Jacksonville State and Samford will at least get to settle their annual rivalry once and for all before it ends. The two teams meet Saturday at Samford, which is leaving the Ohio Valley Conference at season's end, and they aren't currently scheduled to play again. An interesting twist: the series is tied at 21-21-2 despite Jacksonville State's recent domination.

"It is the last time we play Samford for the foreseeable future," said Gamecocks coach Jack Crowe, who is 7-0 against Samford. "Certainly something we don't want to do is leave a bitter taste in our mouths. I think we have played Samford more than any other team and to see this rivalry come to an end is not a good feeling."

However, he added, "This game puts a tilt to the series."

Samford (4-4, 2-3) is joining the Southern Conference after this season and scheduling lucrative nonconference games against major college teams. Jacksonville State (5-3, 4-1) won 55-7 last season, the largest margin in series history.

This is the first time Crowe and new Samford coach Pat Sullivan, both Birmingham natives, have met as head coaches. Sullivan was hired as an assistant at Auburn, his alma mater, when Crowe left. They also faced each other from 1993-95 when Sullivan was head coach at TCU and Crowe was a Baylor assistant.

Sullivan doesn't want his players changing their approach just because it's against a traditional rival.

"We can't get so involved in this one that if we don't win or we don't play well, it's a program setback kind of game," he said.

Samford is coming off a 59-52 win over Tennessee Tech, coached by his former boss at UAB, Watson Brown. In that game, Jefferson Adcock and Jeff Moore set school records with 472 yards passing and 260 yards receiving, respectively.

Crowe, however, is impressed by their ability to run also, saying the Bulldogs have "as good a balance of run and pass as we've had in this league since I've been around it."

Kickoff is 1 p.m.