Texas Southern Spring Game Shows Tigers Poised for Another SWAC Push

Texas Southern left its spring game with more than an 18-16 final on the board. The Maroon squad’s win over the White squad at Alexander Durley Stadium on April 11 looked tighter, sharper and more competitive than the 31-10 spring game the Tigers played a year ago, a small but telling sign for a program trying to prove its 2025 surge was no fluke.

That matters because Texas Southern already crossed an important threshold last fall. The Tigers finished 6-5 overall and 4-4 in SWAC play, then capped the season with a 24-7 win over Alabama A&M on Nov. 22, 2025. Texas Southern said that victory delivered its first winning season since 2000 and its first win over Alabama A&M since 2016. With that breakthrough fresh in the rearview, the spring game was less a warm-up than a check on whether the roster still has enough to push again.

The clearest offensive clue was the passing game. Jeremiah Harrell and Nelson Peterson were described as accurate and poised under pressure, and receivers Chanze Harris, Sean Johnson and tight end Xavier Phipps repeatedly found separation. The Tigers scored twice through the air in the red zone, which suggested a passing structure that went beyond the usual spring-scrimmage script. That was especially notable because head coach Cris Dishman said Texas Southern mostly used its twos and threes so the staff could evaluate backups, while quarterbacks Cam’Ron McCoy and Cordell Rodgers, along with the offensive line and running backs, did not play.

The second clue came on defense and in the hidden parts of the roster race. Safety Jaheim Miller sealed the game with a late interception, and Dishman praised an unnamed kicker, No. 10, as “a good find” after Texas Southern had struggled with field goals. Those are the kinds of details that matter in the SWAC, where depth and special teams often decide whether a team stays in the hunt or slips back into the middle of the pack.

Scott Vestal’s first offseason as defensive coordinator also looms over the picture. Texas Southern hired him in January after his time at Texas State, and Vestal has said the Tigers have the talent to surprise the SWAC in the fall. An 18-16 spring game does not guarantee that kind of jump, but it does suggest real progress, not just spring-game noise.

The next big test comes quickly enough. Texas Southern opens the 2026 Labor Day Classic against Prairie View A&M on Sept. 6 in Prairie View, and the margin for error will be thin from the start.