic's new name dropped its reference to the city and added back its reference to the state fair (as well as to the old Red River Classic).

After initially designating its October 28 contest against Texas Southern as its Red River State Fair Classic game when it released its official 2017 schedule,^[43] Grambling instead later announced that the match-up would be moved to Grambling to serve as a homecoming game, allowing GSU to play a fourth home game in Eddie Robinson Stadium, which had just undergone a multi-million dollar renovation. The old "Red River Classic" name was recycled for the game even though it was rescheduled to be played outside of the immediate vicinity of the Red River.^[44] No games have been scheduled at the fair since.

In 2022, the old Shreveport Classic name was also revived but for a game that would be held in September without any direct associations to the state fair itself.^[45]

Although Centenary resurrected its football program in 2024,^[46] it has not yet returned to hosting games at the fair.

A number of games stand out in the series. The 1915 Arkansas–LSU game saw the largest college football crowd (20,000) in the history of the southwestern U.S. at the time.^[47] Also in 1915 the fair broke the color barrier and began hosting African American teams^[17] (with that game being the classic's single most lopsided college varsity affair as well, a 76–0 Wiley College win over Homer College of Homer, Louisiana; in 1921 Wiley also defeated a local high school at the fair by a score of 114–0^[48]).^[49] No college games were played at the fair in 1918; the Spanish flu pandemic was ongoing, and World War I would not come to an end until a week after the fair's final scheduled day—generating discussions to curtail or outright cancel the fair.^[50] With the 1924 Arkansas–LSU game being played for a silver football trophy (as part of the dedication ceremonies for the new stadium),^[2] the series became the first future Southeastern Conference rivalry to feature a trophy. The 1927 Centenary game was moved to Centenary Field to preserve the soggy playing surface for the featured Arkansas–LSU game.^[5] In 1936, LSU chose to install Mike I as its first live bengal tiger mascot at the venue, instead of in Baton Rouge.^[51] A 2006 book by Mark and Jacqueline Scott called Beat TECH! Inside the Louisiana State Fair Football Classics, 1940–1942 covers several prominent Louisiana Tech–NSU games^[23] before World War II interrupted the series.^[52] The 1945 series of games was historic in that it featured a rare look at multiple service teams of the era,^[53] shortly before they were phased out with the end of World War II. The 1949 fair goers got to witness Louisiana Tech pull out a 28–21 victory over Northwestern State within the final 30 seconds.^[54] In 1950, Wiley quarterback A. Bolen threw an 82-yard touchdown pass to end William Gray "(l)ate in the fourth quarter" to force a 14–14 tie^[55] and hand Grambling one of its few non-wins in the classic over the decades. In 1968, Louisiana Tech quarterback Terry Bradshaw threw an 82-yard pass to Ken Liberto with 18 seconds remaining to pull out a 42–39 victory over NSU^[52] in what "is generally considered the pinnacle of the State Fair Classic."^[23] The 1979 edition has also been cited as "one of the better games ever played in the storied State Fair Classic," as it was capped with a 93-yard touchdown drive by NSU at the one-minute mark for the deciding points over Tech, 25–21.^[56]

Although the annual classic had long provided exhibitions of college football for one the largest markets without any home college team—Centenary would not sanction a varsity football team again until 2024^[46]—its local cultural significance may have been eclipsed by the Independence Bowl, if judging purely based upon the bowl's generally higher attendance figures. The classic itself has also had several bouts where the turnout took unexpectedly heavy hits, including the aforementioned second game of the 1961 fair (which was played under a fan boycott), the second game of 1975 (which drew only 382 people,^[57] due to substantial rainfall^[58]), and the 1984 game (which had 6,042 no-shows, also as a result of a downpour^[59]). The largest documented crowd occurred at the 1980 game (36,000).^[60]

Note: games were played on "Negro Day" in 1917^[192] and 1919; these games were only vaguely described by the curtailed wartime press as being "Games by visiting collegians,"^[193] without specifics concerning whether these contests involved varsity teams, all-star teams, or even pick-up games

Notes: *—record includes 1 win by forfeit; **—record includes 1 loss by forfeit; †—Camp Polk, as a facility that hosted hundreds of thousands of soldiers through the Louisiana Maneuvers, fielded multiple football teams—the 302nd Ordnance Regiment was the team that competed at the 1942 fair; ‡—Randolph Field, as a segregated facility, fielded two football teams: the Caucasian "Ramblers" and the African American "Brown Bombers"—the Brown Bombers were the team that competed at the 1945 fair^[140]

• List of black college football classics
• State Fair Classic (Texas)
• Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC)
• Sports in Shreveport-Bossier

• Scott, Mark and Scott, Jacqueline (2006). Beat TECH! Inside the Louisiana State Fair football classics, 1940–1942. Self-published. No ISBN.^[194]