Black college football national championship

In college football's early years, HBCUs generally lacked the opportunity to compete against predominantly white schools due to segregation, which was practiced in much of the U.S. at the time—leaving HBCUs with few scheduling options other than to play games among themselves only and sponsor their own championships.

The first football game between HBCU schools was played on December 27, 1892. On that day Johnson C. Smith defeated Livingstone College. As it was the only game played by HBCU schools that year, Johnson C. Smith's team could no doubt claim to be that season's HBCU national champions by default. However, the earliest documented claim to such a title was Livingstone's 1906 team, led by captain Benjamin Butler "Ben" Church.[1] It is not immediately clear who exactly determined that Livingstone was the best team—or if they simply declared themselves champions.

Initially, starting in 1920, HBCU national champions were designated by the Pittsburgh Courier at the end of the season. The following year others more directly associated with the schools themselves made their own attempts to crown a champion, coordinating their efforts under the auspices of the Champion Aggregation of All Conferences. The CAAC's initiative was fostered by Paul Jones, who reported the champion annually in his column in Spalding's Intercollegiate Football Guide.[2]

The first prominent game between an HBCU and predominantly white institution occurred in the 1948 Fruit Bowl when Southern defeated San Francisco State, 30–0.[3] Five years later HBCUs began to gravitate over to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics because it offered numerous athletic competition options, was oriented primarily toward smaller institutions, and had also begun openly welcoming schools of varying demographic backgrounds as members.[4] At present most HBCUs are now members of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. However, designating an annual black national champion has remained a popular tradition, even as HBCUs have successfully challenged majority white schools for football championships for decades now, within the framework of both NCAA and NAIA competition; this includes Associated Press, United Press International, NCAA, and NAIA-sponsored titles for the 1962, 1973, 1978, 1990, 1992, and 1995 seasons, as well as runner-up finishes in 1963, 1983, 1991, 1994, and 2012.

Noteworthy team accomplishments include the sixteen HBCU championships won all-time by Tennessee State (under five different coaches) and the five won consecutively by Central State from 1986–90 (all five under coach Billy Joe). Florida A&M has won titles in eight different decades. Southern (1948), Prairie View A&M (1953), Tuskegee (2000 and 2007), and North Carolina A&T (2017) have each achieved the best single-season won–loss record of 12–0. Winston–Salem State (2012) has achieved the best single-season win total of 14 (with their only loss being in the NCAA Division II national championship game).

Noteworthy coaching accomplishments include the nine HBCU championships won by Joe (seven at Central State and two at Florida A&M), John Merritt (one at Jackson State and eight at Tennessee State), and Eddie Robinson (all nine at Grambling State). Rod Broadway is the only coach to have won titles at three different schools (two at North Carolina Central, one at Grambling, and two at North Carolina A&T). Jay Hopson is the only white coach to have won a title (in 2014, at Alcorn State).

Not all black national championships are determined the same way. Early poll rankings were for the best overall HBCU, while bowl games often matched champions of only two specific HBCU conferences. However, the NCAA and NAIA later split into divisions, and newer selectors have tended to rank HBCU members by division only (e.g., the FCS level of NCAA Division I, NCAA Division II).[24] The variations between how champions have been selected over the years has not been completely without controversy—partly because of the issue of NCAA Division II and NAIA schools being ranked higher than FCS schools[25] and partly because of the concern that the voters in the polls may not necessarily be well-informed about so many different schools.[26] However, the issue may have been somewhat ameliorated when American Sports Wire began limiting HBCU champions to FCS-level schools only[27] in an era when an NAIA school (Central State) held a stranglehold over the overall HBCU championship—possibly in part because NAIA schools were not effected by the NCAA's Proposition 48, a then-new rule that had concerned some educators about its impact on black student-athletes.[28]

The impact of the Pelican, Heritage, and Celebration bowls cannot be overstated, however. In the 16 seasons (through 2018) that those bowl games were held, MEAC or SWAC schools were named overall HBCU champions almost exclusively; only in 1992 did a school with no ties to the MEAC or SWAC even earn a share of the overall HBCU championship—two selectors still chose a SWAC school as the overall champion but one selector did choose Central State (which had won the NAIA Division I national championship). In 1994 soon-to-be MEAC member Hampton was named HBCU overall champ by a single selector while five other selectors gave the title to full MEAC member South Carolina State.

Notes: *—the Pelican Bowl (played 1972 and 1974–75) and Heritage Bowl (played 1991–99) were intended as black national championship games matching the outright champions or top-seeded co-champions of the MEAC and SWAC conferences, but in practice the top seeds often declined their automatic bids to participate in the NCAA playoffs instead—only the 1972, 1975, and 1994 games matched the top seeds of both conferences as originally intended, although the Pelican Bowl is known to have been promoted as a black national championship game all three seasons[88][89][90][91][92][93] (in 1991, however, the Heritage Bowl's committee intentionally issued the MEAC's bid to its second-seeded co-champion,[94] because one of the top-seeded co-champion's conference wins had been determined by a forfeit, instead of on the field);[95] **—the Steel Bowl/Vulcan Bowl (played after the 1940–48 and 1951 seasons) is known to have been promoted as a black national championship game after the 1940 and 1941 seasons

Note: *—source is the College Football Data Warehouse, unless stated otherwise

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