Staff report

SALISBURY — Livingstone’s football team had an open date last weekend, but the Blue Bears, who are still in the hunt for a winning season, return to action this Saturday against Shaw.

It’s a road game for the Blue Bears. They haven’t had many of those. They’ll take on Shaw at Durham County Memorial Stadium at 1 p.m.

Shaw won’t have a hard time getting up for it, as it’s not only the last game of the season for Shaw (5-4, 3-3), it’s Senior Day and homecoming all rolled into one.

If it sounds odd for Shaw to be playing the homecoming game in its last game of the season, well, Shaw has been on the road the last three weeks.

Shaw has played exciting games all season. The Shaw Bears are second in the CIAA when it comes to scoring TDs with 35, but they also are next-to-last in touchdown prevention, allowing 36. Only Lincoln has allowed more trips to the end zone.

Quarterback Christian Peters is the leader of Shaw’s offense. He threw for 238 yards last week as Shaw ended a two-game losing streak by outscoring Fayetteville State 38-35. Shaw can also run the ball. Travon Tensley had 115 rushing yards last week.

Livingstone ranks eighth in offensive production in the SAC and probably doesn’t have as much firepower as Shaw, but the Blue Bears should have the better defensive unit. Livingstone is sixth in the CIAA defensive rankings.

Livingstone (5-3, 3-2) is on the road, but that may not be a serious disadvantage. CIAA road teams went 5-0 last week.

The Massey Ratings favor Shaw by seven points with a score projection of 28-21, but the Blue Bears are given a 25 percent chance of winning, which is a realistic shot at producing a mild upset.

Livingstone edged Shaw 27-26 in Salisbury a year ago, but Shaw had won five straight meetings prior to that.