The Southwestern Athletic Conference athletic directors and senior women administrators voted 8-2 Wednesday to ban the Jackson State and Southern University football teams from this season’s conference championship game, a source with knowledge of the situation told The Clarion-Ledger on Thursday.

While that vote is meaningless, it gives a glimpse into the consequential vote by the presidents, which is expected later Thursday, the final day of the SWAC’s annual meetings in Houston.

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JSU and Southern might not have a chance to claim the SWAC football championship trophy this year.

As of 1 p.m., the presidents had yet to go into executive session to vote on a number of topics, including banning JSU and Southern from the football championship game and banning Grambling and Southern from the men’s basketball tournament.

Those four teams are facing conference bans after the NCAA banned the squads from the postseason for low Academic Progress Rates, a rolling, four-year figure that measures academic performance. But the NCAA’s bans don’t include the SWAC Championship Game or the basketball tournament.

However, if Grambling or Southern were allowed into the basketball tournament and won the event, the SWAC would have to forfeit its automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament.

The source also said the SWAC presidents are expected to vote on conference expansion during the executive session. The SWAC invited Tennessee State to join the league earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Alcorn State released a statement Thursday afternoon announcing that president Christopher Brown will abstain from voting to ban or not to ban JSU and Southern from the football title game.

Brown said in the statement that he “would never judge a member institution. Even more given the classic rivalry between Alcorn and our younger peer JSU, it would be inappropriate to vote on their situation,” he said.

By Ross Dellenger, Clarion Ledger
http://blogs.clarionledger.com/jsu/2011/06/09/swac-ads-vote-to-ban-jsu-southern-football/