Golden Lions

The Golden Lions have not met Grambling State every autumn since the Delta Classic stopped being staged in Little Rock in 2012, but the rivalry still sits above every other date on the schedule.

Football at Pine Bluff goes back to 1916, decades before the university joined the Southwestern Athletic Conference in 1998. Before that move, the Golden Lions played in the NAIA and came within a point of a national title in 1994, losing to Northeastern State 13–12. SWAC membership eventually paid off in 2012, when Pine Bluff beat Jackson State 24–21 in overtime for the conference championship, the first title of its kind for the school, and followed it by being named Black College National Champions the same year. The SWAC West Division has otherwise been won in 2006 and 2020.

Home games are played at Simmons Bank Field, a 16,000-seat ground that opened in 2000 under a different name, Golden Lion Stadium, before a donation from the bank prompted the renaming in 2018.

The program's clearest export has been the Pittsburgh Steelers' L.C. Greenwood, who won four Super Bowls and made six Pro Bowls after leaving Pine Bluff. Terron Armstead has carried the name further in recent years, building a five-time Pro Bowl career at offensive tackle.

None of it, from the overtime win over Jackson State to the players who went on to Pittsburgh and beyond, changes what the Golden Lions still measure themselves against most: Grambling State, and the Delta Classic that used to bring both schools to Little Rock.