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Referee offers military salute before making call during Celebration Bowl
By Sydney Hunte
Published:
The Celebration Bowl is back at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Saturday, matching up the winners of the MEAC and the SWAC each year in Atlanta in a game that’s considered the defacto HBCU national championship. This time around, the SWAC’s Jackson State, making its third appearance, is up against the MEAC’s South Carolina State, a 2-time participant.
Early in the first quarter of the game, after a flag was thrown, referee Rory Bernard added a unique but heartfelt twist to what would otherwise be a normal penalty call.
“I’d like to salute our military veterans,” he said, before doing just that. Take a look below at the video:
After that, it was business as usual. The penalty, by the way, was an unnecessary roughness call on a kick return.
Jackson State entered Saturday’s game with an 11-2 mark. It’s the program’s third Celebration Bowl in the last four seasons, its first two coming in 2021 and 2022 under Deion Sanders. This season, the Tigers finished 8-0 in the SWAC and defeated Southern in the conference championship.
Meanwhile, SC State is in its second Celebration Bowl. The Bulldogs were 9-2, including a 5-0 mark in the MEAC.
It’s a rematch of the 2021 Celebration Bowl, as the Bulldogs defeated the Deion Sanders-led Tigers 31-10.
Sydney is an Atlanta-based journalist who has covered everything from SEC and ACC football to MLS, the U.S. men's national soccer team and professional tennis. His work has appeared on such platforms as SB Nation, Cox Media Group and FanSided.
